Totally forgot to mention that a week before work began, we had a blower door test conducted by Byggmeister (http://www.byggmeister.com/), a local newton green remodeling company, as well as a HERS rating analysis. For those who know about these things, the results were:

1. 2400 CFM at 50 pascals

2. A HERS rating of 111

I'm told that the 2400 CFM is a moderate leakage rate, not horrible but not great, and that the 111 score is better than many older New England homes, which often get scores of 130 or above. A home built to the current code would receive a score of 100. We'll say it here: our goal is to get our CFM down to 1,000 and our HERS score to 60. Not sure if we'll get there but we'll see.