not a designer, just an owner who has folowed this forum for several years trying to figure out 'how to deal with what's dealt' (that 800 lb Gorilla). I'm afraid that is same the mentality I get from a lot of the posts by other owners on this forum. We desire a nice landscape, but didn't find that house outright when buying and faced with other concessions in priorities. How did we get here? Our priorities (within our price range #1 tie Schools & House size (in-laws with us). #3 tie proximity to shopping/commute #5 lot size (> 0.2 acres seems small, but large in the MD/DC metro area) #6 water access #1, price, & #6 drew us to Anne Arundel and Calvert Counties, MD. Houses we could afford and that were larger than what we had removed about 90-95%) We physically looked at ~40 after screening the MRIS listing daily for months. Only 2 houses really made the final cut. Both were atleast 4 bed/2 bath, >0.25 acres, had good schools, water access, and roughly the same commute (20 miles to metro). One house was a 4 bed/2 bath Cape Cod with bonus room and a back deck and front porch with a large ~0.4 acre lot with several mature trees, but trashed jethro style. No landscape faults other than it needed to be cleaned (great potential). The house was walking distance to the elementry school and fronted open space (now hotly being contested for development of 30 'executive' homes). I was a little concerned with tidal flooding (from this open space/wetlands). This community was removed from shopping, etc. Water access was bulkhead frontage on the Chesapeake Bay and a pier. House #2, we had looked at twice, but the "curb appeal" wasn't there for us (I posted a thread here). House #2 had very good schools and was a bit larger 5 bedrooms/3 bathrooms. 2 beds and 1 bath were downstairs. That downstairs was a walkout basement slightly distracted us, but having the in-laws bedrooms/bath (divorced and with college age son) downstairs from us and our 2 children (5 &3) was very desireable. This house was 2 miles from a lot of shopping, 4 to the mall and downtown Annapolis. Water access was a fabulous beach with swimming area (1 mile upstream from the Bay), club house, boat ramp, pier, and waterfront playground. we didn't know about the beach/park at first and looked at #2 more seriously after the price dropped $20k, not withstanding we were not "attracted" to it from the outside appearance. Ilike this one from the proximity to things for the wife/kids and her decision was made when we saw the community park/beach (we didn't see the beach the first showing-what a dumb realtor!). now to the questions- 1. In checking a house, what would be clear turn offs in terms of landscape issues? insufficient lot size (our min was 0.2 acres)/lack of privacy 2. What would score as a positive or at least show potential? 4/2 house with lot size greater than 0.2 acres in a good school district within 30 mins of metro was our limit 3. What is one of the things about your own house and its landscape that you love hate? We love the deck that spans the rear of the house (has 3 slider leading out) and the traffic pattern/outdoor access (6 exterior doors). We like the patio below, but don't like the remaining slope or area under the rear deck or that the garage faces to the side and the driveway shoots staight out & near the property line making a sharp L turn to enter the garage. 4. What weird idiosyncratic feature of your home led to a unique, creative landscape solution? Posted on here for that. We have a few ideas, but nothing implemented. We probably will attempt to add a pergola to the front entrance where some commented on the roof stopping short. I am doing a 9' tall informal apple espalier on one property line and am slowly and selectively pruning the mature trees to let in a little more light. The walk-out basement slope is the most vexing due to budget constraints while in-laws with us. We would like to do some terracing. ...The schools, the beach, the bedroom arrangement and having 3 baths after living with the inlaws in a 4/1 won out over everything that we were not attracted to about the 800 lb Gorilla in our yard, lol.

We were in this exact same position. We had a friend who was a builder and we tried to use him. He had a draftsman that we didn't have to pay for who started designing the plan but we weren't a priority so it was taking wayyyyy too long. So we ditched that and we were left trying to find someone else. Looking back, here's what I would have done: Find a place you would want to build, so you have that cost and someplace you can show a builder when he's estimating costs to build. Find a house plan and exterior style that is close to what you want. If you have no one to refer a builder to you then look into your local Parade of Homes. There are builders building a wide range of homes, pick some builders that is building the quality of home you'd want built. (our parade of homes has a website with all the previous homes on it that we used b/c there wasn't one scheduled at the time we were looking) Arrange a meeting with the builders you find. Show them the house plan and the place you want to build. We did this and if they are experienced enough they can give you a pretty good ballpark. We had the house plan that our friend had come up with and a list of features we wanted and all the builders we met with told us what price range that floor plan would be and they were all in the exact same range. The prices they gave us was almost dead on detailed price that our friend had given us. So we believed the price they just pulled off the top of their head. We talked to 4 builders. One was referred to us by our son's teacher. It was really eye opening talking to them... One of them, while I'm sure he could have built a good home, he was a glass is half empty kind of guy, always pointing out the obstacles and not the solutions of how to do it. We decided to not go with him b/c it would have really added to the stress. Another builder who had been in the parade of homes was a realtor just starting out in the building industry and while he had built a beautiful home in the parade of homes, we couldn't choose him b/c we had already dealt with a builder like that for 8 months and couldn't handle the stress of it again. Another builder we talked to was really great, he showed us his own home and it was great. We could have used him but he wanted us to hire an architecture and we didn't want to do that b/c with the first guy we worked with his draftsman would come up with a plan, our friend would price it and it'd be way over budget so the draftsman would change some stuff, and it would get priced and it was still way over. (8 months of that) So it just didn't work b/c the draftsman just draws what you tell him to they don't know how to design things to save money. The builder we ended up with had been in the business 25 years, he drew up the plan very close to what we wanted but in an economical way. He had a very easy going personality and very customer service oriented. We threw out tons of ideas, like us doing some of the work and stuff and he was open to all of it. He also happened to be the one our son's teacher referred to us. He's been very easy to work with esp when problems come up or we want to change things. He's added a bunch of stuff we didn't pay for. Some upgrades we wanted after we signed the contract he's done at cost. He's experienced and established enough to be really easy to work with but he's not so big that we don't get to work with him directly. (and therefore get lots of discounts). We are a month away from moving in and the house has turned out way better than I had expected.

Hobokenkitchen- I appreciate what you are saying, but I do think you are giving worse case scenarios. I've tried to communicate that this land agent is a friend that I do trust-I wouldn't even consider doing this if it were a stranger. She is not trying to undercut the other agent. She never approached me- I approached her. The 4% breakdown would be 1% for her 3% to the buyer's agent. That seems fair to me if she has received the whole commission for selling the land. I do not know what the commission level is for that nor do I really care. She has offered this to me because she is a) a nice person b) she is trying to be competitive in a very competitive market c) she wouldn't lose sleep if I chose not to do it. I believe she just wanted to throw it out there for me to consider. The land alone is approx 300K so she stands to make a nice paycheck from that. The other agent is a great workerbee but is not very flexible for listings. Her husband basically handles all that and has said they do not negotiate commissions. Fine. At least, they have told me that upfront. It is a sad but true fact that we have sooooo many agents in our area. They are a dime a dozen. It is sometimes hard to separate the true career agents from the hobby ones. I have often told the agents facts about the area or specs on the houses that they didn't even know themselves. I keep close tabs on the market, too. Thanks for the info. Comfortdog

Yes. A competent interior designer should be able to help you. You could also ask local seamstresses or whoever’s making your curtains.