Ken: Just forgot to mention that the price we are paying also includes a full landscape design (his wife, conveniently, is a landscape designer). My architect is also helping with color and materials and is designing some of the interior spaces (at least anything that is attached to the house surfaces). He built us a full model of the house so we could see it when we came to see him in August. So all of the above is reflected in the total price. We started in January with him from scratch. We had no idea what we wanted other than an active solar home with European styling. It has been a rather long process as the architect we are using lives near our new home rather than here. (12 hour drive away) So a lot of this design process has had to take place by phone and email. When we did visit with him several times, we ended up being there half a day to cover everything. I will say that he really listens to everything we like and has incorporated it into our design trying to remain with in certain restraints. I am very happy with what he has come up with. Just hope it works as well as it looks on paper! My DH didn't really look at plans well until mid summer after several drafts and we had to do additional changes in August before our last visit. I could have killed him for waiting so long to really look at everything. I am sure that bumped our price up as our architect had to redo a good portion of the design. We are at the point now where our architect has submitted our plans to one builder for an approximate estimate. We asked him to wait until we get the estimate before sending the plans out to a structural engineer who will be finishing them up to blue print format. At this point we are waiting to see how much we will need to spend to build our dream home. In the meantime, I am getting this house ready to go on the market this coming spring. We hope to sell this house first, if possible, move down there and rent another one while it is being built. That way we will have a better idea of how much money we will have to build it. DH may still have to travel back and forth here for a year until he retires. Just hoping our real estate market doesn't tank before then. We have a certain amount that we would like on this home. If not, we will wait until the market gets better and build a few years from now. We already own the land and do not have to build in any frame of time.

Gray, Well, you're right, I should have figured out the "guy" room. My buildings were not dioramas. I built on 1" scale and recreated both exterior and interior. The project took me to New Zealand and spent time there with a historian responsible for maintaining the Antarctica expedition buildings. The history and stories of the men living in these "huts" became a passion. Sadly, the cost of finishing this project became out of control and didn't get a grant applied for. It is part of the many boxes I cannot let go of...building shell, books, tons of materials. Small house, but big shed storing part of my life. If you were to build your plans it would be amazing how the project would become so much more real for you. The hard work for this has already been done with the created plans shown. All could be built with matte board, I'd even suggest buying it in the colors you are planning. The simplicity of yours would even allow the furniture to be done...but use bass wood or plastics for these. You wouldn't need a lot of tools and the cost minimal. I let go of the model building a while ago. Was doing some freelance for a magazine submitting projects, and it became too commercial. The ability to be creative was lost as I had to design what readers were interested in and freelance is what it means "free" after cost of materials and time involved. My art is now photography mixed with chalk pastels. Primarily close ups of architectural details and lost items found. I like those that show time passed and the affect of element of nature. Use Photoshop and am playing with possibilities of printing large format now. Creative beings cannot let things sit long without evolving into more. The jump in computers is so beyond that what can be done on a lap top is far more than where I started. Me presence at the time put many an architect and engineer into shock...they had to let go of their pencils for keyboards. There is still a need for the high end number crunching computers for engineering and output. My son and I were talking one day about terms which he wondered the meaning of..."do not spindle, punch or staple". What was a spindle? This evolved into talking about learning computers via punch cards. The leap you mentioned...he also trained on computers using punch cards and is in his late 30s. I'll let him feel old. They do use metal framing here, but not often and I don't understand the reasoning for continuing to use wood when this is avialable. On the total opposite of what you are doing I would build a straw bale, the natural "off" of walls, etc. intrigue me. It is not something easily built depending upon where one is located due to permits. Even building a home smaller than a specific size isn't possible unless rural. One can remodel a smaller home, but tis the closest to getting such within city limits. Gads...the Platters? I just watched a Johnny Mathis special and headed into the personal past. And most of this was totally off topic, but at we are in the conversation side.

There are very strict laws governing tie downs and tornado straps and even earthquake measures for them. Some states are more stringent than others of course due to the types of weather they normally have. My best friend lived in a neighborhood of new nice expensive homes on the South Side of Oklahoma City, when the big tornado hit Moore and the South Side her entire neighborhood was wiped away. I mean literally gone from the earth. Just a pile of rubble here and there and every tree that survived was just a bare stick and of course died. So with the power of that kind of storm it does not matter what you live in that kind of storm will take it out. As Gary England, long time weather man in OKC said about that storm when he was broadcasting live during the storm, If you are not underground for this one you will not make it. My friend and her family had enough warning time to get in the car and go to his place of business which is a solid concrete building with a pit where cars drive over it to have their oil changed etc I am sure you have seen those. They got in the pit. They were not able to go back home for many days because the damage was so bad. Gas lines and electric lines damaged. Living in Oklahoma was great I loved it and have wonderful friends there but I have to admit I am glad not to be in the path as much as I was. We still have them here but not nearly as much as there. I watched one go right over my house, hit my big tree and take the top out of it, jump over my neighbors house go across the street and drop down and proceed to destroy everything in it's path for a few miles. Just sheer luck that we were skipped over. I personally today would not live there again with out a solid concrete reinforced safe room in my home. I really wish we had one here! There are dangers everywhere! Different dangers for different locations.

@Jack Walsh The process depends on the company you go with and the financing you find. I cannot list companies here, but the one I am most familiar with is out of VA and serves the southeastern US. They do offer financing, but they also can lead you to banks/loan officers. The modular company creates most of the shell, delivers it, and hooks you up with a local builder from your area who has a relationship with them. That builder will create foundation, help set the pieces when they arrive, and then finish them off (dry wall, wiring, trim, fixtures, etc..) In the end you have a regular house. It does save you money in the long run usually compared to having a custom build on your site, but it is not as simple nor as cheap as buying a single or double wide "trailer" and having that delivered and anchored to the ground on your lot. Does that help?