I have bought tons of books, so many that I can't even finish them all. I am going to act as my own GC and the house will be 12,000 finished square feet (includes basement). What I do before buying a book is this: Check the ratings on Amazon and see some pages if available. Then I go to Dealoz.com which is an amazing website that will search in less than one minute hundreds of websites to find you the book at the cheapest price. I will then buy the book, usually used. I end up paying just a fraction of the cost of a new book and have never had a problem with the quality of any books. They usually have no highlighting or anything. Paying $5 or $10 for a book this way is well worth it. I can then highlight through the book the important stuff that I need to remember and keep the book as a reference. The home we are building will cost a million dollars if I am lucky so to spend a couple of hundred on books is well worth it if they can help me avoid costly mistakes or help me learn the tricks of the trade. The owner builder book is excellent although it at first seems a little biased against contractors and also somewhat lengthy. Still, it really does give you real advice about the real work and does not minimize the investment in time you will need to make. Even if you find an older version of a book in the library, once you see that it is good, you can purchase the updated version and you will know it is worthwhile. Let me know if you need specific recommendations although at this point all the books seem to have melded together in my head and it is hard to keep them separate in my brain!

After living in a manufactured home for the 1st 4 years of my married life AND living in a Jim Walter home, I am NEVER going with a "chain" builder. Several people I went to high school with have become contractors. (We had a very small school and pretty much knew each other quite well.) I've been in several of their homes and they are built a heck of a LOT better than my home. We bought our current house in foreclosure(The house was only 2 years old at the time), so we didn't go through the building process with Jim Walter. We did, however, visit their showplace to get some information where we found the people there like car salesman on the car lot, waiting for their next "sell." I tell EVERYONE that they cut so many corners on our house that our house is round. Our front porch columns were painted with indoor eggshell paint. The railings that we had to pull off because they were rotting had a groove in the bottom that was supposed to be flat so water stayed and caused the rot. There wasn't any plastic sheeting put under the slab so it sweats. There is NO house wrap. There is no underlayment under our shingles. They put MDF painted molding around my Jacuzzi bathtub as well as painted MDF for the tub deck. The kitchen cabinet doors were not sanded right and they are hard to clean and rough as tree bark. There is only ONE outlet on the outside of the house. There is NO water faucet near the garage. We have to drive to the side of the house to clean our vehicle. The staircase railing is there for looks and not for assistance. The spindles are coming undone because they were attached to the side of the staircase with finishing nails. They put tack strips down on each stair step on the side and to the back of it AND every door threshold! We have to watch where we step because tacks get our feet. We replaced the carpet in the living room and are wanting to the staircase. I just don't know how to fix what they messed up. They forgot the molding on the bottom of the 2nd floor bathroom; the vinyl floor is curling. There is a LARGE 120" x 60" window in my dining room. I love the BIG window BUT it faces the East AND is not insulated. Every time it rains there is a flood in our garage because the floor is THAT uneven. They "forgot" to add a pipe to the drain for the HVAC system which our HVAC technician "tried" to fix but told us that we needed a plumber. We fixed it but not before having a pretty little stain on the ceiling exactly where 2 pieces of drywall fit together. The staircase turns just before the bottom of the 2nd floor so sharply that you have to hug the wall to get upstairs. The other side of the steps are flat and you drop 2 feet if you don't pay attention. We don't think the Master Bedroom WIC is insulated because the temperature is the same as the outdoors and makes the bathroom either really HOT or really COLD. There is SO much more wrong with this house like no housing for the electricals under the lights and ceiling fans. My hubby thankfully knew how to do that when we changed out the ceiling fan in the living room and the florescent light in the kitchen. I may not have built with these people but I don't want to have the same mistakes in our dream home. I am not willing to shell out that money for what I DON'T want.

Hello again Peggy, Just my two cents here - Because of budget we are DIY'rs. We ended up going with Lowes on their cabinets because we liked the designer so much. We had been to others at the big box stores and were not impressed, but then we ran into some guy that had been doing it for 5 or 6 years in there kitchen dept and loved his job. He listened to what we were trying to achieve and spent oddles of time with us trying to make things work based on what I was trying to accomplish inside my cabinet doors and my space in addition to getting the "look". Had it not been for him we probably would of ended up looking into custom - we are having to manipulate and piecing things together to achieve the look we want which has required alot of patience and frustration along the way. Maybe this is normal with DIY...there were certain elements that I wanted within the cabintry that couldn't be done (feet on my island, panels on the sides of cabinets we built up to look like furniture, roll out trays on our island that they didn't carry for that piece, etc.,) Looking hindsight I would have checked into custom, I've heard it here before as igloochick mentioned that alot of times it can be cheaper! Another problem we ran into is after we ordered and installed our cabinets we went back to add crown molding (we waited on this because at the start of our renovation we bumped our wall out 2' and it gave a slanted ceiling, we wanted to install our cabinets first to see what we would need for pieces with the crown molding - in the meantime our designer from Lowes moved and we had to begin dealing with someone else in that dept which has been a nightmare - that is a story in itself - Kraftmaid says we have to deal with Lowes and go through them for our needs. I'm sure this wouldn't happen often but it is possible - our original designer has tried to help us long distance but Lowes does not want him to handle it out of state since our take backs and pick ups are here....with all that said I wish I would have checked into custom since I knew what I wanted - BUT I am happy with the way things are looking, just thinking the frustration and aggravation wouldn't be as it is AND it could have costed less. BTW, I answered you on my post (I too had a hard time finding my post??!!) Just in case you don't get there - Thank you for all your support! I would love to see pics and hear progress! Keep in touch Jen

Snakes and bears, oh my! Meet with concrete contractor at house today and got eaten alive my mosquitos for the 10 min we were in the back yard. They poured the front stairs one step too short. There is just over 12” from the landing to the threshold. They are trying to come up with a solution as I do not want 2 more steps within that landing (1 plus the 4” sill step into the house). I’m holding tight to what’s listed in the plans so they will make it really right.