Hey bobyoe! Glad you straightened that out for everyone! However, your comments do raise an issue that "$ per sq. ft" obsessed folks need to think about when they talk to a builder. It's the cost of the whole project that counts, not just the cost of the house. Plus, the features, finishes, and location of the house within a market area can make a 10,000 sq ft house cost less than a 6,000 sq ft. house. No one gave us a good ballpark estimate for things like professional fees, permits, impact fees, drainage systems, or site work before we started. Most of those items were not related to the size of the house. Those costs will end up being about 18% of the total project costs. No one could convince my "$ per sq ft obsessed husband" that the features he wanted in our house were equivalent to building multiple luxury kitchens. He is convinced now :-). Same thing goes for the outside entertainment areas. He thought the covered areas should be priced like a garage. Wrong. The spec'd finishes bring the entertainment areas to a higher cost for build out than any non-plumbed room in the airconditioned space. The thing that I think we could all agree about is that you can buy an existing home at a significantly lower cost per sq. ft. in today's market. Major builders are dumping new 5 and 6 bedroom 8,000 sq ft homes in our county for $600-$800K. Yeah, they are in outlying areas on small lots, but they are brand new homes. So, in addition to size and features, you have to price in: 1. supply and demand, and 2. location within a location. We are in Palm Beach County, Florida. Our lot costs vary from $20 million per acre on the ocean in Palm Beach, $10 million per ocean front acre 15 miles south on the same island, $2-5 million per acre intracoastal waterway on the same island, and $50,000 for a 1/4 acre builder's lot 15 miles west of the ocean where the national builders are dumping their inventory. Why bring lot costs into the discussion? It's because builders will hit you hard for building in an area of high land costs. I guess they think they are entitled to a big premium if you are paying premium prices for your lot. That's my 2 cents for the day!

She could fly a repair person in (and did fly the reno crew in when the home was restored a number of years ago, in fact), but wouldn't want to have to do it on a regular basis. This is a down to earth, practical person. She's wealthy, but she's not irrational. If a La Cornue crew had to come in and build an oven, that's doable. If maintenance persons need to come a regular intervals, that's doable. If repeated breakdowns of equipment that ought to be reliable occur, that won't be desirable. If random helicopter arrangements need to be made on an emergency basis, that would be a pita. I'm sure she'd rather avoid it. Just being able to afford something doesn't necessarily make it desirable. I am finding the various perspectives here intriguing. While I'm not a pro, I have cooked a lot, and even had a bit of real training, and from my modest perspective, it's much nicer to produce a meal on reliable equipment than not. Nicer still to be able to do it on downright lovely equipment. I haven't always lived luxuriously, but I guess I've always had pretty good cooking tools. I inadvertently tested this hypothesis at a dear relative's recently. It's her and her DH's first home, took every last sou to buy in the neighborhood they wanted, and I'm fairly convinced that Goodwill would reject the appliances they cook on every night. I produced a rather lovely meal, I'm told, but was exhausted nearly to the point of coma by the time I served it because I had to nurse every bit of it through faulty burners, irregular temperatures, etc., and did it all with downright crappy (sorry, no other description is as accurate) cookware. She gets knives and cookware for every gift now, BTW, regardless of what she requests. It's called enlightened self-interest. Anyway, the point is that it's difficult to imagine, after all the heated and enlightened debate on these threads, some from professional chefs, some from electrical engineers, some from people who routinely cook for huge families, some who entertain for huge groups, some who write cookbooks, et al, that when push comes to shove one ought to order the Sears package for reliability. I know the line is overused, but "I am shocked. Shocked." One young couple I know waited so long for Sears service, in Los Angeles yet (hardly rural), that by the time the repairman showed up, the wife was near her due date. The repairman wanted to leave because he said he needed help moving her refrigerator to get to the part he needed to repair. She put her hugely pregnant body in front of the door and refused to let him leave because she had waited so long for Sears to respond. He threatened to call the police and she said, "Fine. Go ahead. And while you're waiting for them to get here, repair my refrigerator." Made by GE by the way. Nevertheless, I do appreciate all the responses here. I have learned that there is a generator in the picture and it will have to be upgraded. Not a problem. Solar panels are out. The roof cannot be modified. A ground array would necessitate cutting down trees. Not going to happen. And fire ants are attracted to electrical current (something to think about as I, too, have looked into this for my place). The necessary KW, etc. I'll leave to the KD, engineer, and crew. Interestingly, to me anyway, even though she has natural gas available, and there is a propane tank on the grounds, the current generator is diesel. While some of what I'm reading confirms what I've already told my friend, e.g., redundancy, both gas and electric, the desirability of commercial and residential components, there are definitely things that never occurred to me, e.g. ovens with greater computer complexity like Mieles and Gaggs, which I always conceive of as big city ovens. I'll pass those ideas on, as well as this thread. Any and all suggestions welcome. Even the stuff about Sears. ;)

I am building a semi-custom home in Louisiana and have a few questions about negations with the builder. I met with the builder and his agent a few days ago, and it didn't go very well. Here are a few of my thoughts, questions, and concerns. In general, we are about 15-20K apart in what we think the house should cost. 1. Comps in the development: At present, the home I am proposing to build is likely to be the most upgraded/expensive home in the development (for a while). There will be a second phase with larger homes next year, but presently, my house is the most upgraded, and it sits at the entrance to the development. One concern from my lender is that when the appraiser from the mortgage company comes, because he/she will be basing on other comps in the development, my home may not appraise for the construction price, and as such, the lender will be unable to completely finance my home. A second concern, but within the same theme is that the builder may be attempting to keep the price higher on my home to increase the comps in the development. At present there are probably 20 homes in the development and about 5 are lived in, 2-3 are up for sale. 2: Upgraded Lot: The lot I chose was one of only a few that were upgrades. The larger lot was desirable because we wanted to have a bit more outdoor space. Here are a few problems we have encountered: because the lot is the first in the neighborhood, it is directly next to the central mail facility. As such, our outdoor space is adjacent to the mail facility and the only way to establish any privacy is to build a fence. Elsewhere in the neighborhood the developer has paid for a fence to separate the community center from the home adjacent. He seems very firm that he will not be paying for a fence at my location. Because of the "community standards" there are only a few fence designs allowed, and they are rather expensive. Because my upgraded Lot is the deepest, the cost to build the fence is a bit outrageous. But here is where it gets worse; the concrete in the development goes to my lot (because its at the end of the street) and the builder wants me to pay for cement to be poured to drive from the existing concrete to get onto my property and into my garage. Its only about 10 feet from the present developer poured concrete, buts its an additional cost. The lot upgrade was $9,000 and the "hidden costs" are now about $3,500 for the cement and in all likelihood nearly $8,000 to $10,000 for the fence. So this "$9,000" upgraded lot is set to cost more on the order of $20,000. Thank you for your thoughts on the matter!

Kitchens can be a kind of a frenzy. Like when you have a baby or get married. You start making choices and convince yourself that you HAVE TO HAVE IT. Sometimes it just gets out of hand. If you don't know by now, short posts are not my strong suit LOL! So here goes. We're still in progress, there's time yet as I haven't bought some major big ticket items. My neighborhood is around 20 years old and has homes between 1800 and 4000 sq ft. We're on the lower end at 2500 sq ft. We don't want to over improve, however, the norm for this neighborhood is Whirlpool, GE, Jenn Air, or Kitchenaid appliances and oak cabinets. A typical kitchen "upgrade" for this neighborhood is to swap out white or black appliances for SS, new tile floors and granite replaces laminate on existing cabinets. Full remodels are rare. We opted to do a remodel versus upgrade. We are the 4th owners of our 20 year old house and it shows. The kitchen had had minor updates, the most recent was a new tile floor laid right over the 20 year old vinyl. The previous owner had put in new black Whirlpool and Kitchenaid appliances 4 or 5 years before we bought the house. I guess they chose black over SS because their existing refrigerator was black. Other than that, the kitchen was original. We knew on inspection day that we were going to have to address the kitchen. I was talking to the inspector and noticed a bulge in the backsplash tile. I touched it lightly with my finger and several tiles fell off. Yup, the kitchen was literally falling apart. Here's where we are: The fridge - bought it 4 years ago. It's SS, it works, would rather spend elsewhere. Layout - no changes to plumbing or fixed elements like windows. Lighting - craigslist, I paid $45 for 3 "vintage" pendants. Quirky, but I love them! Window - replaced old aluminum window with best quality off-the-shelf low-E vinyl. Cabinets - craigslist, got a great deal on a former kitchen display for $1500 Counters - craigslist, part of above great deal. Granite. They're Baltic Brown and I don't love them. I got the ok from DH to sell them, but I will reserve this decision until we're closer to the end. I love a pretty counter as much as the next girl, but would be perfectly happy with Ikea butcher block. Backsplash - found crackle tile on clearance at Expo. Floors - the original plan was to keep the tile and fill in with leftovers, until we found out that the tile went over existing vinyl and sound hollow in spots. Plus, we already had a few gouges before we did demo. We've opted to scrap the tile even though it's only 3 years old. The current plan is to do engineered hardwood to match our entryway. It all depends on price here, mostly the price of install. Although I love the wood, I could compromise with a less expensive floor in the kitchen and reserve the wood for the family room. Faucet - still haven't bought it, but I'm leaning toward a very budget friendly Kingston Brass model. It's something that can be upgraded easily in the future. Sink - haven't bought it either. I know I'm going with a farm house sink. It's one area I'm willing to spend a little bit more since it's a permanent fixture. Range - craigslist, a vintage yellow Chambers. It still needs some refurbishing, so although it wasn't terribly expensive at $800, I've spent around $400 so far to have some of the pieces refinished. I still have more work to do on it. I'll probably end up spending another $600 to $1000 to get it finished. After I'm done, it likely going to come out the same price-wise as a lower end 36" SS range, but I'm emotionally invested. It's my showpiece. Oven - got one on clearance at Ikea. It has everything I need for a second oven and the price was $200. Dishwasher - here's an area I'm considering spending. I'm picky about dishwashers. I've had pretty good ones and a whole lot of crappy ones. I want a good one and I want it paneled. I HATE the upkeep of SS. One the lower end, I'm considering Kitchenaid. I've had two in other houses. One was great, the other, meh. On the middle end I'm considering Fagor. The online reviews are very good and one person on this board has one that she really likes. No one sells it in my state. Even the fancy schmancy appliance showroom sales person hadn't heard of the brand. It would be a gamble if I have issues that require repair. Plus, not being able to see the rack configuration IRL bothers me. On the high end, I'm considering Miele either the Diamante or Optima. The Miele might be overkill. Most machines do a decent job cleaning and are quieter than ever. Do I really need a machine that can be PC updated? Built in water softner? Tons of features when I typically use the Normal and Pots and Pans cycles? Probably not, but still...