Our house is in the planning phases. I have my idea/inspiration binder and wish list, and have just started to interview architects. Are you building smaller to compensate? Yes, 2500 sq ft (max), which is small in my area for a nicer home. It is for me, DH and 3 active boys. Current house is a 3100 sq ft walk out ranch, but I'd say 90% of our time is spent on the main level which is maybe 1750 sq ft. So one could argue that we're not building smaller. This will be all on one level except for an "away" or reading loft above the main living area. Are you building with high-efficiency materials (ICFs? SIPs? Other super-insulation techniques)? Yes, depending on what can be delivered on our budget. Looking for the most bang for the buck. ICF or SIPs, geothermal heat/cool, passive solar features, concrete floors, highly insulated windows are all on our wish list. Also the ability to add features later like a wind turbine are important if they eventually would have a reasonable ROI. Want to reuse/repurpose and minimize construction waste whenever possible. Are you building closer to jobs than you otherwise might have, to reduce commuting distances? We are moving to 5 acres just outside of town. It reduces my husband's commute by 5 mins and adds 6 mins to mine. It would be a wash except it adds about 5 minutes to the time it takes to get to the grocery store and to any other in-town errands. I know one family living on five acres conspicuously contributing to suburban sprawl is not green. But there were houses already built (long ago) on either side of our parcel, and the land was not being farmed or anything before we bought it. It's been sitting there waiting for someone to build on it for years (previous owners held onto it but never built) -- so if we don't someone else will. How's that for rationalization! If you are doing any of the things I mentioned, or more / other (and please elaborate!), are you aware of so-called "Peak Oil"? Or are you doing it simply as a good investment (spend money now in the build, to reduce recurring costs)? Never heard of peak oil. We are doing this because it's the right thing to do, and certainly energy costs are not going down. Basically I don't feel a need to heat and cool space that is rarely used. We live a very informal life.

1. Do you live in a house now? Look around, measure the size of the rooms you have, figure out what spaces you want to include in the new house, and use your current rooms as a frame of reference to determine the size of rooms you want. Like, you might say, "This living room is the perfect size so I'll plan one about the same, but I want twice the length of kitchen counter space, so I'll increase the kitchen by X square feet, add one more average size bathroom," etc, etc. Then add it all up. I don't know if this helps, but it's basically what I did. I sat and looked at my current living room and kitchen for hours, measured the furniture, and figured out what size rooms I was comfortable with in the new house (and what rooms I wanted to add). Don't be surprised if the house "grows" considerably during the design process. With mine, I was imagining around 1,600 square feet. When I drew it all out, it turned into 1,800. Then, we bumped it up to 2,052 when we actually got to framing. Then, we decided to finish out the attic room ("might as well while we're at it, why waste that space," etc.) that added 260, so it ended up about 2,300. Of course, you have to consider your life now and what you expect in the future. I feel our new house is going to be ridiculously big for my husband and me, but we do hope to have at least one child. 2. I can offer no financial advice. : ) 3. You have many good suggestions here already. My only comment would be, why do people consider painting as a place to skimp? This is assuming you are physically able to paint: Paint is cheap!! And, painting is the one thing even the least skilled of us can usually handle (Professional painters, please don't flame me!) My family and I plan to do all of our painting and staining. I probably wouldn't try this in a house twice the size, but I think we can handle it. I will probably take a few days off work. Obviously this might not work for everyone, but even if you're hiring it done, why is it cheaper to get it all white instead of the colors you want? Here is a link that might be useful: Owl's progress blog (pictures)

That makes sense the water is going to the sewer drain and not a sewer line! I'm surprised the concrete is the expensive part--- maybe you're in a difficult location where it would be hard to get the concrete there? In our case the expensive part is the sheer overwhelming physical labor of it all. The contractor came back today and I had done some digging above the old coal on the outside as well as inside it (in the basement) and had an unpleasant surprise (are there any pleasant surprises with this house?). Apparently, like everything else with this house, they cob-jobbed the coal chute closed by throwing bricks into it and pouring a thin slab on top. I don't know what caused the avalanche of dirt (and insulation) on the bottom inside the basement, but I do know that there is no concrete floor under it like there is in the rest of the basement! We assumed it was concrete and that the dirt avalanche could just be shoveled out. Course not. We had a lot of rain a few days ago and as I shoveled up some dirt inside the basement, expecting to see a concrete floor, instead it was just more dirt and a growing pool of water. The contractor thinks there is water coming up from the ground as well as through the wall. So that changed our plan a bit since they're going to have to excavate down outside the house to the basement floor level, pour a footer, build a cinderblock wall to properly seal off the stupid coal chute, and then do some waterproofing inside (clean out dirt, install drain in floor into sump pump which is fortunately only about a foot away, pour clean gravel on top, cover with encapsulating material). On the exterior he thinks it should just be graded away with dirt and with a hardscape/mulch/rocks/something, no plantings. The total is now up to $8500. I'm a little shocked that it's that inexpensive, for all the work they'd be doing (pouring a footer sounds like it would be exorbitantly expensive, right?). He also isn't going to be doing the concrete on the other side of the deck (under the kitchen window) since he thinks the water on that side is also coming up from the ground (sheesh) and it wouldn't do much good. So they're just going to grade the ground there with dirt. I asked him about a door at the bottom of the stairs and he said he could put up some of that encapsulating material and have it hang down over the opening, which would be better than nothing since an actual door isn't feasible. It sounds like you did more than your due diligence with getting bids and planning, so I really hope it works out for you! It's got to help somewhat, at least, if not get rid of the water 100%. If your water table is high (like it is here, apparently) then the french drains won't be 100%, but you'd probably know that by now. My husband is still digesting all this information, but if all goes well we'll be having it done early September probably. Good luck with everything!!

This is great advice, BUT...what if you and your spouse aren't on same page or timetable. My husband is all about the nuts and bolts of construction, but I am trying to be proactive and get some other decisions made about what he deems more "decorator/cosmetic" type stuff...i.e., cabinetry and interior trim/casing, etc. I tried to tell him the cabinets could have a lengthy lead time depending on what we pick, and that BEFORE we can decide on cabinetry, we have to make a decision on appliances. In other words, we can't plan cabinetry around the 25 year old refrigerator he doesn't want to get rid of until it croaks... We should "plan" for the refrigerator we "want" rather than what we "have". I also want a 36 inch rangetop instead of a 30 inch gas cooktop, and that too has go into the planning. I know he's thinking we'll take a wait and see approach - meaning what we have left $$$-wise and then make appliance decisions, but in the real world it doesn't work that way. I've just run into the same issue with the siding on the house - the plans were drawn with hardie board & batten siding to give the project a fresher mountain farmhouse look. Our GC assumed that meant we wanted to paint the siding after installation because my husband really didn't listen to me when I talked about using a rustic prefinished hardie siding. He thought the "rustic" could just be painted on afterwards, and now is crazed because the GC is telling him the local company that prefinishes the hardie has a 3 month lead time due to their volumes, and the other company that does that type of prefinishing is in Canada and the Pacific Northwest and we'll have high(er) freight charges. It goes back to thinking that "painting" is just "painting" and is a cosmetic thing...