Hang on to your first floor plans! When it's all over, you can show Before and After plans - and become the poster child for hiring a professional.

Congratulations on making this critical decision in your new house journey, and I look forward to seeing what ARG has in mind for you!

How awesome is this???? Your property sounds lovely - so glad you will adorn it with something special, and that you can enjoy this once in a lifetime process, too.

I am 100% certain it'll be MUCH more enjoyable from this point forward. Updated my idea book with some photos of our lot and Perdido Bay here in Pensacola.

Hmmmm....no pressure here.....I did do a quick massing concept sketch last night while watching the Olympics.....

Hmmmph! Derivative... smh

;)

Casey

You gonna build a creek too? Holy cow, you're awesome.

And yes - no pressure here. We all are invested in Pensacola PI's house now! It's like having 100's of clients!

We're expecting great things from you ARG. No pressure. No pressure at all.

Smart move!

I simply cannot wait to see the results! Congrats.

Hey ARG. Are you planning on using real boulders or fake with your quick sketch?

Smart move? Absolutely yes. Doug has some solid parameters and I'm certain we are on the same page. Kind of coastal look and feel old world Florida look and feel as we are basically right on Perdido Bay. Square footage wise, we are in the ball park. This is absolutely a forever home and with my office being on the second floor and keeping the ADA compliance in the back of our minds, Doug I believe is going to the direction of a walk in closet in my office which can be converted to an elevator down the road if I get tired of climbing stairs or physically cannot do it. We are working with the surroundings and potential for outstanding views due to the lot. We are not water front property but directly across the street. I'd guess the actually waters edge of the bay is 3 to 400' ft away at the most.

Funny about that elevator. We also originally planned on just a closet. Then we decided to just go for it as it wasn't as expensive as we thought. But then again, we're older than you and your DW.

I too have the guest bedroom (which will double as our exercise room) and my studio up on the second floor. I look at the steps as extra exercise every day. Sometimes it's just better to build up.

You definitely want to keep ADA compliance in the back of your mind for your whole house since you plan to age in it.

Pressure is obviously working....

LOL, did NOT post this with the thoughts of applying any pressure on Doug. The BIG reason was after all the input on my previous thread, I kind of woke up and smelled the roses and could see the BIG picture and the need to hire someone who KNOWS architectural design and that is NOT ME!

PDB may have meant peer pressure ON YOU, Pensacola.... ;-)

Best of luck!

On me? Nah, I am a big boy and don't sweat pressure. But I am also not a what if person and won't ever put myself in a situation where I ask mysel what if? After reading Doug's original comments and thinking 2 story and what we could gain I wanted more thoughts and we spoke for an hour. I was convinced that he could provide us with what we need, he is a very good listener. Now when we are done in 10-12 months, no what if thoughts

INSULATION ?: Was doing some general reading and came across the term "super insulated house". Seems that you basically add enough insulation to double the R values in code to make one super tight house. It just makes sense but I would think that we'd need a good ventilation system so the house can breath a bit. We are right on the waters edge for the most part, in the winter the winds blow and it gets cold, very cold even though we are in FL. Any thoughts ?

Superinsulation and Passiv Haus design came out of cold climates. Energy efficient design in hot and hot-humid climates has somewhat different concerns and approaches. An energy recovery ventilator (ERV) is definitely part of the process.

Will do. Long process but worth it. With luck we can break ground a bit after the first of the year.

Question, can anyone give us some input on counter tops for bathrooms and kitchen? Food safe, stain resistant, heat resistant and durable. Budget wise, middle of the road. We are a ways out from scratching dirt but somewhat close to putting the house out for bids once our drawings are drafted. We have selected 3 builders and we will spec materials in all cases so we get apples to apples bids. We will do a bit of a hybrid cost plus build.

Thanks!

Besides the counter materials mentioned above, you can consider any of the many different types of slate, soapstone, marble, concrete, laminates, wood, stainless steel etc.

See this [guide[(https://www.houzz.com/magazine/your-guide-to-15-popular-kitchen-countertop-materials-stsetivw-vs~7779702) from Houzz on 15 popular materials.

What material you choose should be consistent with your home style and budget.

I've installed both domestic and high-end European laminates, granite and engineered quartz. In our own home, I found the engineered quartz to be somewhat fragile. Dropped dishware that wouldn't bother laminate left irreparable chips in the quartz.

Thanks, durablility is a must for sure. And yes, gotta fit the budget. Factor 1.

soapstone. durable. can put hot things on it

Thanks to all. Our floors throughout will be Flooret Modin LVT in the Imber color. Has some shades of reds, oranges and browns which will match well. I wanted to like CoreTec (long long story) but Flooret blows it away and far less $. For kitchen cabinetry, what colors have withstood the test of time? We are leaning towards the Old World Florida, Coastal Cottage look. I am thinking white is a very safe choice for cabinets with a nice contrasting counter top. Thoughts?

Pensacola, look through pictures. What do you like?

Think I kinda answered my own question. My wife really loves the Cape Cod nautical themed decor, as do I. My current office decor lends itself to that feel. When I looked at pics of Cape Cod kitchens, the overwhelming majority of cabinetry is white. Nice clean look. Our guest bedroom will be totally Cape Cod themed and that is my wifes idea. Having lived on Cape Cod, I am all for it.

My thoughts on white cabinets with contrasting counters--that's what I had in my last house. It was gorgeous but didn't suit my lifestyle. The cabinets were chipped after just 2 years. If you don't have kids and the kitchen isn't a main thoroughfare, you probably won't have this problem as bad as I did :)

The black counters in the sunshine showed the streaks from where I cleaned it or TOUCHED it. If you have direct sunlight, choose a lighter granite or one with lots of movement (or a surface material with less sheen). :)

Thanks, no kids. Def would go with a lighter shade of granite or whatever material we choose.

Thanks Lily's. It is an adventure indeed. Above and beyond just working on the design phase of things which went south when we turned this over to Doug, I would venture to say I have easily over 250 hours into working on spread sheets for the house. We basically have 2 sets one version will go to the builders. We have selected our plumbing fixtures and lighting and know what the total cost is on those and those numbers are plugged into the spread sheets. Ceiling fans, check. We are supplying those. We will pretty much supply as much as we can. The general thought is to provide each builder with any extremely indepth spread sheet where they can plug in various charges. Truss work, roofing, lot prep, electrical etc all the way down the line to the end figure. This way, we can get an accurate assessment of the final bids and the fixtures cost is a constant etc. The first builder we met with told us to shop online and select what we want and he's more than happy to purchase fixtures where we want to purchase from. If the fixtures cost $8K, that's the cost and a constant. Builder can order and have them shipped to the job site and be done with it. We are working from the start on a cost plus project for the bids and in th end, it'll be modified to a point. A close friend is a builder although he lives in Panama City so not practical to build for us. He will however work for us as a building consultant to make certain that we are getting what we are paying for and he also has great resources for HVAC units and the like. A potential there to save some money as well. It took us 5 months of writing letters to owners of lots just to find the piece of property and at least that adventure is over with.

Here's a tiny bit of the spread sheet going to builders.

It will be interesting to see how contractor's react to such a detailed bid request. We didn't do a new build, but quite a large addition combined with a down to the studs (and beyond) renovation which may as well have been a new build and involved almost all of the same steps. In our bid request we stated that we would be supplying all of the interior fixtures (cabinets, vanities, appliances, faucets, tiles, tubs, shower doors, recessed lights, light switches, etc.), and they basically came back with an all-in price for their work and materials. It gave us a lot of flexibility to not only shop for great deals, but to have more time to move things around in our budget. I've read many cases on here where there is much confusion around allowances.

That is barely scratching the surface I can assure you. I am working with 2, possibly 3 builders for bids. While none has seen the spreadsheet, I was very very open about how detailed they are. A friend who owns a very very well known large jeweler firm did the same thing as I am doing and it worked very well for him. I want to compare apples to apples and if a builder balks, no problem I will find another builder. I started out with a list of builders from recommendations which topped 15 builders. I had a look at the Official Records in Escambia County and soon made that list drop to 5. The remaining had been sued so many times it was comical. When a builder bids out a house, I am sure they're using something similar if not far more detailed than I have here.

Perhaps they do, or not. Or more likely its a mix depending on the sub. Anyway, I'm not saying you are right or wrong - I'm just interested to see the feedback. I know when we presented our rather detailed plans from the architect we lost a few guys who were turned off by the specificity of the requirements, and we didn't even ask for the line by line pricing (except for electric and HVAC).

We shall see LOL. I figure it like this, they are very detailed when bidding out a job. It may take them 40 hours to bid and there is a lot involved so just a general answer of "this house will cost you $125 per sq ft is like me going to the Toyota dealer and shopping for a new Tundra by the pound. Doesn't happen. In cost plus pricing, we would agree on a project management fee which in our area is an average of 11%. The contractor will need to produce every receipt during the accounting process anyway. Things like the fixtures I picked out and priced, no markup. I have done the work. It's a matter of ordering the materials. Thankfully, I do a lot of chatting with my friend the custom builder and he pretty much tells me like it is and he is very successful.

A few comments from a former licenced builder.

--I never did and never would spend 40 hours preparing an estimate for a single small home contract that I might not get. Heck, I never spent that much time detailing budgets for any of my own spec homes. I know the approximate target and build to meet that price or better. Same procedure for all the spec builders I know.

--the breakdown excerpted above is much too general to price, even if it's just labour and the client is providing the materials.

--I'm not going to try and calculate the labour costs for doing each of the dozens if not hundreds of items you've spent weeks coming up with.

As for cost plus, all the receipts in the world won't tell you what the real cost is if your perceived intent is to squeeze the builder till it hurts.

But that's just my view! There's always somebody hungry enough to jump through all the hoops.

Interesting that your friend the custom builder isn't in the running.

Best of luck!

Thanks. My friend would surely build the house but logistically with his office and all of his subs being a 4 hour drive away, does not make sense. Also as noted, the spreadsheet I posted barely scratches the surface of the details. Am I OCD? Absolutely.

All the spreadsheets in the world won't build you a house. We have something likely as detailed. Each expense has been recorded on a separate page that links back to the main page - and each "major grouping" has it's own tab.

Price changes, steel has gone up lately. Someone stopped making the roofing panels we were planning on (no biggie - 2 other suppliers, but... cost up again)... OSB went up from $9.xx / sheet to $11.xx per sheet in about 3 weeks. Rain delays meant we had to get more class A rocks to stabilize the driveway for the crane. More rain meant buying about $500 in plastic sheeting to protect the finished concrete walls. Wet weather means another mowing of the field before septic can go in. There's thousands right there.

In budget, as well as in design, there's a lot of stuff that looks good on paper, but then it's a different story in the real world.

I wish you luck in your approach, and I source / buy / negotiate about $650M a year professionally - so this is kinda my job, and this experience has been like no other. Make sure your contingency is about 20% or even 25%...

Thanks for your input, much appreciated and you are right. It all looks great on paper but does not equate to real world everytime especially in my line of work. This is only a tool for the bid process to be able to get detailed bids. The final contract will be a hybrid cost plus and will be significantly modified using my builder buddy and written with the assistance of our attorney.

We recently went through a major renovation/addition to our house. I agree with Jannicone about having a 25% contingency. We definitely went 25% over due to many factors, some that could not be predicted ahead of time. My one piece of advice to you is not to micromanage the builder on every detail. Select a good, experienced builder and let them do their thing (within reason). We did our hw on our builder before signing the contract. He was upper mid-range in price but very experienced. We got along well with him and the GC on our project, which now I realize is so important. It makes the whole process so much more pleasant. My husband and I both work full time and did not have the time to micromanage every single item. I think trusting the building team to do a good job while also staying in close communication worked out really well for us. Our project finished over 3 months ago and we still have a good relationship. They come by to deal with issues that come up and are pretty good at acknowledging if they messed something up or forgot something, mostly small things.

Doug has been working and burning the midnight oil on our design. I had a thought or two on the house and shot him an email earlier today thinking he would get it in the morning. WRONG, Doug replied within the hour! Very very happy with Doug, his services and outstanding communication. We feel like a couple of kids on Christmas Eve!

GoLum, i do agree with you about having a solid working relationship with the builder. We have met with 2 builders to date and I will still vett two others before we start with bids.

Just an update for those who may have become curious and following this and our previous thread. Doug aka ARG has completed our plans and we are in possession of the drawings and I'll leave it at that for the time being. I will generate a new thread tomorrow and post the plan from the man with the plan, Doug Burke aka ARG.

Thanks much! We were like two little kids at Christmas waiting LOL. But I am here to tell you, it was without a doubt worth the wait and Doug flat out nailed it first go round. The wife and I are beyond elated and we are very very fortunate that Doug responded to our initial thread that was posted. An amazing gentleman with an incredible amount of talent. ARG ROCKS!

And you've had little fun, too, haven't you? This should be an incredible experience: personal, intimate and customized to how you either live today or envision your life tomorrow. I've found that professionals help with that! Can't wait to see the result!

Technically it's now tomorrow.

I logged in, still in bed, to look for the promised update!

It'll be today and we still have a lot of "today" left. Unexpected matter came up with a client. Gotta skate, will put something up here later today.