Our house is similar in size to beagles. Our basement is huge and we didn't plan on finishing it as we have slightly over 5000k on the first two floors. This includes a HUGE playroom over our 3 car garage (not the whole garage but it includes the two dormers for daylight - the rest is walk in storage). We too have smaller rooms - really none are much bigger than our current 2800 square foot house except the kitchen and dining room. The dining room was driven by the fact we have a 10' table and I wanted to be able to use the entire length of it for family gatherings. The kitchen is bigger because ours is tiny, but it is really not huge. The square footage difference for us is really an extra bedroom upstairs (which we wanted because we have 3 kids and frequent guests), each bedroom has its own bath (not big ones for the kids, but ensuite), and each bedroom has walk in closets of some sort (we have them now and couldn't give them up even for the kids because of all the toy storage). Where our house is actually bigger though is in the utility space. We have a much bigger laundry room with storage closets for cleaning supplies, room for a freezer, room for separate laundry baskets for each boy (so they can put away their laundry, etc.), a small pocket office for me (35 square feet) where I will pay and file bills, keep my shredder, etc., a small locker/mudroom for backpacks, jackets, etc. and what I call the mud bath (we also have a powder room next to the den for entertaining). This is for Moms covered in dirt from gardening and boys filthy from traipsing through the woods. We also have a staircase in our back hall (which takes up a lot of square footage), planning for teenagers coming in packs and wanting to let them in through the friends entrance and straight up or down to the playroom or basement. As far as high ceilings go, that is a personal preference. I specifically requested no ceiling higher than 10' and that is what we ended up with. We are going for a house built in the 1920s or so and fluffed through the years - so a new/old house. Vaults weren't around then so we didn't want them. As far as cost goes, you are likely in the 7 figures with a house that size, mostly on one level. Second floors are cheaper to build than single story. Our first floor is 2600 square feet, less upstairs. The basement is the size of the first floor but we are not finishing all of it (although we framed it). It has a seperate guest bed/bath wing which we may or may not finish down the road. It would be a perfect au pair suite for the next owner or an inlaw suite, or a kid come back to live at home suite. Hopefully we will not need either of those! The thing to realize about a walkout basement, which we have, is that you have to either have no deck/porch area or you get into lots of money. I didn't want a deck so we ended up with a stone patio, raised to the second level and requiring a lot of steel and concrete. This has created a wonderful space on the basement level (much better than a deck would have), but it was extremely expensive and had we known what it would have cost we may have made different choices!

You wont know until the appraisal comes back and the bank approves it. It isn't so much what houses in the neighborhood are being appraised for. It is more in terms of size, sf, number of beds, baths, garage bays, size of lot. And how your home compares to the existing homes. Sounds like on the previous lot you would be the biggest house in the 'hood. But now you will be the smallest house? Why is it costing an additional 9k to build on the new lot?

Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to share your insight and experience. I'm not going to reply to each individual, but a few made interesting points I did want to address. First, we decided to move forward with this local cabinetmaker on the kitchen, great room, and our girls' primary bathroom. These are all high-use areas and we want durability. I thought about asking for other quotes but CA has the shelter-in-place order so I don't think we'd get anyone out for at least a month or more (depends on how long this order lasts). So we're going to move forward so our kitchen doesn't get held up. We're asking him for a new quote for an edited version of the laundry room (no uppers) and separating the cost of the 1/2 bath from the mudroom. For the other rooms, we're taking a wait-and-see approach. We're going to make do with existing furniture as interim options for the pantry, mudroom, and entry way (e.g., we already bought heavy duty rolling metal carts from Costco for a temporary pantry so we can roll those right in,; a wood bench and wall mounted coat rack set we also bought from Costco can go in the mudroom instead of built-in uppers and lowers; a console we already have can go where that hallway upper and lower cabinets were slated; etc.). We can wait a year or longer to see if we want the built-ins and whether the price may come down when business dries up. I don't want to put in the IKEA or mid-range option only to have to replace it in 10 years when the finish fails. beachem: WOW. I am so impressed by your incredible shopping skills. I usually research a ton and like to buy good solid deals. We already paid full retail price for our high-end Wolf and SubZero appliances. Wish I had researched on here first! Yet decision fatigue set in with this major renovation so we've been deferring to the ID. She finds 3-4 options and we pick one. Prime example; I bought and installed 6 Hunter ceiling fans at our vacation home, all on sale at Costco for $99 each about 5 years ago. I'm pretty handy for a girl who grew up not knowing what a wrench was. Yet we just don't have the time and energy to find good deals for this renovation. Costco doesn't have fans in stock right now so my ID suggested a ceiling fan for $350. We only need one for the great room (and it has an extra high ceiling), so I cringed and signed off on it. Belaria: thank you so much for pointing out that the finish is key to durability. I knew hardware is important, so I assumed people getting custom doors for IKEA boxes were doing it more for aesthetics. I didn't realize it could also be for better paint/stain jobs. live_wire_oak: thanks for the great links. They were incredibly detailed and informative. I found them very helpful, with the exception of the first one that questions why so many feel pressure to renovate. That just doesn't apply to us because our house clearly needed to be stripped to the studs to fix known issues. We had a kitchen fire the first time my husband used the induction cooktop and oven at the same time because the former homeowner's "contractor" put both appliances on the same circuit. We had major electrical issues in the attic crawl space (our electrician said wires were left on the floor of the attic and there was other evidence of lazy or incompetent electrical work). The contractor who did our demolition, foundation, and framing work jokingly regrets not suggesting a complete teardown given all the framing and foundation issues we've discovered. We knew when we bought it that it had issues (the seller did everything without permits and also did weird things to the house, like ripping out the front door to put in a stained glass window and then putting in a door at the side of the kitchen bay window "pop-out" instead). It's a good question why our interior designer didn't warn us re: cabinet cost. We've been working with her for over 2 years now. She knows we've focused on durability and good quality and haven't balked at any prices (until this one). We told her this is intended to be our "forever" home (hence the plan to already made the bathroom accessible with features like weight-bearing grab bears and zero-threshold entrance to the shower). So I assume she thought we'd just sign on the dotted line here, too. Lisa; we lived with our 1997 kitchen in our last home until 2016 (when we tore out the 90s tile with brown grout due to strong real estate agent pressure to put in granite counters to sell the house). If we hadn't moved, we would likely still have that 90s kitchen. We just aren't "style-oriented" people. It still worked, even if the orange/honey oak cabinets were dated. If I can stick to "classic/timeless" colors (and I get it, white cabinets are still going to look so 2010s in 30 years), I'm happy. My husband doesn't care at all, but he's big on function so that's what we've told our ID. Thanks again!

I have a niche and also use my bench for storing some items because I actually use my built in bench when I am washing and/or conditioning my hair as some products especially for masks and other stuff which needs to be left on for awhile. I also bought Kohler corner baskets in a finish that matches the rest of the hardware in my bathroom. They were attached after the shower was completed by the tile installer. I actually prefer a basket style to the shelves you have in your inspiration. First your shelves have no edges to hold items and so I would imagine bottles could slip and you would also be limited in how much you could put on the shelf since you would't want to put stuff right at the edge. Also, as others wrote, the shelf would not drain and would need to be cleaned and the bottoms of the bottles would potentially always be a bit wet. With a basket it is always draining. Kohler has large and medium sized baskets. I dont know what the top one in this picture is as it isn't the medium size.