A lot- and I politely ignore it unless I'm asking for an opinion.

EVERYONE has an opinion. I listened and then decided if it had merit or not. 95% was about individual taste so had no bearing as to what we wanted.

I think the funniest one was when we had the rock samples in deciding which to use on the fireplace. After we decided the electrician asked which one we decided on. We told him and then he said "good, that is the right one." I had not known before that electrician were known for their color sense.

The most common opinion we got was "why would you ever want to move THERE!"

not really advice but the builder informs me some of the neighbors have been asking HIM: what do they do for a living?

now that's nerve.

The window manufacturer's rep, who was there to determine what needed to be replaced in a defective window, gave me advice as to why my Word mail marge wasn't working properly (p.s., he was wrong about the cause).

well, my favorite has to be...After telling a sub exactly what I wanted he said "oh you don't want that." When I asked him why he thought I didn't want what I had just told him I wanted he said: "because we always do it like this" Oh, of course, what was I thinking?! :)

My window guy didn't want to quote the arched window in my great room because "that's too expensive". Because I'm sure he had psychically acquired my budget through ESP. And upon seeing our newly installed kitchen complete with industrial faucet, my SIL commented with disgust that it looked like what a dishwasher would use! Well, yes, I think I wash dishes in the kitchen... Just let them all go.

For us it was like when you are expecting a baby. Everyone critiques potential names but they pretend they like it once you actually have the baby! LOL People had all kinds if helpful advice when we were buildingb ut they mostly just say they like it now.

when we bought our 2 acre lot everyone asked why we wanted to build ouside city limits. they said "your insurance will be higher" "you don't have access to cable tv" "you will have more power outages" and so on and so forth.

before we actually started the build process, other than spending 1k on blueprints anyway, a very similar house on 4 acres went up for sale 1 street over and we bought it. again we got the same things from everyone.

my response to all was that 1st of all we are just far enough out of the city that teh local hoodlums don't come to our area. i feel perfectly comfortable leaving my daughter's bike outside, even leave one of my lawn tractors on my trailer for weeks on end sitting out in teh yard. in town you HAVE to not only lock a trailer down, but put it under a carport and park in front of it or they will cut teh lock and hook up and be gone before you even know someone is out there.

next, my neighborhood watches each others homes like they should. my wife's uncle borrowed my garden tractor once to plant a food plot at his deer camp. the day he brought it back i was at work and i told him how to slip the lock on my shop. he was trying to do it when he heard a distinctive click behind him. it was a lcoal deputy who had him at gun point wanting to know exactly what he thought he was doing. the deputy calle dme on my cell jsut to verify he was supposed to be there. the REAL funny thing was that my wife's uncle was Asst. Chief of police and was IN UNIFORM!!

we picked our location because it gives us peace and quiet, lower property and car tag prices(both are less than 1/2 of what they are in teh city), and we are still close enough to town that you can run pick up food and it won't be cold when you get home with it.

We are presently building on the last lot in a very small subdivision.Before we bought the lot, it was empty space where kids could play, a buffer space between houses,etc.
Of course, people liked having that space to use, free of charge. This is our second house in this subdivision, and
that causes some of the neighbors to feel free to tell us we wrecked the neighborhood.

blding4yr, you and I have the same stories to tell, I'm sure. Our lot belonged to the lady who once owned the neighbor's home. This lot stayed vacant for 30 years. When she was in the house next door she planted trees and turned the lot into a little park for her and her family. When she sold the house she offered the lot to the guy who bought her house, but he didn't want it. It was at a steal too. Well, the years went by and he used that lot for his picnics, for company to park on, etc. When we bought the land he just about had a litter.

First man to work on the land was the guy who came to clear all the trees and add fill. The neighbor rushed over to tell the contactor that we shouldn't be building there, blah, blah, blah. He was obviously very upset. The contractor called me and told me I'd better keep an eye on the neighbor. Next contractor to go there received the same welcome, complaining, moaning, etc., etc. He also called to tell me my neighbor had a problem with us moving there. When those attempts failed the neighbor then went to the city to ask them if that lot was actually large enough to build on. Yes, the city called us to let us know the neighbor was having a fit. LOL The lot is a weird shape and the neighbor didn't realize with the right plan, a house could very well be built on it.

When the contractor's were out there putting pilings into the ground I made sure we had insurance because I figured this neighbor would come rushing over to say all that hammering damaged his house. The people doing the work actually brought out equipment to measure the vibration and it didn't even get close to his house. 10 months later his wife apporaches my husband one day and says she thinks our piling installation caused damage to their house and wanted to know if we had insurance. He informed her we did, but the crack she was pointing out was due to sinking, not vibration. Sure enough, a few days later she comes over to tell DH the crack was due to sinking not the vibration.

The last contrator the neighbor harrassed was the roofer. He didn't know the roofer was a friend of ours so when he started talking about us, our friend didn't take kindly to the unkind words. He informed the neighbor he didn't want to hear any thing he had to say. Since then the neighbor remained silent.

Want to hear the best part? The husband left the wife and she's moving to another State!!! All that foolishness on his part for nothing. Golly, just when I was getting use to the idea that I'd have a neighbor I would never talk to. LOL!!

Wow, Brutuses, that does sound a lot like our experience! I love your house and your fabulous attention to detail. All the posts here gave me a much needed laugh at the situation.
Ajpl, your pregnancy comparison is so true!

We were told that a covered deck would be too expensive to enjoy. It's one of our favorite spaces. We basically live out there from spring to fall.

When we built our present home, we also owned the large lot to the east. Our neighbor lady across the street said she loved that open lot and the view she had from her home. We didn't need all that land and told her that she could buy it so she could always have her "view" and she didn't want to keep up another lot and pay HOA on it, so when a family wanted to buy it to build, we sold it.
That lady was livid when a house went up there....now she has her home for sale...would have been cheaper to buy that lot to keep her "view".

kateskouros, that's too funny! We're in a neighborhood where the neighbors have ALOT to say about your build, especially to the planning commission. Before we started planning, we felt compelled to go to all our neighbors and introduce ourselves, just to get a sense of how they'd react. Luckily they all are pretty nice (well, so far, anyway). All our neighbors already know all about what we do, how many kids we have, etc.

The architect we hired to design our addition told me not to use the amount of windows that I wanted because it would be too expensive. I don't know why she cared what amount we would be spending but we fired her after seeing her plans that had almost nothing that we asked her to do. Instead, I used a $5.99 computer program and designed it myself with exactly what I wanted and I love it. We went through three builders who either said things couldn't or shouldn't be done. So, my wonderful husband said he'd do it himself and he did. When it became more than we could handle we were lucky enough to find a contractor who was willing to try things that we wanted that he hadn't done before. The neighbors have watched with amazement and even tho we heard through the grapevine that many thought we were crazy, we have only gotten positive feedback since the house now looks like it's on its way to being finished.