It is not always cheaper to buy yourself, as your contractor will likely pass on his discount to you. One thing to look at is whether the subs will do the same. For example, the plumber my sub uses buys the fixtures at his discount (which it also happens I can receive through my mother as a designer), and then marks them up 10 percent. I bought all the faucets because of this, but he ordered the bathtubs (one was an expensive air tub) so he still got compensated. The tubs were something that were time sensitive so he did this. I am also purchasing all my appliances, mainly because I want to put them on my AMEX and receive the extra year of warranty. My builder is fine with this too. We are building a more expensive house so these small bits don't amount to a large commission reduction to him. One tip I can give you is to suggest the landscaping be taken out of the construction contract. My builder actually suggested this because he said there was no reason to pay someone to install it and for him to get his percentage on top of that if there was someone else on the job to manage the installation (we have a landscape architect involved who will manage it). Like any of us, I know you are just trying to get the best value for your money. As a particularly well heeled friend of mine said, I want the best and I don't mind paying for it, but I just don't want to pay the dumb*** price ;). I felt the same, and wasn't going to pay the plumber over 1000.00 more to order faucets for me that I could get quickly online . . .

I am not in the building trades, I am organized and detail oriented by nature and I am not afraid to ask questions. I consider myself to be pretty intelligent, too. I GC'd a project which involved completely reconfiguring 1/2 of the main floor of our home. We moved our kitchen to another spot in our house which involved knocking out an original exterior brick wall, changing headers, plumbing, electric, adding/changing windows etc etc. I did this while working a full-time job outside of the home, but it's a job that offerred me the flexibility to be at home as needed. In our planning for this project, we interviewed at least 5 GCs or subs for each part of the job. Each gave me different tips of things to look out for/plan for. I asked questions about how their piece would fit into the overall project. Once we decided that I would GC, and the project got underway, I pretty much knew what would come next and planned for it. As it turned out, during the 3 month project, we had only 1 week of downtime because the brick wall removal and header concerns involved an unexpected visit from a structural engineer which we didn't expect. I figure we saved 35-40% on our project. To us, that is very significant. Your comments are confusing. One minute you say you have great licensed subs and the next you say you don't trust them. Which is it? You also sound like you don't have faith in your own abilities. If you do your homework, you can also work with your local building department and inspectors to get what they can offer. If you've been involved in your last projects, give yourself more credit than you appear to be doing. GC'ing is very detail oriented but homeowner's can do it.

It's all resolved now. The GC was great actually. The weird thing were these swirls in the counter top (quartz) that looked like dirt. It was actually embedded into the counter. I think it was just defective and the fabricator didn't catch it. It was most noticeable when the lights were off and you view the counter from an angle. And the fabricator/installer just had no pride in their work. They left a mess in my sink, didn't even clean off the counter top after they installed it and they left my back door unlocked. They were seriously unprofessional.

Answer a few questions: By "plywood option," do you mean that the sides, back and bottom of the box is plywood? Most cabinet lines only use hardwood like maple or oak for the faceframe. That's the part the door touches when it closes. Do these cabinets have a hardwood faceframe? You mention melamine. Do you mean that the door has a substrate with melamine (which is like Formica) laminated on top? Are you using the word melamine to describe the veneer on the sides, back and bottom of the cabinet? These terms have been thrown around and I want to get a clear idea of what you mean. I hope you'll take the time to answer.