I forgot to mention this earlier, but we had a good meeting with Shelly on Sunday - he cleared up some of the questions and issues we had. He said that we were the subject of the Monday sales meeting, so I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. :-) We still haven't heard back on the big issues like the basement heating, but hopefully we'll find out what's going on soon.

We picked a new mantle, and it's going to look great! Rather than bolting on a piece of wood, we're going to have a built-out box that will be painted the same colour as the wall, essentially making it look like it's a continuous piece of the wall. I think this will look excellent - subtle, but visible enough to add impact. It was really nice of Bay West to offer us this option instead of forcing us to stay with what was installed. And, according to Shelly, it's not an upgrade cost! (what a shock!)