Call Me a Dreamer

We have a gorgeous etching up for sale on eBay. Even if you don't want to buy, please take a look and share this with your friends. Thank you!

Axel Haig signed etching The Castle of Vitre 1903
Axel Haig signed etching The Castle of Vitre 1903 - eBay (item 180443010272 end time Dec-10-09 20:30:37 PST)




UPDATE: Sadly, our etching didn't sell. It will be going back up and, knowing my husband, probably at a lower starting bid. This etching is truly beautiful and I wish we could keep it, but selling antiques and beautiful, rare items online is how my husband is currently keeping our family fed.

This afternoon we spent close to four hours in a little coffee shop/bakery, talking with the architect. It was a great meeting and we decided to sign a contract with him on the spot.

He clearly understands where we're coming from, -- and that's not easy, given the different creative directions each of us takes. He'd done his homework, getting online and downloading plot and topo maps from http://www.dot.co.pima.az.us/gis/maps/mapguide/ and bringing a few idea photos, floorplans, and such.

During our discussion, he asked a lot of pertinent questions about the land, many of which we hadn't known we needed to ask, although we recognized the sense of them the moment we heard them. We didn't have answers to all of them, and we'll probably have to create a few lists of things to research. After a lot of discussion about the land and its suitability for building, we turned to what we're looking for in our houses. Since we are going to build the house for Karl's boys first (partly because his oldest is ready to move out, and partly because the boys are willing to let their house act as the house from which we learn how to build houses), we tried (not terribly successfully, I will admit), to let Karl's oldest present his ideas first.

It was cool. The architect was totally okay with the Viking Hall concept, and with my Storybook/Castle ideas, and with all our eccentricities. Not only that, but way ahead of us in some ways. Although Karl hadn't given him enough to go on about the boys' house, which he calls "La Casa de los Hombres," he'd brought along some sketches for a courtyard house with a tower, and was able to discuss some other ideas he'd had for a different house with a large main hall. When the discussion turned to the Storybook/Castle stuff, he had a sheet of images of Storybook houses for us to look at.

Finally, we let him go home to dinner. He graciously insisted he'd had a great time talking with us and that we hadn't taken too much of his Saturday before Christmas. We're planning to meet him to go over the land sometime in the near future, so I should have more to share soon.