I thought that I'd share in your excitement. My husband and I are at almost the exact same point with our new build as you are. I just drove by our lot. The existing house was demo'd 2 days ago and they started grading today. We bought our lot a year ago and have been in the permitting process since October.... Seems like an eternity doesn't it? I am so excited to begin work. So here's a great big hooray for projects getting under way. Good luck with your new build!

I would take it with me every time! If you don't you are stuck in one place, and there are some places you CAN'T take the rv. This makes it much easier to see things around you, go to the grocery, laundry, ect, while home stays put. You can base in one place, and travel 100 miles in one direction one day, and do it again the next in a different direction. Glad everyone enjoyed the pics! Tami

The curved shower rods - if you have one, try Home Goods. They usually carry several at ours, in a few finishes (I know I've seen lots of nickel and ORB). I've seen quite a few ORB ones at TJ Maxx as well. Shower curtains - in natural texture bathrooms, I'm partial to PBS textiles. I can't get enough of the natural fibers. (I've even used a pair of their window panels to make an extra long shower curtain in our master bath). I know they're everyday, but I can't help it. Their mineral raynier line is coming to mind. Here's a close-up of the fabric. I have this line of curtains in a different color scheme and the striping is much more subtle, this is greatly magnified.

Lindsy - I can't figure out how to turn on my messages. I went into my profile, but can't see anywhere to edit it. I see 'messages' as an option for me to click, but it says I have zero messages. ?? I couldn't see your message button either. We aren't using a builder. My husband is acting as the GC. Jury is still out on how wise that decision is. We live by White Rock Lake, so an older neighborhood and no HOA or subdivision rules. We can build a hot pink house made entirely out of metal and stucco if we want. :) Not our design, but we could if we wanted to! We are doing a completely custom build...designed by an architect and we are picking and buying everything ourselves. So we aren't at the mercy of the builder's choices or prices. We have a ton of equity in our current house...it's almost paid off and has over tripled in value over the last 10 years. So we refinanced it earlier last year and used the equity to buy the lot next door and still have enough to almost completely fund the build. We had to take out a small construction loan for the remainder. No plans to roll that into a permanent mortgage. Once our house sells, we should be able to pay off our current mortgage plus the construction loan. If it doesn't sell, we should be able to continue to cover the existing mortgage and the construction loan payments. We don't want to do that forever, but could if necessary. Yes, we have started building. Framing is almost done. Hoping to deck roof and do sheathing next week. Our windows are in and the supplier is waiting for our go-signal so they can deliver. Trying to move as fast as possible!