I am back. Hi Macmanmatty2, you said you have 1 150 chill hours. You also said you live in Port st joe, Florida, U.S.A. Your chilling accumulation using this method looks too big in my opinion. Your cordinates in Port st joe, Florida, U.S.A. is 29,80 N and 85,29 W. Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.A. cordinates are 30,27 N and 84,16 W. So your location is southwest from Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.A. I counted Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.A. year 2008 chilling units and it is not as high as you posted. I got Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.A. 778 chill hours for year 2008. You said 1 150 chill hours. 372 Chill hours less than your number. May i ask you where you got your number or what you counted? Are you sure you counted it right way? Also if i think you are more southwesterly than Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.A. you might have even less chill hours than that of 778 chill hours of Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.A. 778 Chill hours in Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.A. is much closer your should be 700-500 chill hours than your 1 150 chill hours. I also counted following surrounding places in Florida and got following chilling hours using this method : Aplachicola, Florida, U.S.A. 767 Chipley, Florida, U.S.A. 962 De Funiak Spring, Florida, U.S.A. 934 Madison, Florida, U.S.A. 800 Mayo, Florida, U.S.A. 750 Perry, Florida, U.S.A. 600 Quincy 3 ssw, Florida, U.S.A. 873 That was the list. None of those places have 1 150 chill hours and none reached 1 000 chill hours. Aplachicola, Florida, U.S.A. is southeastern from your location having 767 chill hours. So you probably have something between those 2 places, between 778 chill hours and 767 chill hours. So about 700 chill hours, not 1 150 chill hours you got. What is the discrepancy here? Those 2 numbers are quite close to your should be around number. Any idea? No need to feel guilty any way, you may have just made an mistake, well you can learn about those.

Our extension office for WA state says 4# for paste types & 5# for slicers in our western WA climate. I know lower than most of you here. I'm happy when the plants survive and produce any fruit. My goal is 5 trusses of fruit per plant. I plant more plants to make up for it. If I get them large enough by late July to get those 5 trusses I will have ripe tomatoes in late August through September. Any fruit set after mid-August ripen for us in our clearing in the woods. I stop watering in August & cut off tops of plants by Labor Day to encourage ripening. It's hard to stop the plants from growing when they could be capable of setting more fruit, but those won't have a chance to develop to breaker stage to ripen indoors. Our season is short with cool temps at beginning & end of season. Microclimates abound, but generally tomatoes can go out by mid-May with protection & 1st frost is mid October. The plants don't really start growing much until mid-June when temps rise to 70 degrees or so. Nights are in 50s unless we have a western WA style heatwave then we have 60 degree nights. In the next week we have highs of 84 and lows in 50s with one night forecast 48. Some of you might be able to relate to the cool temps. Others of you might be envious for that cool weather right about now. I enjoy this forum to hear of climates having summer ahead of me and seeing those pics of ripe ones!

My price list from Ikea was about 10K for cabinets, appliances AND all the hardware and lighting which I just subtracted some of that from the quote because we won't be using their appliances. It's astounding really, how truly affordable Ikea is when it comes down to it. Plus they have a 25 year guarantee. We will likely wait for the 20% off kitchen sale, which after some browsing on these forums, I hear may be in Feb or March. We'll have to pay for delivery but that's only $59. @cpartist I never said cabinets AND appliances would be 5K. I stated that I did an exact replica of our existing cabinets (option 1) and my price list was about 5K after rounding up just for the cabinets. The stove alone that my husband wants is 5K. I know appliances will be at least another 10-15K. The Ikea quote was for a combination of cabinets and drawers, a large pantry with pullouts etc. I did this process before posting on here because I wanted to have a good grasp of exactly how much cabinets would be for our exact layout so that when I get contractors telling me that cabinets alone will be 30K I know to run the other way. @H202 I like where your head is. We will most likely be DIYing a lot of this project. We redid a kitchen in Vermont and did it all ourselves except for countertops and the gas line. I'm not into the gimmicks either. When we did our kitchen in Vermont it was just new, sparkly, and what WE wanted versus what the other people used (cheap, budget looking etc) I'm going to at least get a quote to see what it would cost to move the kitchen but I know moving all the plumbing and electrical would be very expensive. Back in October my husband put in all new canned lights throughout the entire house so overheads lights won't be an issue. The biggest issue that I see anyhow, is the load-bearing beam and wall that will need to be removed.

Unless you have significant trade skills and will help to construct your own home, I think building a custom home is something for the rich who want what they want at a premium price. Most people cannot afford the premium in a custom home, and it certainly is a losing investment nine times out of 10. Reading your remarks, I think you are clearly the person who should be looking for a premium-built used home that is selling below its cost to build. Such homes can occasionally be purchased at steep discounts. I was toying with the idea of retiring to Nevada, and one home I saw had outrageous build quality. They had high-end stone masonry everywhere and things like custom arching beams. They spent about $375/square foot to build but because the neighborhood had homes with $150 to $200 build cost, the resale value of the home was $240/square foot. I would rather pay $250/square foot as an investment, and buying $375 for $250 is the way I would want to invest $250. I think the problem for people building a custom home with a tight budget is they can be easily fleeced on the home build quality without ever knowing what hit them. For example, to get costs lower the builder may switch to 2x4 framing on 16" centers instead of 2x6 framing on 24" centers. The 2x4 home will be much less insulated and will have very shallow window bays. It will feel cheaper. The odds are you would never ask about the framing. The homebuilder saves a ton of money on his material costs by switching to 2x4. You end up with a home that does not feel quite right and never know what hit you until much later down the road. Where custom home building really shines is in the ability to select high-end materials and building approaches that are never seen in tract homes. For example, when you do the framing you can use new stud designs that incorporate closed-cell foam into a truss design inside the studs. Normally a wood stud in the framing has very poor insulation and directly acts as a heat/cold sink that bypasses your home's insulation. The newer style studs (e.g., "T-Stud" is a brand) have an R-value of 20 (versus 6 for a normal stud) and have four times the strength because of the engineered design. Alternately, you can insulate the outside wall of the home and use SIP insulated panels on the roof, to directly overcome the insulation problems with normal studs. These things can greatly increase the comfort of the home, but they also increase build cost, and in any case, they are rarely done outside of a custom build environment. In a perfect world, in addition to an architect, it would be great to find a home builder that you could hire as a consultant - at an hourly rate - to help educate you about key variables in building a home, and that person could help you to understand budget impacts of various build choices, as well as help you specify things to the builder and architect. I wonder if there are retired home builders who do this on a consulting basis, even remotely.