Reality sets in

Well, today's been fun.

A few months ago, we spent considerable effort finding an experienced landscape designer. The one we chose -- whose name I am witholding for now on the grounds that any publicity is good publicity -- was confident that she could design a garden that could be build within our budget. She sent us lots of references, and photos of glorious gardens she'd designed (and oversaw the installation of) for less than the cost we'd told her we could afford.

Fast forward to last week:
With the design all settled and the bids coming in for the hardscaping and landscape prep and planting, we had nearly all of the trees in our yard removed last week. ("oh, my favorite arborist has an open slot! we should jump on it!" she said.) So it looks rather lunar at the moment... but not to worry, as we'll be able to start work just as soon as we sign off on the bids from the subcontractors.

Today, we got the estimates back from her landscaper and deck guy. Adding in our designer's fees, we're at... 230% of budget. The landscaping construction alone -- which she said was the most predictable portion -- exceeds our budget even without a scrap of decking or a single tree.

We'd really hoped to start work this month. We're gutted, and we're living with a yard that looks like a war zone... and presumably now will be for months, because at this stage we don't even believe that we have a buildable design.

Needless to say, we are VERY pissed at our designer.