Hi, juniork, thanks for your compliments about our "sites"! We actually were referred to our home/plan designer by a general contractor who was an acquaintance of ours. What we liked about our designer was his laid-back personality and the fact that he was very easy to work with. We also really wanted someone who would let us design the home ourselves and who had the experience and knowledge to provide us with input and guidance on layout and flow, so he fit our needs perfectly. I know what you mean about the *cost* of building in the Bay Area, but one thing that has helped us with our budget is that we don't limit our bids to contractors/vendors that are located in the immediate vicinity of where we're building. You can see where our team members are from on the "team" page on our site, but I'd say so far it's 50/50 between local and out-of-area. Anyway, I'd love to share my resources with you, so please feel free to contact me either through my GW page or through my website: Here is a link that might be useful: Send me an instant message through VineyardAvenue.com

Also, depending on where in the Bay Area you are (hello East Bay!), your wastewater *does* sometimes go directly into the Bay without treatment when it rains and the wastewater facilities overflow (not that we've had this problem in recent months!) This is one reason the EPA sued the East Bay municipalities a few years back; the settlement of that suit is the reason you now have to replace sewer laterals whenever a home in the area is sold. The utility companies are slowly replacing the century-old combined city sewers, but until that's complete and all of the sewer laterals are in compliance, we'll continue to have the challenge of overflow going untreated into the Bay and other water bodies in heavy rains. Not sure how many other Bay Area communities are in similar situations, but I know San Francisco has a huge sewer repair and replacement program underway for the same reason. Anyway, now that this schpiel is done... ;) We have a three-year-old Miele (bought on closeout right before they switched to their current line) that we've been pretty happy with (caveat: we didn't have a dishwasher before then, so have little basis for comparison!) We ordered it from Universal Appliance and Kitchen Center in Los Angeles--it was the only major purchase we made out of the area, but they had the discontinued model on clearance so it was a $300-$400 cost difference. We use Ecover dishwasher tabs and have been happy with those. Mixed results with Trader Joe's; I also like the Ecover powder but had problems with overfilling, etc. and just decided that the tabs were a better plan overall. I don't think we've tried Seventh Generation, so that might be fine too. Haven't tried the Miele detergent either so I don't know if it's a lot better, but Ecover seems fine to us. Have never had to service it, but I did ask around before we decided to get one and there are several shops in the Oakland/Berkeley area that service them--I imagine this is also the case in other parts of the region. We opted to install it ourselves and purchased it on a credit card that doubled the warranty, as opposed to having Miele install it, which automatically extends your warranty. Figured that if we did need it serviced, that might simplify things. The install was impressively simple. The other big plus to it was that our city waived the California air gap requirement for it because the manual included documentation of how the dishwasher addresses this internally. We didn't see a significant change in our water or electric bills post-remodel, which I took as a good sign since we added both the dishwasher and a range hood. It's pretty quiet (again, no basis for comparison, but we have a small house and when it's running it's barely audible in the adjoining rooms except if water is running into it). We put absolutely everything in and mostly just run it on the normal setting, and it does a pretty solid job most of the time. I do use the pots and pans setting for really caked on stuff, and even then it can't always tackle pots that have been sitting for a while--but that seems reasonable! HTH!

You need to tell us where in the country you are, since prices are much higher in NYC, CT, and California than in most parts of Texas, Nebraska and Iowa, for example. Also, not giving a list of what the materials are, it still is very difficult to say. Custom, Semi custom or stock cabinets? A lot of crown molding? Off the top, the only things that seem high are the plumming and electrical for the size of the space and relatively little movement of plumbing. Do you need to upgrade the elctrical box or add a second one to accommodate the increased outlets and lights in the kitchen? If the Plumbing estimate of 1150 includes t he first time dishwasher intallation, what is included in the "finish plumbing"? Just hooking up the sink, faucet, GD and maybe refrig? If so, that seems high to me. However, please note that my prices are in CT, which is high, but from people I contacted myself. To have a GC provide the plumber DOUBLED the cost. But after I went with my own plumber, the GC kept trying to cut costs to increase his profit elsewhere, so beware of trying that. If you want to GC yourself you will probably save a lot, but don't then call a GC for the small stuff. Most won't appreciate it. Sue

I'm on the peninsula too, and I doubt that the contractor can make any money at that price, especially if you chose nice fixtures. That bid probably assumes no change in plumbing and contractor grade fixtures and materials, so if you're not particular, or the house is a rental or something, it might be possible. I recently got a bid of 30K for a completely new bath in an older tract on the Peninsula. I did the room for around 15K, but I'm a designer living with an electrical contractor and we called in some favors and did much of the work ourselves. Of course it is quite luxurious..... As for the cultured stone, I did use it sparingly, with beautiful results as a deck around my soaking tub where real marble was impossible, but If you intend to use it entirely throughout the bathroom, have someone with a very good eye for color choose it. I could recommend a company on the peninsula, but I don't know if we're supposed to name businesses in this forum. Be careful. IMHO, one can easily cheapen the look of an otherwise nice bathroom with cultured stone. That's why people tear it out and replace it with tile. Kathryn