hmm.. i will try to explain my dilemma. the drainage in my neighborhood was designed to have water flow in a certain path, out in to the street in front of my house, down the street and in to a man made pond across the street. so basically the water from the house behind me flows in to my yard and then in to the street. the problem is they didnt do a great job. they tried to redirect the water so it would not hit my house and instead go to the side. well the point where the 2 grades meet(decline from the back, and then incline to my house) basically created a low spot and the water ends up collecting there. on top of that, at times the water will flow to my house anyway. now, it could be worse, it doesnt pond there for a week. it does drain usually in a couple of days, but even then its nice and soggy for a while. last year i had powdery mildew(i think) in all the problem areas, and grass would not flourish. front yard, and portions of the back were great. there are a few other low spots too that collect water, but thats the biggest. there are also some areas of "lumpiness" so when i mow, if i am not concious of what i am doing, it will literally scalp my grass to the dirt. that itself would not be a problem, but i am a little inimidated to fix the other issues on my own. i will try to find some pictures or take some new ones and post them.

You can put glass over half to two-thirds of the top to keep in humidity. I don't know whether or not the red rock you mention is the cause of your problem with red water, but I would guess that it is sandstone or something else sedimentary, and I've read that sedimentary rocks break down easily and so should be avoided. the other option would be algae of some sort, which is probably harder to get rid of. I don't know that the potting soil is a good idea either, though it could be much harder to replace than the rock. I would recommend that you read some books on terrariums before you go too much further. One good book that you can probably get from your local library is: Natural Terrariums by Philip Purser. -Jmcat

I'm apologize in advance for my very looooong response. :-) We purchased 25.67 acres in June 2009, and didn't start our home until April 2010. We had almost a year of time to plan, prep the land and get permits and permissions in order. In hindsight, another year would have been great. Take advantage of the time you have to judge things like rainfall, groundwater, floodplain if you're near water, etc. This will help you determine ideal location of home, depth of foundation, etc. It will also let you see where windows would take advantage of sunrises/sunsets; where winds and snow are coming through the trees, etc. so you can make house plans for that specific location, or plant trees now as a windbreak or snow fence. One of the first things we did, was get permission IN WRITING from township regarding building permit, roadway permit, fencing, etc. We also contacted the Conservation Authority. Much of property is considered significant woodlot, as well as being protected due to bordering cold water creek with abundant wildlife. (You mentioned being near/adjacent to National Forest, so this may apply to your situation.) We also asked the Conservation Authority for WRITTEN PERMISSION on what we could do with the land, where we could build a home, etc. We were so fortunate that our Conservation Authority suggested applying for grants for reforestation. Although over 20 acres is already forested, they planted over 4000 trees, with at least 3000 being norway spruce. Since we began with the grants only weeks after buying the land in 2009, we had a year to work with the forester to determine which trees the deer or rabbits loved and which they avoided. Now, we have over a year of growth and they are coming back to help us apply for more grants to continue planting. WE DIDN'T PAY FOR ANY TREES OR PLANTING. Well worth the time to research any grants available to landowners! We began clearing trees at the building site ourselves. (my husband has at CAT backhoe, so this saved us lots) The first major thing we did in 2009 was put in a well. If you can't get good water, building may not be possible. As 'brickeyee' suggested, we also hired an engineer in 2009 to do our site plan, which included test pits for perc. He was able to do two pits in two different seasons. This allowed us to see where the groundwater was during spring and fall, which helped us determine the foundation depth. We also knew the type of septic system required, which allowed us to get quotes and set a budget for our future septic system. We started to build relationships with the utility people. This paid off. My husband was allowed to do the trenching - which saved us thousands of dollars. I have to stop typing now. Good luck. Sounds exciting!

I thought I might chime in since we are in the middle of our own DIY build. We skimped on exterior stone, but we have plans to add it later since it will be another DIY project. We will choose a thin natural stone or cultured later on so therefore no brick mold was required on the foundation. I was able to slide quartz countertops for the kitchen into the budget for the outside perimeter cabinets (which is coming in at like 45 sq feet) and we are doing a hickory butcherblock for the island and that price is coming in at around $850 shipped, that came in half the cost of quartz. Our cabinets we chose from the local box store and I pretty much picked out what I wanted on the middle priced cabinets except we are not doing any upgrades like plywood box etc. Honestly I do not feel it's the worth the expense since we did not have it in our previous home and even with 3 kids I have no dings or knicks at all, we felt they held up great to our family. If you like white interior doors and trim try looking into MDF from a local lumberyard. I was skeptical at first to this option but after seeing and feeling the quality I was greatly impressed, much stronger than pine or popular in our opinion. Plus it's so affordable that if a board gets banged up from the kids it's only a few dollars to replace. We are getting ours factory painted which will save time and money. Our interior 2 panel doors are coming in on average about $130 each pre-hung with solid core interiors. Our trim is very inexpensive as well and we are able to go with 7" baseboards and 3 1/4" for the windows and door trim. It think it's less than $1 per foot factory painted in white. As for our plumbing and electrical fixtures we heavily price matched everything we purchased. I first set a price for each item, picked out what I wanted and then googled the model number for each item until I found the lowest price online. I wrote down each company that offered this price and then went to 1 or 2 online stores that offered 110% price match guarantee. I gave them each and every model number, the lowest price I found and I got them for the best price ever with free shipping and no tax. All of my plumbing came from faucetdirect and everything down to the tubs and toilets arrived in perfect condition. Only word of caution is order 2 months in advance because I had a few items go on backorder but most of those items were electrical fixtures. We installed our own fireplaces (yes we have 2 but that wasn't in the plans :) we bought those direct from wholesalenow dot com and got the best price out there plus no tax free shipping etc... It was not that difficult at all but did take a few days to do. Again those arrived in A++ condition. Back to countertops have you seen that e-counters dot com now has a quartz factory outlet !!! This is new and exciting since those colors start at only $43.75 per sq foot. They have Silestone, Formica or Avanza to pick from in 50 colors. That's exciting news. Another company I want to share that has excellent pricing on hardwood or laminate flooring is a store called hosking hardwood online. We will be ordering our premium laminate flooring from them and no one on the internet or in my town can even come close to their pricing. Super excited and can't wait to place that order next month. If you like premium paint open a builder's account at your local SW store you can get up to 40% off on paint. My last can of exterior paint came in at only $27.99 for the Superpaint. I heard you don't get a great discount on Duration but I was extremely happy with the quality of the Superpaint, I will be buying Cashmere for the interior. Good luck with everything and hopefully I was able to pass some good deals along to you. I must finish now before I write another novel.