It's amazing what a difference a couple of days can make. For example, compare this picture below with the one I took on "Day 1" of our house being built:

The first and most obvious difference is that cleaning the lens on one's cell phone camera produces a much better picture than if one just lets it stay gunky and dirty.

The second most obvious difference, of course, is that they -- the ubiquitous they -- finally got around to painting our next door neighbor's house. Interestingly, the house on the other side of our neighbor's is also green (albeit a darker green). Ours is going to be white with red polka dots, so at least we won't have the problem of having three green houses in a row.

The third most obvious difference, which is probably lost because of the other two, is that our new house now has a few walls. I'm told that this is a feature, included in the purchase price. A friend of mine came out with me to survey the progress, and after noticing that all of the other houses in our new neighborhood are two stories tall, he asked how tall ours is going to be. I told him that it will be six stories tall. We are, after all, planning for the future. Twenty-seven bedrooms and a dumb-waiter-style elevator.

We're still waiting on word from the home owners' association for approval for the extra four floors, of course (just as they have to approve our color scheme), but I'm sure it'll come through.

In the meantime, though, it's clear that our new house will have at least one floor, if not two.

PS: if it looks like the first story of our house is already taller than the first floors of our neighbors' houses, that's because it is. We paid $.39 to "Biggie Size" our house. Either that, or our foundation sits a little higher for some reason.