Hope you caught these persnickitydesign posts: "It was pretty much a full time job (plus overtime) and it still took a year and a half for me to get everything purchased & everyone lined up. ...One of my oldest & dearest friends' DH owns the HVAC company. He did our house at cost. Another owns the company that did our fireplace and garage doors. He also worked at the lumber yard for years and gave us the names of many of the subs that we ended up using. ...our friends came by to help us out and worked for free" "Our permits were $433. We're on county water & sewer and did have to pay a tap-in fee of $1067. There were no charges for the gas and power." "We are fortunate enough to live in an area where the cost of living (and cost to build) is extremely low. Plan prices are not mentioned. Also, keep in mind the year of the build--2008. There was a wee bit of a recession going on then, centred on the collapsing housing market. Trades were desperate for work, suppliers for customers. I had the fortune to build in earlier declines. With cash in hand, you were like a god.Now, not so much.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I just got back from a "scoping" trip to Home Depot. I did not see any solid core doors, but the hollow core ones I don't think would work, since I'd need to cut it down. I looked at the plywood and I guess something like that could work, but I didn't get anything yet. They also had particle board with a melamine coating for $20-something a sheet, but I'd need to do something with the edges. The plexiglass at HD was over $70 and kind of flimsy. At a local salvage store I stopped by on the way home, they had a piece of tabletop glass slightly bigger than I need. The guy offered it to me for $50. But it will over hang the base by a couple inches on each side. Does anyone know if it's possible to get a tempered glass tabletop cut down? Also, my dh is concerned that his optical mouse won't work on a glass top - does anyone know whether this is true?

ttodd, I wanted to share my experiences with you. My mom and her husband (only grandfather my kids knew) built each child a dollhouse. And let me tell you these were not your ordinary dollhouses. They started out as a kit, and as in real life, there were lots of upgrades. He absolutely loved woking on them. There is copper flashing, shaker roofs, gutters,etc. My mom decorated the interiors, and they were incredible. Each girl got one (different years), and then they made my son a horse barn. Everything was electrified (I highly recommend that for the lights!) Here is the only downside. They are huge. They are a pain to store when they get older. My kids are 23,21,and 19. They are not in homes of their own yet, so we are storing them, but they will take them eventually. They are on rolling platforms, so the kids could push them up against a wall, and then roll them out when they wanted to play. I have quite a love/hate relationship with the dollhouses. Of course the love far outweighs the hate. My mom passed away about 11 years ago, so it is really special to see what she did. Oh, and both of the girls had a box of Christmas decorations (including lights) to put up on the outside of the house as well as the inside. Also had a Spring collection of things too, to decorate with flowers, etc. btw, while we are getting the house ready to be sold, they have all been removed to a friend's house. I think my house looks bigger now without them in there!!!

The storm of '07 I was thinking about was hurricane winds. I don't recall any area having snow, but I could be remembering wrong. Gusts recorded of about 150mph at our local coast guard station. And torrential downpour. Our entire county was like an island due to the combination of flooding and downed trees. Gov. Gregoire had to fly in by helicopter even though the east end of our county is only 20 minutes from the capital because you couldn't drive here for days. It took something like 3 days to clear the trees from the highway. And that was after she called in the National Guard and they worked from one end while local crews worked from the other. One stretch of road about 10 miles long had over 300 downed trees across it! People with chainsaws from all over got out and helped. My DH helped cut trees for two days. He might as well help because he couldn't get to work. Power was out in some areas for over a week. We considered ourselves lucky to get ours back in three days. And we live in town and rarely lose power. If we do, it's just for an hour or so. IIRC, parts of Seattle also didn't have power for about a week or so. It was crazy. We were one of hundreds of people with a big tarp on our roof for a few months until we could re-shingle. We looked like a town that didn't believe in roofing, just tarps. :) Believe me, I was glad for our small generator which saved the food in the freezer, for wood heat so we didn't freeze (it was in December), and a good camp stove to cook on under the porch roof. And our emergency kit, lol. ETA: If it is The Big One, the entire west coast is supposed to shift west about 50-100 feet. Not sure how far east that will impact. Hope your rock doesn't move! If anybody is interested in some fascinating information about this, I suggest reading The Orphan Tsunami. It's about how the geologist first found evidence of these quakes about 30 miles from my house, much more evidence has been found since, but it actually took reading the very well-kept historical records of tsunamis in Japan to prove it. The Japanese called it an orphan tsunami when it wiped out many coastal areas there because they had never experienced a tsunami without also having an earthquake. That's because the earthquake happened here. Absolutely amazing stuff. Mother Earth is powerful, that's for sure.