Supervised by Avery Watson at Independence Title, Mark Rehberg, president of Ranserve, right, arm in sling, and Jacquela, left, sign the AIA remodeling contract. Steven is at the back taking this photo.

Ahead of this, we spent a couple of days working with the lawyers — Rose Cohen for Ranserve and David Sewell for the Leons — tweaking the contract, right up to the signing, with Mark and I working through last-second fixes by sending pdf files and text messages back and forth to his office, to David, with phone calls, and to the Independence Title printer.

Deep breath. It’s done. Now we put hammer to nail.