Your total expected cost is based up the materials and labor for: the design; the structure; the appliances; HVAC; and the non-structural finishes. It's easiest to control costs with the initial design. Every corner, bay, alcove, and dormer adds a highly disproportionate percentage to the structural cost. The basic square or rectangle floorplan is the least expensive to build. However, you like the design as is; and I'm in agreement with others that cutting 300 sf will not be of much benefit to the total cost unless they were cut in such a way as to eliminate some of the many corners designed. Unlikely. The non-sturctural portions are the most effective areas in which to control or cut costs. That is, the appliances, counters, toilets/showers/tubs, and window treatments can most easily be "downgraded" at the time of build, and in the future replaced with more expensive elements. Most floors may be considered non-structural... shocking though it may seem, builder's grade carpet over padding over moisture-proof OSB is quite acceptable until one wants to pay for the desired hickory or whatever. I know one guy who put down nice but inexpensive vinyl tiles in a parquet pattern, topped them with several layers of polyurethane and is still waiting for them to wear out. Low cost is not necessarily low value. However, ceramic and glass tiles should be considered structural as they require special installation. Design and plan the kitchen for the cabinets you want, but install Ikea or similar ready-made ones until the budget can afford the fancy doors and knobs (this can save thousands of dollars). Also, check with the trim carpenter -- quite often they can build shelves for ready-made "custom" doors for considerably less cost than buying the cabinets that are usually sold with those doors. Custom kitchen design centers make their profit on selling you their cabinets, and boyoboy what a profit! Shop carefully for the countertops; in-depth shopping may find the granite [or whatever] you want at a competitive price to standard tops; or you may find that finishing butcher blocks with tung oil is less expensive. And there is no question but that sharp shopping for standard kitchen appliances can save many thousands of dollars, more if your original plans included such things as an 8-burner BigName stove. Save big bucks on luxury items in the plumbing and electrical departments. Faucets and chandeliers can be easily replaced down the road so do a lot of price comparisons to buy low-cost now, again they can be easily replaced in the future. Also peer carefully at the cost of different finishes; it is possible to buy top-of-the-line items in a finish that is not presently popular for little more than the cost of the ElCheapo brands. BTW, well-designed toilets have little variance in cost so shop to get the best-recommended ones at a reasonable cost. Doors are a non-structural item which are often overlooked when computing the budget. If your builder has carpenters capable of properly hanging a door (and not all are capable so honesty is required), this is one area where I'd highly recommend shopping at the local recyclers and junk dealers. Time spent with paint remover, sanders, and refinishing can rescue a solid wooden door of far better quality than most commercially available, for an astoundingly lower cost. As you may have noticed, I constantly said "shop" ~~ this is the big secret to saving money.

This is a response to the post by lee676 Excuse Me!? You sound like a cheating husband to me. This IS the WHOLE story. At first, I wasn't snooping. But once I saw that he was having conversations with one of my friends, OF COURSE I AM GOING TO LOOK FURTHER INTO IT!!! I bought him the computer! Then fixed it up for him!! HE ALSO has access to my computer and information as well!!! I wouldn't blame him if he wanted to look into my archives!!! If I'm not doing anything wrong, then who cares!!! It should have been the same for him!! I TRUSTED him!!! With all of my heart!! Oh and by the way, if you have the hard drive, you have the information!! I had two different people telling me that they can extract the information that I need off of that Hard Drive!!! You need to think about what you say before you say it!! ( * Posted by lee676 (My Page) on Sun, Jun 4, 06 at 6:17 So let's see, you snooped on your husband's computer ("without even thinking"), and found a short letter he wrote to an ex-friend of yours, whom you don't like in part because of her overactive sex life and in part because she doesn't look pretty enough (why else would "not being the prettiest thing in this world" be relevant?). You say you "totally trusted him", yet you continued to snoop in his sent email box even after "accidently" opening the first message. Then you downloaded a program that would hack into his Yahoo archives. If there is lack of trust in your marriage, I'd have to say it goes both ways. So your hubby wrote a letter to someone you once thought enough of to be friends with. So he finds her good-looking. Are you so insecure in your relationship that you can't stand the thought that he might find other women attractive? I don't think you've told the whole story here, but I can't blame him for being upset at what you did. I certainly would be too if I found my wife installing software on my computer for surreptiously reading my private correspondence, even if I was completely innocent. (I don't understand what the point of trashing the computer but saving the hard drive is, though.) That said, this isn't about you being lazy in bed or anywhere else. This is about a breakdown in trust, and lack of responsive listening. Something had to have led up to this.

Any round tile is up for looking lousy on a shower floor installation due to the possibility of the tiler burying most of the stones under a sea of grout. Yours is especially bad. And you can still see the sheet lines. If using a round pebble, I recommend increasing the pitch of the floor to 1/2" per foot. With round pebbles, the grout lines can be a maze for the water to shed to the drain. The steeper pitch can help the shower drain and dry faster. Consider a sawn/sliced/flat pebble floor instead. You'll get the look of pebbles. You'll get the texture underfoot. But it gives the installer less fo a chance to booger it up. Your installer seem a bit lost. As Casey wrote, print out a photo of what you want the floor to look like. Having a photo means: 1) Other installers can do it. 2) There are no "lost in translation" moments when trying to convey what you want the floor to look like. 3) It eliminates excuses. It's a way for the installer to look at the product, look at the installed photo, and to do a self-assessment of his skills. Of the materials needed. Of the labor involved. Be aware that cemetitious grout shrink a bit as they cure. That's why they usually have "maximum grout width" recommendations on the grout bag. With very wide grout line lines like you have in your photo, you can end up with shrinkage cracks over time as the grout cures. Might not show up for a few days. A week. a month. Or they may never happen. The more water used in the mix and the more water used in cleanup, the more likely it is that cracks can occur. Lastly? When setting pebble sheets, I'll almost always pull a few stones from the edges of the sheets and shift them, rotate them, just mix them up a bit, to eliminate sheet lines. Good luck!

I think only you can really answer this for yourself. I personally think the photos which show the air switch in the middle look fine to me. If it were me and I wanted to keep this faucet, that is exactly what I would do. I don't think it looks strange at all, and in fact I'd far rather have it centered under the deck than sitting randomly off to the side. I love symmetry though and I understand others disagree. :) I have a bridge/2 handle faucet in one home and a single handed faucet in another. I'd always had the 2 handle faucets and never really thought about it - but now having used the single-handed one I do like it much better. It's just easier to get the exact temperature I want, IMO, as you're only adjusting one handle instead of 2. It all comes down to personal preference, and what one person likes may not appeal to someone else.