LL gone down hill? Hmmmm. That would imply they were on the "up and up" at one point. Go ahead and google Lumber Liquidators and lawsuits. You should get thousands of hits....because that's roughly how many lawsuits they are going through. Many of them are class action level - because there are SO MANY of the same issues. Remember: in the court system the concept of "reasonable person" is an odd one. And there have been several judges who have pointed to the NAME of the company and said, "THERE (Liquidators) is your 'Caveat emptor' warning." and then reduced the amount of money given to the homeowner. Implying that a reasonable person should be able to imply, by the NAME of the company that the products are "less than perfect". Good luck.

Salmon: Thanks for your great work in compiling this. This link shows how to create a link within a document. A few things I'll add: 1. Another "where to buy" place is ABS Wood. I worked with Jeff at East Teak. 2. The decks.com guide is good. American Wood Products also publishes a good code reference. 3. I bought several deck books, and the most useful (starts with the basics, lots of photos) is Black & Decker's. It's updated for recent code changes. 4. I sketched out my plans and used decks.com's $99 plan drawing service. They did the load calcs, produced a framing plan, footer plan, and materials list in 24 hours. A great time saver! 5. Tools: I love the Bostich metal connector nailer, and have the Paslode framer and finish nailers (love them too, even if the framer took a nip out of my finger). I buy all my expensive power tools on ebay, and prices are generally 30-50% off retail for tools in good condition. If you're only using them for one project, you can put them back on ebay and probably recover most of your expense.

Hey Morton5- I'm all for adding questions- go for it! Just to show my enthusiasm, here's some answers: Favorite book: cheesy, but I've always loved "Gone with the Wind" it's my favorite because I re-read it every two years or so and have for the past 20 years... Personal Hero: I don't know, there are so many great ones, but we named my daughter Eleanor after Eleanor of Aquitaine, so she's really up there. Favorite food: Sushi, funny because I'm awful at making it, but maybe that's why Idea of perfect happiness: I don't think there is perfect happiness, but I'm pretty happy with my life right now- three healthy children two healthy adults Degrees: I have a BA in art history with studio art minor, I'm hoping to go back to get my MFA in painting Worst fault: I'm sure there are worse ones, but the one that always comes back to haunt me is that I'm horrible at multi tasking on things that I really need to concentrate on Now, I'll add a couple: Most used cookbook: Joy of cooking Worst or funniest kitchen disaster: For this, I'll toss in a quick story about my husband's cousin, who during college decided to play "Jingle Bells" on the oven keypad while the Christmas turkey was in the oven. He turned on the self cleaning feature during his musical overature and managed to burn dinner to a crisp! Tag, you're it, answer and add one :)

Here's a rendering our architect had done for us early in the redesign phase. However, the patio on the upstairs was missing and the supporting columns etc. Aside from those differences and obviously the stair case, the overall look is quite close. With the stairway relocated, the windows on the ground floor to the bottom right in the garage are now visible. The area directly above that is the master bath and so on. Per my previous post, the double front doors were changed out after I'd posted this up. On the ground floor, the two windows in the center are history. And although it's hard to visualize it in the conceptual, the ceilings are 10' from the ground floor on up. It's a tall house. In the end we made the final revisions and submitted those for drawings based upon the conceptual we had done as it fit our need with a few tweaks mostly on the interior. What my bride didn't care for was that we'd walk up the stairs facing a wall, then turn to the left to walk 20' give or take to the front door. Based on this rendering and maintaining the same general design from day one from the same architect, we moved forward and ended up where we are. We just didn't "toss this together" so to speak. Our architect put a fair amount of thought into the process the end results in our opinion we are pleased with. We differed somewhat on the interior layout of a couple of rooms but that's all good. The vast majority of the interior of the house replicates what was done from day one which was perfect and we love it. Thus the reason we kept it just like it was. He did an amazing job! When the day is done, we're writing the check to the mortgage company so we'll build accordingly. Like I said back at the start of the thread, everyone has their own opinions and I respect that. Some folks may think what they've designed and are building is the absolute best design in the world and I'm happy for them. On the flip side, I wouldn't give them a dime for it. Again, my opinion and while it doesn't suit me we all have varied tastes. Thank goodness or we'd be in a real mess!