We started our build with Diyanni March 2021, framing good went well, drywall installation went well too We started seeing problems with our skill trades/sub contractors. Our color selection was wrong (inverted), when I attempted to ask them the response was, well you looked at the color sheet and there is nothing we can do about it. The estimated time to move in was so far off (we were told the house would be completed somewhere between the 2nd week to the end of September) so with that estimate, we sold our home and then paid the increase in price after signing the original contract agreement (YES, the price increase 15K after we begun construction), and we opted to stay in a rental for the month. The month turned into 2.5 months and we didn’t get the keys to the house until october 31. And even then we recieved a temporary permit. It was a complete and utter mess. The plumbers didn’t hook up our suppump and our basement took in water and the electrician( nice guy) has been the hardest to get a hold of to complete the extra’s we paid him for. So while new construction will have it’s share of problems, when you are dealing with sub contractors that you don’t get a chance to vett, there is little accountablity without your PM or the people who hired them keeping watch that the product is done correctly. So a word of caution for ANY builder who doesn’t do everything themselves with employees. I will add that we also had Jeff H on our project and while he was very busy, and he dropped the ball sometimes, he did try his best to recetify things. Was he the best ever, no…but he did try to have empathy and just flat out told us some of our issues were due to COVID, material shortage and just finding people who will work. I would hire Jeff again, but I would make sure to stay in constant communication as he doesn’t like buildertrend, which I use to document every issues in case of legal ramifications.

I believe this is the 4 th summer for the in ground fig and one fig in a 30 is 3 years, the other 4 in 30's are 2 years old and all the 5 gallon figs are in their 1st year. The first 2 winters the fig trees survived the winter of 10F and 9F. The 3rd winter I got 3 nights of -6F, one -5F and several just below zero. They were killed to the ground. The 4th winter I spread the larger limbs to the ground and covered the figs up with 2 feet of shredded leaves. This left a wagon wheel spokes of limbs the tree grew from in spring. Our low was -12F and the fig tree survived. My figs are just barely larger than a quarter. You must be doing something they really like. Last year I lost most of my fig to squirrels but doing better this year with a loss of 0 figs,

Agree with Virgil about context being everything, so without that, there's lots of guessing. We also have a house on a narrow lot (vintage 1919) and houses nearby, though not as close as in one of the photos above. We did take into account which windows line up with which of our neighbors. On one side, we used obscured glass in the bathroom window and the other window has a cellular shade that is always down. It still brings in a wonderful soft light. the other side of our house is downhill and we leave the dining room window shades halfway down to obscure the roof of the one-story house, but open up the view to the sky. My point is that you just want to make sure you've thought all that through so you are not surprised or disappointed. Our house is very light for this climate, but it might look odd on a floor plan to see where the windows are placed. I would like to see some sketches of your house with a gabled roof, though.

I know that there is a lot of discussion about the location of laundry rooms. I grew up in a house with the laundry room right next to the kitchen, and that was fairly innovative for the time the house was built in our area where laundries were typically in the basement or in a room near the garage. In my own places I've had to put laundries in two of them, the previous owners used a common laundry facility or the laundromat. I have had three different locations 1) off the master bedroom in a large walk in closet 2) in the kitchen 3) in the basement (currently) In each case location was dictated by where it would fit best. I think there are pros and cons to each. In the house I grew up in, while laundry was done regularly by my mother, when I was little there was a baby sitter who also got paid to iron because everything in my house got ironed at that point. Later there was a cleaning lady who did sheets towels and blankets as a part of her job, and as my mother became increasingly disabled it was good to have the laundry off the kitchen because she literally came downstairs in the morning and did not go upstairs all day long if she was home alone, her mobility was very limited. So off the kitchen was great, she could do laundry next to the two rooms she spent the most time in, the kitchen and the library. (The cleaning lady also set the ironing board up in the library next to the laundry room so she could watch TV while she ironed, which took hours) When I had mine in the master bedroom closet, honestly it was very convenient, but on the other hand things rarely ever got fully put away, because it was all right there, dirty clean, everything. For me it got sort of disorganized, and if I wanted to iron shirts or something, I didn't want to iron in the closet. So I dunno, that location was okay because the laundry was done where it was generated but it became very disorganized for us. In the kitchen, the benefit to this was you had to do it and put it away, and you would rarely do a washer load and then forget to put it in the dryer or to start the dryer. Other than that I did not like it right in the kitchen. Ours will currently stay in the basement because the rest of the house isn't laid out for it to go anywhere else but I don't think it will bother me too much. If I was able to put it anywhere I would probably put it in a separate laundry room near the kitchen if my house was big enough to do so. For us the current convention of having it closest to the bedrooms was not optimal for us in terms of keeping things organized.