How builders might price the work is another matter entirely. We're talking about designing in the hope of reducing the actual cost of the work. In fact, a builder might bid what he thinks you will pay and take the savings for himself. So far it has been established that smaller houses are cheaper. You need to decide how large the house needs to be and how the spaces will be used and then find an efficient way to frame it not the other way around. If you tune the room sizes to be an odd number of feet plus 4 inches between bearing studs, there would be no waste of standard length joists (10-0, 12-0, 14-0, etc) but if you ignored that idea and made the room spans a foot larger, you could use the scrap for solid blocking but that adds an extra cut per joist. Avoiding spans between those dimensions might avoid wasting 4 to 8" per joist and save you between $8 and $16 per room (averaging in the attic joists and rafters) assuming you could get the rooms to layout with those dimensional constraints. You night be able to reduce the cost of the house by $80 to $160. Of course, none of the perimeter framing dimensions would likely be in multiples of 16", much less 48", so the scrap sheathing would probably wipe out any savings. After you've designed a few houses you don't think about room dimensions as potential cost savings opportunities unless you are building a one room house or planning to build a full sized house a hundred times. Design the house the way you want to live in it and ask a competent professional to design a frame for it with minor modifications to the design. Better yet consult at the preliminary stage of the design. Sure, long span beams are expensive but if you really want a big open space the cost might be well worth it and sometimes long span engineered joists can reduce or eliminate that additional cost. Sometimes the least efficient way to enclose a given floor area is to use relatively small spans if they require more bearing walls, beams and footings. If you can design an efficient basement and first floor structure the rest will fall into place. Where I live attics are often heated for HVAC equipment and additional living space so insulation is usually installed in the rafter framing and the rafter sizes are usually determined by the insulation depth rather than the span. In other climates, roof trusses are often used. There are many simple plan houses on the internet from architects but I would avoid the big plan mills. Here is a link that might be useful: Rick Thompson

The water in a milk jug routine just doesn't work. The water is unable to store enough heat to release anything back into the greenhouse...in fact, they themselves will just freeze if the temps go below freezing for long. I have a 50gallon plastic black barrel of water in my greenhouse (for a water source, not a heat source) and it does absolutely nothing in terms of heating the greenhouse. If I don't keep a heater on, it just freezes solid. So, you would be just as well off to leave out the milk jugs and use the space for more plants. How large is this "greenhouse"? Is it one of those small wire shelf units with a plastic cover on it? You might consider just using a small "milk house" electric heater. You can find timers or better yet, a thermostat device to plug it into. Or...lay your flats of seedlings or plants on top of heat mats. These just heat the plants from the bottom to 10-15* above whatever the ambient temperature is. But might be just enough in your zone. If your greenhouse is larger, you could create a mini greenhouse zone inside of it with some shelving and plastic and just heat that space. Be prepared to throw a quilt over the unit at night, to help hold in the heat. The Goodwill is a good source for cheap quilts just for this purpose. These are all solutions I've used at various times over the years. Good luck!

Here's some information about sliding windows. In a storm the exposed track fills with water and if it doesn't drain fast enough water enters the house. I've seen it happen in a test chamber. The fact that they are cheap is not enough of a reason to put them in a house. And little burgers are known to cause indigestion. Life is not fair.

@SashaDog there will be windows lower in the bedrooms on each wing . We have one side that will open to a courtyard. so this won’t be in any comparison to a basement- that’s for sure. im Sure that was a fun experience! Basement living And a father who did it all himself. That was my life too (minus the basement). My dad would buy and sale quite a lot and we lived in many unfinished homes . He loves those fixer uppers and living in them until they sold. 😂 @Mark Bischak i do understand the garage statement . But having it away from the home gave us more space inside and more light. Would be open to any suggestions for sure. @ourfarmhouse- yes this home has very tall ceilings . Always wanted a two story feel in a one story home. The living room will have metal beams and lined with a light colored wood. The fire place will have a whole wall of rough white brick . @ourfarmhouse at the front of your renderimags- to the left of the orange door. What would this be? Kind of curious. I have already printed them out and wasn’t sure. as for the garage. It just wouldn’t fit pulled into the house now that we’ve added a mud room . so you like that flat roof wirh breeze way. Or do you see a different design maybe with some pitch to it? thanks again for your time (and everyone else’s)