Wow, am I envious! I live in the Tampa Bay area and we are hoping to come in somewhere about $110-120/ft. Average prices are between $175-300/ft. The main thing to consider is that our building codes are probably some of the strictest in the country due to the hurricanes. The home is built to withstand 130mph winds. It is built from concrete block which definitely increases our cost substantially. As we are the GC, we did hire a manager to over see the entire project (he also did the slab/block/frame). But the money we are paying him to manage is definetly worth the peace of mind! He is very reputable in our area and has many many contacts so we are able to get his pricing. In the end, his management fee will probably wash with the savings. We are also going pretty high end with everything else from windows to appliances to flooring and so forth. In the end, it will all be worth it. However, our cost to build does not include what we paid for the lot. Land is NOT abundant here and you pay for it - ALOT. Our lot had a home which we initially wanted to add on to. But after talking with our architect and engineer, the cost was more to do that (by going up a floor) than it was to demo and start over. We went that route since then we are not limited to the footprint and could then have exactly what we wanted. Our new home is 4000 sq ft living/8900 sq ft under roof incl 1500 sq ft covered lanai/3 car garage/semi-detached 4 car garage. So, with all of this, in the end we should be about $450K (not including pool). For Florida, this is not bad at all.

thanks for the feedback so far. I was so excited to put the plans on here I forgot some details. there will be a full basement, we're planning on putting the garage in there, under the kitchen side. The original house had a dumbwaiter on that side of the house to take groceries and such up. I was also thinking of putting a coat closet on the front side of the stairs, the whole stairs issue has been super complicated trying to go up so far, and not use a ton of space for them. A drop zone is a definate must, I use the kitchen table for that and the other 1/2 has a chest and a desk in the front door. We like to think that we are tidy but make a mess too. Most likely there will be some built ins in the living room too, any suggestions? we're hoping to do that room in wood paneling. The walk in pantry is something I knew you all would say that I needed. Any ideas on how to get one in the space. At the front of the kitchen, closest to the dining room, we have a wet bar/butlers pantry area. In our current house that is one of the most used spots and seems more valuable space wise. Land is close to asheville NC, site elevation is about 4ooo ft. So it's pretty high up for here. The living room faces south. Climate is moderate, we get all seasons up there. The one thing that I'm not sure of is how brutal the winters will be, they have been changing a lot lately. We don't need screen porches, there are not any flying insects at that elevation. I'll try to put the original plans up too. Thanks for your help so far!!

Unless you will actually use tub in the master bedroom, I would not mess with a very successful design in order to stick one in. After all, you already have two other bathtubs in the house and it is not like you're talking about putting in an extra long or extra fancy tub in the masterbath to really jazz it up. Actually, I wouldn't mess with the current design EVEN to fit in a FANCY tub that I figured I would use once a month. So I sure wouldn't do it to fit in a "standard" tub unless that tub was going to get CONSTANT (i.e. DAILY) usage. If mom just thinks she might want an occasional bubblebath, just tell DD that she'll have to let mom use her bath room on those rare occasions! However, if you must have a tub in the masterbath, the way to do it with the least impact on your current design is probably to move the shower upward so that it sits beside the bedroom. (You would have to lose that transom window so would probably want to remove both transom windows on that side.) Then, stick the bathtub against the wall where the shower is now. You might have to widen the entire bathroom by a little bit in order to make room for a shower door beside the tub. Something like this... BTW, note that if you make the shower wide enough (more than about 6 ft from wall with shower head to opposite wall, and move the shower entry so that it is as far from the shower head as possible, you can probably get away with not having a shower door at all. Believe me, not having a glass shower door to try and keep clean is a major blessing! On the whole tho, I would leave the design as it is and move beyond "preliminary drawings" to getting blueprints so you can actually start building! While it is good to spend plenty of time at the drawing stage, I think you've maybe begun to obsess a bit toooooo much. Time to move on to getting real drawings made and get started on making the dream into a reality. Obsess too long and your kids are going to be grown and out of the house and you and DH won't even need to expand. LOL!

Do you already own the home? If so, do you have a mortgage on it? It may be that you could talk with your bankers and see if they can give you the name of an inspector that is qualified to look for plumbing and wiring and heat/air problems as well as structural problems (the problems you'll most likely need to address first) as well as an estimate on the value of the home and an estimate on what the bank is willing to lend toward a loan to repair/remodel the home. IMPORTANT: Make sure your inspector knows what you need from him and be sure he's qualified to make that level of inspection. If you have a few specific changes in mind, you might get some (hopefully free) estimates from local tradesmen (electricians, plumbers, Heat/air installers) so that you can begin to get a feel for the cost of the project as you envision it. IF the home is either known to be not structurally sound and/or if there have been serious problems with the roof, perhaps suggesting water damage, rot and/or mold, you may be better served rethinking either purchasing or remodeling an older home. One drawback in remodeling an existing home is you need to keep the weight bearing walls intact. Another is that when you remodel in stages, you that often don't know what you're going to find behind the walls or underneath the flooring until you start removing drywall and carpet or other flooring. A couple living not that far away from my home built a new home behind their old farmhouse and then tore down the old farmhouse, recycling and repurposing the lumber and anything else worth reusing. Doing that cost them less than the total of the estimates they were getting to repair and remodel the older home. Also, having lived in a home while it was being reroofed and remodeled ... not fun anytime, especially in colder weather.