I bought a Lacanche stove via the internet back in 2005, I think, from England, self importing it and dealing with shipping as well. Total cost for the Cluny, Portuguese Blue, including shipping was under $4000. This is actually a very simple stove. It was installed in about 4 minutes, and I have not had any trouble in all these years. My point being, if you know what you want, and you can get significant (emphasis on the significant) savings, and you don't have a "touchy" product, of course you should use the internet. If you anticipate that the appliance will need frequent servicing, perhaps you should re-consider purchasing the product. I'm re-doing my mother's house in a very rural area and will buy a Verona on-line since there don't seem to be any dealers there. On the other hand, there is a somewhat "upscale" appliance dealer within 100 miles which has a service department so in a pinch they could come up to handle it.

LightingUniverse.com and BuildersDepot.com have been a complete nightmare for me! I ordered lighting from lighting universe and it arrived with parts missing - it obviously was a return as I actually found the nasty note the lady who recieved it before enclosed when she sent it back. I called customer service and they were very nice and said they would send the missing parts. A month and several phone and emails later and I still do not have the parts. I am now in contact with American Express (card I used to purchase with) and they are disputing the charge and getting my money refunded. I also ordered a light from Builders Depot - it was packaged VERY poorly and arrived damaged but my husband fixed it because it was not worth the hassle and expense to ship it back. I did get some beautiful lighting from Pottery Barn and it arrived perfectly and their customer service is top notch - but you will not get any bargains here. I ended up going to my local lighting store and ordering Golden Lighting - I mentioned the prices on the internet and they beat them all and threw in free light bulbs! I couldn't be more pleased. Might as well start at your local lighting store and give them a chance to match or beat prices - it can't hurt to ask! Your local stores are hurting right now and making some fantastic deals - not to mention not having to worry about returning stuff you bought online.

galaxytools.com has an excellent selection of ss sinks, if that's what you're looking for. but they sell only their label, ticor, sinks, some of which look like copies of blanco sinks. i was set on a blanco myself, but read sterling reviews of glaxytools' sinks here on GW, and wound up buying from them, at a tremendous savings. my contractor thinks it's a great sink. the soundproofing on it, he says, is what they spray the undercarriage of cars with. it's heavy duty and well-made. and i bet if you call in the order for "several" of them, you can negotiate a fat discount. i'm still waitin gon countertops, so can't comment on it's usage. however, i can vouch for their great customer (phone) serivce.

If you like Southern Living type homes, why has SL not been your first choice for looking at possible plans? Several of them are designed by well known architects and are quite good for mill plans. Many of the architects of those plans offer revisions to meet local codes for a standard fee. Changing them to meet your local topography of the lot itself is quite a bit trickier. Mill plans from every source are almost universally assuming that you will be building on a dead flat lot, and that the front of the house faces north. If the lot faces west and has a steep slope from front to back, you will have a very difficult time finding something among existing plans that can deal with that challenge. What happens when you try to make a plan designed for one situation fit another? Lots more money to excavate or to have fill dirt brought in is one thing that happens. That can be a very large budget buster. Especially if the lot is rocky, in a seismic zone, or has access Issues. Then there is the added concrete for the taller foundation that is needed, and the stone or brick cladding for that additional exposed foundation. Now you have to figure out how to get people access to a back yard that’s 13’ down from the kitchen. That means some type of deck with stairs. All of that from a house designed for a flat lot being placed on a slope. What about that Western sun beating into the front of the house? Thst means more overhang to help with that, and better windows too. That still won’t help at 6:00 pm in the summer. If you have the formal living and dining rooms facing the street, that may not bother you as badly as if your master bedroom faces the street, and you have a shift worker who needs to catch some sleep before being due in at 11. But there won’t be any dinner gatherings in the summer in your dining room. It all be too hot and glaring. So that means maybe you go more casual. It’s summer, after all. Now that bare minimum deck that you put on the house just to have back yard access isn’t going to be big enough for your Labor Day party. And those mosquitos aren’t helping things either. How you arrive to a home, bring your groceries in, and go out into the yard matters. Where and how your family gathers to eat and socialize together matters. Being able to stay up late with the kids for old movies in the summer and not disturb the person who has to be at work at 6:00 am matters. There are no unimportant parts. There are no unimportant details if those details force you into adapting with a negative behavior pattern that you would not otherwise have. The best houses seem effortless and “right”. Because they fit you. You’re not giving up family Sunday dinners in the dining room because it’s too hot and too glaring to occupy at dinner time. You’re not giving up a quick after work barbecue meal because it’s two flights of stairs down to the ground where it’s actually safe to put the barbecue fire rather than put the grill on the deck. Generic houses that get placed on lots often have these kinds of issues. The expenses associated with you adapting to the house’s demand to need a flat lot can often pay a good deal of an architect’s fee to create something that actually fits the property and your family. Keep looking at plans and noting what you like about each. Start to develop a library of ideas that you would like to have. Keep it simple. Don’t be blinded by the “cool hidden door pantry” that costs 6K when you could be wanting an east facing breakfast room with lots of windows to start off your day with the family. Home features impact behavior. But also look at the homes that local architects are producing. Houzz is a good place to look for that. So are Facebook groups too. Talk to a few architects. See if anyone gets what you mean by your collection of ideas. A free initial meeting to see what their process is, and how that might work for you, and to look at some of their past projects that might echo your wants is a good educational field trip. Think of it as exactly that: an educational field trip, just like junior high. Instead of going to the space center to learn about rocketry developments, you’re learning about what it might be like to have a home built for you. Do the same thing with builders. Look at their projects. Have a 15 minute meeting with them to see if they are someone you want to have a year long relationship with. It’s like speed dating. You don’t want to waste their time, and they don’t want to waste yours. But you both need to see if you are compatible as the very first step. At the end of the discovery process, you should have 3-4 plans that you like a lot, and 2/3 architects, and 2/3 builders. Then it’s time to decide what approach you want to consider. Just go into it with an open mind, learning as much as you can from everyone you encounter. Your decision might not be what someone else would choose. But you will have researched enough, and from enough different sources, that you won’t feel like you’re going into your build completely blind about how the processes work.