Our builder told us to wait at least a year before we did any hard surface and we are glad we waited. We still have our gravel driveway and gravel courtyard and will probablly do pavers in the courtyard next year. The issue we ran into was settling and drainage. When the house was finished, the excavator shot the grades to make sure everything was pitched right - and at first all the water ran off the way it was supposed to. However, over time the ground settled, we had some run off and erosion as we were getting our lawn established, and we discovered a number of areas that had to be re-graded. Also found a spot where we needed a culvert. We are tired of the gravel but now that everything has settled and water is running properly, we feel we are ready to put a hard surface down - at least in the front of the house.

The cuts should not penetrate all the way but should be shallower near the pool to allow water to be drained away to the edge of the deck. Cutting all the way will allow rain to penetrate under the deck. This can cause settlement of the underlying ground, which near a pool, is usually uncompacted fill with gravel. I like to see footers set here but many don't take this step. Five years down the road, the concrete deck can and does crack from the lack of support. The decks I've seen sealed were done using a roller near the pool and a sprayer after the first foot to 18" out. Near the pool, the roller is well soaked and the cuts get a little extra to soak down. The sprayer handles everything else. When anti-slip material is added, it's all roller . Sprayers usually clog. If the cuts do go all the way through, then polymetric sand would be a good way to keep the ants from marching but next to nothing to keep the moisture from penetrating. Scott

As others have said, if you own the land, then it's your land and you can visit as much as you want to. When I visit and know there will be people working, I usually take some coffee or food. It goes a long way in your relationship. You'll know when the basement has been waterproofed when you can't see the concrete from the outside. It should be covered in something black. Read online to learn the difference between damp proof and water proof, then talk to your builder about what they're planning on doing. Bare minimum code might not cover what you had intended. The two pipes on the exterior of the house tied to the drain tile might be bi-directional clean outs. It's a little difficult to tell from the photo, but if the vertical pipes are connected to the horizontal with a "y" rather than a "t", and they're facing opposite directions, then that's what it could be. Tough to tell what the other two pipes are from your picture. The PVC is a large diameter pipe that sits away from an exterior wall. This rules out sump pit connection since those sit close to the wall. It can be assumed that it ties to the interior drain tile so it might be a floor drain? Not sure what the thin one is but it looks like 1" copper with a fitting on the end? Do you know if the water valve is installed in the yard? Could be water. If you have plans to rough in a 1/2 bath, then judging by the pea gravel that appears to be in, you should see PVC for the toilet and sink sticking up. Ask your builder. You also don't appear to have any stacks for the other floors so plumbing probably still has to come in to lay the basement rough in and start the stacks. They'll also either have to dig under the footing or drill through the basement wall to connect to sewer, depending on your height differential. It's important to find out how high your basement is above street sewer tie in. Judging by the other houses, I'm guessing you'll be high enough and they'll dig under the footing to connect to sewer. Question: What's with the hole to get into the garage? Are you planning storage under the garage and using a precast concrete garage floor?

Closet - love it. Foyer closets are usually for guests - and if you won't have a TON, why not have it do double duty! Brilliant. Living in the South, we don't have a ton of coats -- and visitors typically don't bring them into the house. We typically carry a coat with us "just in case" but leave it in the car. The real reason I want a coat closet at all is so I have a place to store our own bulky coats, which otherwise would take up all the space in our master closet. We'll have hooks for currently-in-use-coats, but I want to have a place to pack away winter coats when they're no longer needed. My friends put a six pack of beers in their walls. Like my husband would give up a beer. As far as looks go, a box bay might look good! I thought about that, but I think I'm just gonna say "no" to the idea ... and go with double or triple windows in that spot. Put a gun in the time capsule to generate good stories. Like I'd give up one of my guns! ? Change porch shape to mirror bay window. Now that's an idea I hadn't considered. I will ruminate on this. I liked it because it increased the size of our living room and gave it a feature. It also had stained glass over the double hungs. Yes, it was dark until late afternoons when the sun would get low enough to shine through the glass. Then it was like a jewel box. I had it set up much like your picture. That sounds lovely. Here is a question about a closet with doors on both sides that only you can answer for yourself, MrsPete. When you hang up coats, do they always face the same way? If not, the jack-n-Jill closet is great. But if they do always face the same way, will it bother you that opening the closet from one side or another reveals coats hanging in different directions? First, I hadn't applied the term "jack and jill" to this closet, but it works! Second, yes I had considered that ... it'd bother me a little -- 3 on a scale of 10. My old house had a bay window at the end of it. Great space for the two chairs as you mentioned, but I will say no one ever sat in them. If we celebrated it also would have been the perfect spot for a Christmas tree. I actually found it to be an awkward space. We'll need SOMETHING at that end of the living room ... otherwise it'd be an empty spot. Yes, I had considered the Christmas tree! Love your capsule idea. We're not doing that, but tomorrow when they pour the slab, we're going to head over to the house to embed 18 cents into the slab. (According to the Gematria, a Jewish mystical tradition that assigns a numerological value to Hebrew letters, the Chet has a value of 8 and the Yud has a value of 10, adding up to the number 18 which means Chai. Because of this, the number 18 represents good luck and gifts are often given in multiples of Chai, or 18. It symbolizes giving the recipient the gift of "life" or luck.) I'm glad you explained that because when I saw 18, I was definitely confused, as that's not a cultural reference of which I was aware! Interesting. Also very exciting that your slab's being poured. I'm not sure of the closet idea. You might lose some storage space. Would you do pocket doors? I could see it as being used as a walk through space too. Could you make it bigger so it could be used as a walkway, with closets on either side and pocket doors to close it off? No, you're imagining it bigger than it actually is -- and that's my fault for not giving any dimensions. This is a SMALL coat closet. 3' wide x 2' deep ... with a door on both sides so coats can go in /out from either side. It can't really be bigger (without decreasing other areas of the house that are more important to me), and since it is JUST for storing coats, no need for it to go bigger. No to pocket doors because of the items next to it ... plus, this isn't a door that'll ever be left open, so not an ideal spot for a pocket door. Again, thanks to all for your ideas.