Yellowducky- What a beautiful house! That front porch just says, "Home" to me.

Well, amberm145, I can't exactly claim to be walking this martyrly path on purpose. There might have been some holiday spirits involved. ;-) What's hilarious is my husband's response when he found out: He's been looking forward to having a dedicated in home office for as long as we have been married. However, we already will have five kids sharing three bedrooms, so when the question of "Where will the baby go?" came up, he paused, shook his head, and said "Bought 3.5 acres, spent 2 years designing and building a house, and I STILL DONT HAVE AN OFFICE!!!!" LOL. Well, she'll move out eventually...

The back after it has been leveled and the concrete stairs built . MBR subway tiles in, slow and steady progress happening.

Kiwi: Good luck with the house and the baby, lots of work ahead!

Yellowducky-- Love the natural setting, the home, MBR tiles and the spacious porch.

Cismontane1: We loved the bronze and here is the paint combo if you need . :-)

Matching House Paint:

See your local paint retailer to match house or trim paint to Integrity windows and Doors.Any Sherwin Williams dealer can match the paint by using the formulas below: (tinted/gal)

BRONZE:

------

Base: Super Paint Satin Ultra Deep (A89T154)

Tint:

White (W1) 8/32 oz. + 1/64 oz.

Black (B1) 6 oz. + 41/32 oz. + 1/128oz.

Maroon (R2) 16/32 oz.

Deep Gold (Y3) 61/32 oz. + 1/64 oz. + 1/128 oz.

thanks so much for all the kind words. i wish i could invite you all over to sit awhile on the porch with us. it's a peaceful place - in the evening there are sounds of frogs, a resident whippoorwill, and someone heard an owl the other night.

i love seeing you all build your homes - and how different our homes look, depending on age, family, location, budget. what a diverse place, full of wonderful homes. we are from the south and i think our home can't help but reflect it. that front porch is more than a porch to us - it's a rich reminder of grandparent's homes, and great-grandparent's homes, the farms that earned their living, and the work (and celebrations and music) those porches saw.

kiwi - congrats on the new baby! we have 4, two of each which makes things easy (ours are 8,6,4, and 2), and decided early on to have a girl's room and boy's room. We didn't plan a separate room as a nursery, so if another baby does appear someday, my DH will be losing his office for at least those first few months. :) The stress of building helps to combat my baby fever, but I do (not-so) secretly want another one. :) My DH plans to build a shop one day ... maybe your DH could have an "office" somewhere on those 3.5 acres? :)

the pendants were from lowes - i spray painted them blue. we were originally going to use ikea pendants, but they were plug in fixtures, not hardwired, which i didn't know when i bought them. :/ so i had to replace the ikea ones quickly so it wouldn't hold up getting the conditional power turned on. i think the spray paint was still wet in places when the electrician put them up! that was a crazy day.

R2d2indy- I agree the gray looks a little blue. Before you abandon your gray search, look at SW Iron Ore. It's an older color, but they still make it. I think it looks Iike your inspiration photos. the brick is different from your inspiration, though, so something warmer could work, too. It's a really neat house- I can't wait to see more!

I want to echo yellowducky's thoughts about what wonderfully diverse and interesting homes are represented here on GardenWeb. As well,the support, advice and pure opportunity to vent are invaluable. We are just beginning with the straw bale portion of our small home and I so appreciate this site and all that you contribute.

r2d2indy Thanks so much for the Sherwin Williams info. I feel sometimes that we live there as we are doing all the exterior and interior porch and lintel staining ourselves (including the Marvin Windows interiors) to try to help with the budget and because we want to participate where we can.

I am currently trying to pull our shower tile together and found a hexagonal washed terra cotta that I like for the shower floor but it's only on Wayfair. I'd have to buy a whole box for $79 (and shipping is about $77.00!) to actually see it. If I find it doesn't coordinate well, I sure don't want to pay that to return it. Lengthy explanation of why I want to ask what info you can give me about your shower floor tile? Many thanks!

Yellowducky I absoluely love your house! We're building a white farmhouse as well but I prefer your front elevation! Beautiful!

Went to our countertop fabricators yesterday to check out the Alabama White. They are an hour and a half drive but have the best selection and hands down the best customer service we've gotten. All the slabs were nice, but they should be getting another block soon and I want to wait it out for the perfect one. Three that I was in love with were already sold, but one was just an "on my honor" type thing, and he said the guy has to measure a decision soon. If he decides not to take it I'm next-in-line. This one was a little cooler and less evenly veined than I'd ideally like to have, but the warmer ones I couldn't get a pic of because how they were positioned. I'm really leaning toward doing the cream cabinets as opposed to creamy white. I would love this with white white but I really want creamy trim I the rest of the house and our kitchen is open to the living room. So not 100% what to do. Fortunately the manager grabbed a mallet and got me a few samples to bring home and obsess over... :)

We broke ground May 20th and this is where we are at. Basement is poured, plumbed and waterproofed. We are waiting (still) for a break in the weather to backfill, grade and frame up front porch and back covered porch. Then the concrete can be poured on the porches. After that, framing can begin. That is the part we can't wait for. To see it go up and be able to walk around and get a feel for the interior. We are pretty much set on all the interior finishes. Everything is picked out and ordered. Still trying to decide on the color of stacked stone for the front. The siding and shake will be very dark brown with white trim. The builder is still confident we will be in sometime in November. If anyone has interior pictures of their Garrell homes, we'd love to see them!

Amber, I'm obsessing over your marble.

The wrong lights were installed in my house and it shouldn't be a big deal but I'm so annoyed. They put up multiple boob lights and I'm afraid the stupid things will leave marks on the ceiling that will require touch ups. And of course the touch ups won't be perfect and I will forever notice them. Ugh. Anyway, it's a minor thing compared to some of the problems people go through when building a home.

Was told closing should be on the 20th vs the 15th like I wanted. Not too concerned about that, I figured as much when I saw that the cabinets still haven't been installed or flooring for that matter.

So roughly three weeks to go. Still need the following to be completed: exterior painting, laminate flooring install and carpet install, tile grouted, correct light fixtures installed, all cabs, counters, sinks and plumbing fixtures. Touch ups and then landscaping.

Things are going pretty good at our place. Still no septic though :-(. I'm sure that will be what holds us up. Tile is almost done and hardwood is set to go in starting Tuesday and carpet Friday. HVAC should've been done this week but not a sign of them. They got all our lights and fans in. Here's a few pics of tile and lights.

Master shower

Master shower

Island light

My vanity w make-up table

Laundry room tile

Renee, everything looks great! Was really hoping you would have gotten your septic in by surprise. Hopefully soon. Are you having a door on your shower? Ours looks similar (imagine that!) and we haven't been planning to have a door, but I'm imagining it will feel quite drafty now that I can walk in it. Maybe after we recover from this a bit we can add a custom shower door.

Amber, that marble slab is beautiful!

We have a lot going on in the next two weeks. We get our appliances delivered Monday, along with attic insulation. Engineered hardwoods go in next Monday and carpet the next week. Then final plumbing and the trim guy can run the quarter round. Touch up painting after that and we are mostly done. The flooring place had to come out and try to remove the grout that is everywhere (even on our cabinets). They were unable to remove it. They have now ordered another product to try and will have to pay our painter extra to refinish the affected cabinets if not. We used Fusion Pro presealed grout and it will come off, but leaves a stain behind. So frustrating. A couple new pics:

Mudroom bench:

Master shower:

Master closet:

I've made a decision on my front elevation. I thought it would be fun to see what the very first elevation the draftsman sent me looked like and what it has turned into. I told the builder I wanted a house that felt like a craftsman, while realizing I was stuck putting in a hipped roof. So the first version looked like a typical FL home to me. It was almost as if they said she wants a craftsman so lets put everything we can find that vaguely feels craftsman on it, while still making sure she realizes it's a Florida house. LOL

Finally today I gave the okay to this elevation for my home. I have lots of folks here on Houzz to thank for their help in making the house look more unified and have more of the craftsman look I was trying for. Only one more change will be to enlarge the windows over the two gables. Besides the obvious changes, we also went from a 10' second floor to a 9'4" second floor.

Aleleaux - just for your reference, frameless glass shower door from Hudson's glass in D town, just north of you, is 1200ish. Other quotes around the same. Just so you know, it was a shock to me.

Thanks jdez. I was expecting it would be high. :/. I will have to wait a bit I suppose. There are so many more pressing things we will need to purchase. Good thing I like the tub I guess. ha!

ChicagoDreamer, your house looks great! Was it a custom floor plan?

This is the extent of my house as of June 20th. Basement foundation in, and sub flooring being installed. I understand (the house is 2 hours away and my car is being "difficult") that the subflooring is now all in, the wood is sealed from the heavy rains we've just been having, and that the slab for the garage is now laid.

The log home kit gets delivered July 7. Meanwhile, the septic will be put in, and electric run from the road to the house. They might even start work on the deck prior to the arrival of the kit.

Below -- well, I've been taking photos of home construction details, too.

PS, the Nature Conservancy is my next door neighbor!! In the top pic, the 2 closest trees are mine, the rest are theirs. PPS, WHY did my photos shrink when I edited this post???? Click them to see what they really look like.

Renee, I especially love your choices in tile!!!

I love seeing all of the progress each month on everyone's home - it's very motivational!

We (finally) broke ground on our house this month in
Redmond – just east of Seattle in the Pacific Northwest. It’s been nearly two years since we purchased
the property, so this is extremely exciting for us. We’ll have a one-story home with a daylight
walk-out basement. So far, the builder has gotten the excavation done on our
property. The footings should be formed this next week (fingers crossed)...everyone's super busy right now.

Once excavated, I went out and surveyed the property with
a licensed surveyor from my firm (I’m a civil engineer) which was pretty
rewarding and very fun to see the actual corners of the house.

Now they’ve moved on to digging for our well. They’re around 200’ deep right now and still
need to dig deeper. Based on other well
logs in the neighborhood, I’m thinking we’ll end up at around 350’…we’ll see
how this next week goes though!

Want to see more details?
Check out my blog at www.coastalhues.com.

Stephanie, just read through a lot of your blog. So interesting to see your process. We are just about at the final drawing stage and then our builder will be sending out for bids. After that we will be cutting too. We did like you did. Asked for the moon knowing we can cut.

cpartist - I think that's the way to go - otherwise you'll end up asking about upgrades all along the way. This was you have a good idea ahead of time if you want to add upgrades in. Good luck on your craftsman! With the attention to detail on your fireplace already, I'm sure it's going to be beautiful!

thank you Stephanie. And that fireplace is one of the things that is non negotiable. LOL.

Well we moved out of the old house this weekend. Almost 10 years of accumulated crap. That was painful. Hopefully, in 6-8 weeks we'll be moving into our new home. In the meantime, we're living in my husband's parents home (they are both deceased, and the house is for sale). This is the backyard. Needless to say, I'm not hating it.

Aleleux1, your home is looking great!! I'm loving your master closet. Can you tell me who made it? Was it custom built? Or did you use a company? Who is everyone else using for closets?

Yes Aleleux1 I was just going to ask about your closet too

Thank you, Michelle and faulstr. Our cabinet builder built the big center unit. Our trim carpenter ran the shelving off of the large unit. He also added some smaller shoe shelves off on the other end. We also had our trim carpenter build our pantry shelving and trim out all of the other closets in the house. He charged a set fee/sq ft for the house that included anything we wanted. We just had to pay for materials.

Michelle, that's gorgeous!! I wouldn't hate that either!

aleleux1 - We ordered a frameless shower door. Our builder said he thought it was about $800, nott ot bad but still more than if we had a frame. Love your shower and closet!

stephanie_sara - Our drill is 540 feet deep. They said it's better to be deeper, but man the cost is a killer.

The tiles guys should start grouting today. Engineered hardwood is set to start on Wednesday and carpet on Friday. I hope they get the septic in today or early Tuesday because rain is in the forcast Tuesday night through Thursday and then again on Saturday.

I spent most of my Sunday cleaning the garage out of all the trash. Man we have a monster pile of cardboard and other trash. I found so much food trash buried under the construction trash. I was not pleased to say the least. Can anyone say bonfire, yep that's what we're gonna have very soon.

If you can get an off the shelf frameless shower door, they are MUCH cheaper than custom. Our current house has a 30-32" one for $350. But for the new house, because it's oversized and there's a bench cut into it, it'll have to be custom and I'll be looking at over $2k.

amberm145 - Ouch! Our door width is 36". They told us over 32" will have another piece of glass that will be stationary. Just hope they don't put a chrome door handle on it. We are doing ORB and I noticed in the kitchen sink they put in chrome flanges :(

The shower is 69" wide (yes, I giggle about that every time I think about it.) There'll be a stationary part. The handles should be easy to change for a different colour. You might want to specify that with your builder. There are different types of handles, too, so you should be able to express your preference. It might be $10 more for style A vs style B, so might as well get what you want rather than having to replace it later.

I did get some progress on my tiling this weekend. The drywallers didn't come (surprise!) so I was able to get it cleaned up Thu & Fri with no worries that it would get moved again before I could actually get anything done, and then did some work on Sat & Sun. The bench is all tiled, so just the easy part left in that shower. And the dog shower is about 80% done, I was held up because I wanted to wait until the mudroom floor was in and then tile on top. That's done, so I should be able to finish that in the next few days.

I love the idea of a dog shower, Amberm.

Renee- build that fire wide and high, and raise a glass to a clean slate.

Musicgal, it's the one thing I always said, "if I ever build my own home, I'm doing a mudroom with a dog shower." It started as a dog shower. Then DH asked for a spot in the mudroom to store his commuter bike. I decided to make the dog shower big enough to hold the bike, and make it dual purpose. DH loved that idea, and started calling it the bike wash, excited for the opportunity to wash his bike with warm water. Then the electrician wanted to put the light switch in the closet, because there's no wall space other than above the "shower". So we started calling it a slop sink, and now we're allowed to have a light switch.

Amber, may I ask what part of the country you are in? I am in AL, about an hour from the stone quarries. I went to two different stone places this week looking for Alabama White and was told they don't have any and don't know if they'll ever get any more.

After a couple years of planning, endless meetings and dropping some serious coin.... they excavated and dug today! Check out the time lapse video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UhGZyYqZuA

We finally have a foundation! This rain is getting us behind schedule. It was nice to see the drawings for the footprint of the house not just on a piece of paper, the computer screen, or just in my head! It is starting to get real. Know what I mean? So many months of planning, and now it's not just a vision.

I got to walk on the dry slab, and tried to envision the rooms, and how we will be living, and our things...... Can't wait to see some walls! With the coming holiday, framing may also get delayed. Yikes!

Thanks firesoon, yes it was custom floor plan.

Jn3344 what's going on with you? Any pics yet?

It's great to see everyone's progress. We've lived in our new house for a month now and we love it. We are decorating slowly and there's so much still to do. I decided to take sewing lessons so I can customize our curtains in our master bedroom. After debating on blinds or curtains, we decided to go with curtains with blackout drapes. It worked out perfectly.

We also hired a landscaper to seed the lawn and we have sooo many weeds!! Also the draintiles. The projects are endless!!

We are now working on our patio. question, anyone going to install pergola? What's the best way to do this? Buy on your own from HD or lowes or hire someone to make it? I have no idea where to start . Any suggestions?

Jmray, I'm about an hour east of Pensacola, Fl. I found it in Pensacola (for $125 a square foot) and at Stone Interiors in Loxley. Stone Interiors has done a lot if business with the quarry and had ten slabs when I was there a week ago. The quarry did shut down for a while which is why some places think They can't get it. I know Stone Interiors buys a block at a time, so 20+ slabs. The place in Pcola I believe was going through Stone Connection in Atlanta.

If you're near Stone Interiors they come very highly recommended!! Willie has been fantastic so far!

Alabama White Examples · More Info

If you go too the photo it should link you to them.

I don't know if this counts since it's not a custom build, but our house is currently being built right now by a volume builder (a new neighbourhood). Our initial closing date was supposed to be February 25th, 2016 but we got a call last week that they are running ahead of schedule and we could potentially be moving in in November if we want! I'm so excited! We are loving the process and go check out the progress every day after work (we are lucky that the new house is only a few streets over from our current house). Our staircase just got installed, also windows and doors went in at the end of last week (all except the front windows which are taking a little longer because we ordered a different grid pattern than the "norm"). We made some modifications to the main floor layout. The original layout is what sold us this house, it has a great big country kitchen (U shaped) with a walk-in pantry. We also made it so that we have a mudroom off the garage.

Window above sink:

Front entrance and dining area:

Melissa- Of course it counts! Although a lot of homes here are custom built, we welcome everyone going through the process. We enjoy watching as the homes emerge from the ground, and it ranges from huge multi-million dollar homes down to very small, modest homes. Our place is only 1400 square feet, and a simple rectangular one story ranch, but we're proud of it! Welcome to 'The Club'!

Thanks so much for the warm welcome :) it's such an exciting process! We also had our first home built from the ground up but it was a semi-detached (1600 sq ft). We loved the process so much, we did it again for our second home (single family home, 2739 sq ft). I can't wait to have more space! With two little ones, we are running out of space right now (we both love to be at home, have hobbies that are home based (I quilt and bake and my husband loves woodworking).

Here is our floor plan:

Wow! Triple sinks?! I never thought of that! So awesome!

I don't think that's triple sinks, I think it's showing the option of 2, but if you only want 1, it's centered.

Chicago, I'd start by measuring your space and deciding how big you want a pergola to be. Then see if the kits available will suit your space and style. If they do, that's probably the cheapest/easiest way to go. But nothing off the shelf ever seems to fit my situation. :P

That's right it's showing the option of either two or one in the middle (we chose two). We are also getting a tower built between the two sinks for face towels, etc. as we have two girls who are 20 months apart lol

Welcome Melissa! Wow, to have a builder complete months early? I'm jealous. So far we're on month 10 of our "six month" build, with probably two to go. Sigh.

If appreciate feedback on my paint job thread.

But, some good news....fireplace builtins are getting installed. Yay!

Here is the bronze to the right and iron ore to the left-- Bronze is tying the window color to the roof. Not sure if the picture captures it, but here it is..

I like the bronze, r2d2. What's the white thing on top?

Thanks Amberm-- it was too sunny to take a pic my DH thought a shingle piece there could reflect and share a better pic. :-) I had to go in person to check but still.. full points for trying. LOL

Agree. Prefer the bronze. It warms it up. the gray is too cold.

We just got word that the building permit is ready for issue! We are very excited around here! The builder has the excavator on stand-by so it shouldn't be long befor we break ground!

Edit: Permit is issued!