Wow, you and I have very similar taste in houses. My needs are for a 1-story, split bedroom, 2500-2700 sq ft plan. We have 3 acres to build on. Donald Gardner's Corinthia is one of the original plans I fell in love with and now, thousands of plans later, I still love it (with a bit of tweaking). Frank Betz's Allenbrook is in my Saved Plans folder on his site and remains one of the finalists as I narrow down my choices. I keep going back to the pantry location every single time I look at it. Seems like an awfully long trek around that peninsula and to the back hallway for my pantry. Think the location of several things in the kitchen/brkfst/family area might need moving around a bit. Loved the La Meilleure Vie plan instantly the first time I looked at the floor plan. I do worry about the costs for framing the roof, though. Have you looked at the Santo L'Agnello House Plan? It is slightly smaller at 2,595 sq ft, but you would hardly know it, the rooms are arranged better, in my opinion. I do like the James Fahy design, especially the fact that it has a single, large eating area. The more plans I look at, the more I decide that for the way most people live, one largish dining area, supplemented by seating at the island or bar, is quite sufficent, and I can find better uses for the square footage that would have been used for a second dining area. The only thing for me is that it is missing one more room (den?) for an alternative sitting/living area. Seems to me that a house almost 2,800 square feet should have enough space for such a room. And thanks for pointing me to the Fahy site, I have seen his plans on the big sites, but had not found his own site. I may share some of my favorites. Be back later!

MicheleTX, Will you please let me know if you ended up building the Wilkerson by Don Gardner? Email: queeni1951@aol.com Thank you. We are thinking about building this and would love some input.

Certain changes are a flat fee with DG. For example: basement, 2x6 instead of 2x4, flip the house. We are using some standard modifications (basement , 2x6) but also other modifications for their rate of 125 an hour. We paid the price of the plan in full and then 50% of the modifications up front. They gave us an initial estimate for the non standard modifications and we are still working within that. Maybe in total $4,000 including the initial plan of about $1,200 We chose the reproducable vellums. The major changes we made were: to enlarge the garage to 25 x26 - this was the largest we could do without changing it too much structurally/roof lines etc. We also made the dinning room12 x 16 and eliminated the breakfast room to enlarge the kitchen. We added a screened in porch 20x 20 off the kitchen. We adjusted the areas as you enter from the garage to include a coat closet and a pantry. On the second floor we added a fifth bedroom above the master and elimnated the tray ceiling to do so. We eliminated the tub and chose a larger shower and reconfigured the master bath. We also chose pocket doors for inside the upstairs kids bathroom and for the laundry. Also moved the pull down access for the attic stairs so it wasn't visible from the main staircase. The kitchen design and layout is our last hurdle but we won't use DG for this. Most cabinet/kitchen designers can assist with the layout as included in their services so it doesn't make sense to pay DG for this. DG doesn't do electrical or plumbing or HVAC so you'll need that from your subcontractors.

wow-what a great website! I love the idea of keeping everything recorded online to share with friends and family...I think I'm going to steal your idea :) We live in Florida but a lot of our family is in Maryland so the site will make it easier to share the progress with them. I love, love, love your house! That's exactly how I want our house to look with the big porch on the front. How exciting to see it all come together. We just cleared our land and now we're in the process of getting a construction loan...but I'm super excited to see it all in process. It's so hard to visualize everything from just a floor plan! I wish there was a model home that could tour :)