Great comments everyone...price ...can be between $2- $3/sf. Anything more is overkill. As to the smell of some companies poly ... there was a run 4+ years ago where a handful of manufacturers that made a poly that was white on one side and black on the other and was reinforced. 1 of 10 after several months to a year started smelling like cat pee and got stronger. I ripped out a handful of these crawl poly's. I wouldn't blame the sealed company's only because we all look for a deal on plastic to pass on to you ... and the odor doesn't start for awhile...that could be 400 crawls in 6 months for a handful of us. That's 40 of them stinking and 30 notice enough. About the DIY'ers ... I have DIY hardwood floors ... brakes... toilets...etc ... It takes me 6 months to get a diligent guy up and going on crawls where I can let him run and inspect his work after. I couldn't imagine the $ lessons learned that a DIY'er gets into. Just know it takes one really experienced crawl space tech and 3 new techs to finish correctly a 2600 sf sealed crawl using 50 labor hours. Know that 50% of your homes air comes from the crawl space so a poorly prepped sealed crawl can trap some pretty nasty mold. Dehu's: to use or not to use??? Tests show that mold has not grown in sealed crawls that use a 4 inch air supply line per 1500sf with average height of 2.5 ft. Though the humidity reduces down in the South (Raleigh Area) to 68%-77% when sealed still leaves high humidity compared to the average homes humidity of 52%. But mold does not grow. Why? I can only guess ... A. Ground, where mold comes from, is sealed off B. Air is slightly circulating from the air supply line on your supply side. And a dehu wholesales $1000 average ... then install and electrical hardwire hookup and gravity fed condensation line. $1600-$1800 should be fair?? And that will take your humidity down to your chosen level ... most, I have found, chose 50%. Now here's the rub ... your dehu is taking up a chunk if not all of your energy efficiency that your conditioned sealed crawl gives to your AC system. So if you don't take the old insulation out and seal in the mold and the defication from the crickets, mice and snakes and you aren't getting any efficiency out of the sealed crawl ... then why invest $ at all??? No savings or better air quality. My recco: pull floor insulation, sanitize entire crawl for SUPERIOR lifetime air quality ... seal crawl and forget the dehu and gain 15.8% energy efficiency on new homes past 2008 ... higher efficiency for older homes. My pet peeve.... if a home has mold on the beams and evidence of cricket poop ... little black pellets all over the joists ... I wont seal it without pulling the insulation and disinfecting the crawl. But 95% of all companies seal the crawl trapping in ALL THAT MESS and that's there standard seal crawl practice. That should be criminal!!! Like all the contractors who knew back in early 1900's that lead based paint was killing children but kept using it because it was cheap ... until 1970's when a law was passed after ??? more than a million baby's past away. I feel mold in the crawl is that same issue that is slow to REAR ITS UGLY HEAD ... buyer beware ... short cuts can hurt you long term. www.SealedSolution.com

Honestly, I'd be much more comfortable buying an 11 year old house over a brand new one. I have heard and experienced too many horror stories regarding shoddy construction of new houses - unless you really bone up on good building practices and are there supervising every day, you really have no idea if your new house is built well or not. My sister-in-law just spent $400K on a new Pulte townhome (a big tract builder around here). In one year, she has had about 5 separate plumbing leaks, a basement leak, several leaks at the windows, her kitchen floor has heaved and had to be torn up and replaced twice, and her heating bills are running over $500/mo because the houses weren't insulated correctly and the HVAC was sized wrong. And everyone in her development is having similar problems. They just don't build new homes well anymore. Even "slightly old" houses can have really bad problems. We bought a 3 year old house that was custom-designed and built with very high end materials (cedar roof, 4-side stucco siding). We ended up having to spend upwards of $140K fixing it because it leaked like a sieve. We are now in litigation with the builder trying to recover our repair costs, but have spent over $10K in lawyer fees with no end in sight. I will never ever buy a brand new house again - in fact, I've sworn that any house I buy will be at least 80 years old, LOL! But by the time a house is 10 or 11 years old, any serious problems will probably have shown up - our house had been leaking from day 1 but it took until the house was 6 years old before we discovered it, since all the leaks and damage were confined to the insides of the walls for the first several years. I'll link to our saga for anyone who's interested. Here is a link that might be useful: Our house...

We're about like CPartist, that our trade-offs began with the lot. As we looked and looked, graudually we came to realize that there would never be the perfect lot -- at any price. The "perfect" lot would be large, but low maintenance; out in the country, but within walking/ biking (think cruisers, not mountain bikes) distance to grocery stores, restaurants, and all the resort has to offer; isolated, but in a nice neighborhood; on a mountainside with 360 degree views, but no steep roads; and it would be nice if a river ran through it. It also must be a place where we can age in place and the price must be right. Not happening! Not happening at any price! The lot we purchased is near the base of the ski mountain near the valley floor, but on a beautiful little year round creek. In the middle of everything, but still with a secluded feel becasue of the creek and green space. The city is extending the core trail system to our subdivision, which means an easy walk (5-10 min) to neighborhood groceries and restaurants and about a 30 min walk/15 minute bike ride to downtown with more restauarants and entertainment. The only downside is the lot is a bit small at about 15,300 square feet. We will have a nice fenced back yard for the dogs, our back yard will be fenced, but it will be smaller than we would prefer. We couldn't do full one story living and, in fact are three stories, but everything DH and I need -- garage, living, dining, kitchen, laundry, pantry, master bed and bath and office/small spare bedroom and deck are on the main floor barrier free. Just the primary guest room/bath and closet are up and we have plans drawn for a rec room and two more bedrooms/baths in the walk out basement, if we ever decide to finish it (and we probably will -- it will already be heated, plumbing stubbed, and partially framed with windows and doors.) We're going to have to be careful on finishes, but we have some room for nice touches -- custom cabs, granite, vaults ceiling with nice beam work with uplighting light strips. Mid-range appliances. I gave up my tub, in favor of a larger shower and central vac will be piped but not installed. We may wait on backsplashes, depending in where we are on budget at the time. Several of our sacrifices/trade offs come from adding a high end radiant heating system using Warmboard on the top floors and installing radiant in the slab and garage. We're really focused on the infrastructure, knowing we can add design details later. Oh, and we creased our budget by almost 70% incuding contingencies. Mark, while buget isn't truly a design feature, it sure impacts design features!

Take some graph paper and sketch out your kitchen using Doug's measurements. Sometimes just because you have the same length of cabinetry doesn't mean that it'll function the same depending on how it's divided (one run vs. 2 equal size runs vs 1 long run and 1 short run, etc.). Your fridge will definitely have to go at the end of your sink wall as you'll have no space leftover if you crowd the short wall with your fridge and stove. You might consider converting the triple window into two separate windows and put your range between the windows. Then you could put your sink in the island (not ideal with being directly across from the range, I know, but that configuration works in my BIL's house. Then you'd have space on the short wall for your fridge and upper/lower cabinetry. If you sketch everything out, it'll help you to see what works/doesn't work before finalizing the floor plan. Good luck!