What's done is done

We did it - we put $20,000 down on the new house, and we now await the appraisal of our house to get the additional $25,000 (Tom said that the down payment would be based on the base price - any options are added at closing and not counted in the initial price).

We got answers to some of our questions: the house has one heating/cooling zone - can that be changed? Yes, but at some expense, as ductwork would have to be reworked. We'll deal with it. Are gutters included? No. We can add those later for relatively little if we decide we need them. Is a garbage disposal included? Yes. Will HVAC registers be on the floors or the walls? Floors.

Next steps: Tom will take our plans, to which we made a few adjustments, and do a final plan. This will include the sunroom and porch and a few doors that we requested be larger than in the plan. He'll print off copies for us and submit them to the town, and assuming all goes well there, they will break ground soon thereafter. Adam thought it might be this week, but I think it more likely to be next. Once they do, I'm going to try to take photos of the work each day.

Now all we need is a contract on our house.