Our GC had a wonderful exercise for us. His assignment even before we met was to have DH & me write out our top 20 items/ideas for the house (in order of importance). We did this seperarately w/o knowing each other's top 20. We then brought this list to GC on our first meeting. This enabled him to get the big picture. We also took these lists to the architect. Along with this list, was a photo of what we desired & a layout we thought we liked. As the process has developed, all of our smaller, nitpicky items have come out. GC has appreciated the thought process that I've put into it all. He said it has made everything move smoothly. In the end, I will have less daily choices to make. Although I did SO much research prior to all of our meetings, I have welcomed GC's ideas & knowledge, as well. Afterall, we are hiring him for his skills, knowledge, & expertise. He has been doing this 30+ years & I have only just recently begun this process. I definitely would not go into this seeming like a total know-it-all or you will make GC's life quite unpleasant. Also, in all honesty, about 90% of our desires for our home, GC had already planned for, so I would really be looking for the best GC you can find.

Thanks for your input Ingrid. After Celebration's comments, I went out on Google and searched for "Old World" floor tiles. I found sites where you could purchase reclaimed tiles or new imported Italian/Spanish tiles. I noticed quickly their tiles are not the large 18+ inches tiles, but smaller, uniform tiles as you suggested or are random mixed sizes as Celebration suggested. I guess I need to rethink my direction and not get caught up in size recommendations that seem to be popular in this country.

Mastercraft doors are great and some not so great. We MUST purchase the real wood jambs or frames to get the better doors. Do not use the particle board option for jambs then complain that Menards jambs are garbage! All companies that offer particle board jamb doors can said to be garbage. The real wood jambs or frames adds 199.00 to 234.00 PER door for Mastercraft doors and any other company that uses real wood jambs cost near double too. Trying to save money is actually on the buyer, not the seller. Mastercraft offers a real wood option for the jambs and that is on us, the buyers to choose or not. Want great interior doors from Mastercraft: 1) ONLY buy the real hardwood jambs, adds 199 to 234 bucks PER door! 2) Do NOT buy pre-painted, Only purchase the Pre-stained or primed. Pre-painted from nearly all door companies have a 50% miss rate(ie roughness, drips, cracks, chipping, etc.) in my experience. 3) Do NOT buy hollow core, only Durocore, Solid core, Real wood(Pine) or Hardwood veneer. 4) Do not buy the doors in stock, in store if you are picky because these simply can't have the options I listed. If buying Doors in store at Menards understand what you are buying and be careful orderding custom. If you do not choose the correct options for the custom doors they may be no better than the in-stock doors as one person demonstrated in a video here. The jams were still particle board in his video. Some style doors do not offer the hardwood jambs, I say move on to another style door with the real wood jambs if you want better doors. If you follow these rules yes, the door may cost near double, but you most likely won't be here complaining either! Now for a front door, my advice is only buy from Mastercraft if you are going to add the 4-point locking system and if you like a 4-point locking system, I love it. Nearly every installation related issue listed here for the exterior doors (excluding sliders) would be fixed by using this option. The cost is 374 bucks for the 4-point locking system and another 350.00 mandatory for one of their locks that they preinstall at the factory. That is over 700.00 added to any exterior door here. Purchasing the 4-point locking system option dramatically reduces or 100% eliminates certain issues such as leaks, door misalignment, lock misalignment and not having mating left and right doors for double doors. The 4-point locking system is installed at the factory and dramatically reduces the type of complaints I read here to near zero. With the 4-point locking system Menards (Mastercraft) must test the door alignment, opening and closing, gaps, etc at the factory and they install the lock at the factory so there is no issue installing a lockset onsite. A door can't be misaligned and still work properly when it has 4 contact points, preinstalled and tested. If one door of a double door set using the 4 point locking system was bad at arrival Menards would have to send an entirely new set of two doors back to the client, not just one door. We get what we pay for and research is needed, but to say all Mastercraft doors are junk because certain doors have particle board jams or a buyer would not return their doors or accepted a door less than perfect because returning is a hassle makes little sense. Menards takes EVERYTHING back, custom or not if you talk loud enough. All companies deliver doors that are not perfect at one time or another, trust me. Even a new custom door from another custom door maker costing over 6 grand had issues listed here for me! If you use the options I listed for Mastercraft you will have a super high chance of great doors for less money, just not 50% off.

I would like to thank everyone who took the time to read through these posts and to post advice and suggestions and constructive criticism. I am taking all of it into consideration and some of it was not what i wanted nor expected to hear, but what I needed to hear. I feel as if a little more explanation is needed. We found a builder that we really like and everyone that he has built for has been really happy. He had several plans that we could look at or if we had any plans he could build whatever we liked. He has a gentleman that could draw and customize a home for us. We thought it was architect at first and the price was so good because we were going through him and he would then be able to have our house plan to use in the future. Upon our first meeting with the gentleman that was going to draw up of dream home so we could make it a reality, we learned that he was not an architect, or designer. He's retired now from 40 years of experience woking on/building homes and is good with the software. He is very kind and has been very patient with the many changes we have made along the way. However, we soon discovered that he really has no design ideas or suggestions. He just draws whatever we ask him to or whatever I draw to send to him. If we wanted something a changed, the standard procedure was to just make part of the house bigger, we had gotten up to almost 4400 square feet! If we didn't like the way something worked and asked for a change, he would fix that issue and cause 2 more. I got so frustrated that we are trying to build our dream home and pretty much the only person I had for design help was myself. Uhm, I really want someone with much more skill and talented and better taste to design my home. I know what I want, I just do't know how to get there. We have been working on this for 8 months. I got so frustrated that I gave up for 3 months. Our neighbors are using the same builder and they had difficulties getting their design as well. However they had found a floor plan that they liked and just had him make changes to it and add a mother in law plan. I firmly believe that we are his first truly start from scratch home. Again, this is the guy the builder sent us to to have plans drawn, not our builder. Giving him credit he has taking my very very basic sketches and turned them into something the builder can build from, but pretty much the design is about 99% me, not that I wanted it that way. Here is where I'm at, so you can see that he is doing all the builder type stuff. We don't want to be difficult, but we want a good design. We don't want the builder to think that we are difficult or indecisive because we just can't get there with his guy. I'm at a loss! Several people wanted to know the lot dimensions. So here they are: It is at the top of a ridge, has some slope to it and has a nice open are in the middle. Of course we want the house to sit about at the arrows part of the lot. There is an utility easement of 20 feet on the right side of the lot, but the utility poles are more like 30 feet inside the property. I really do appreciate all of your insight. It has been eye opening. I'll make another post addressing questions and comments. Sorry to be so long winded.