Your lot and idea sounds like it is very similar to the home we just built. We just finished a ranch with walk out basement home on 3 acres fully wooded with creek at the bottom...I have lived in both a single story and two story. I always thought the 2 story was the way to go until I owned one. With two young boys I hated having to live on 2 levels. Carrying laundry up those stairs, keeping an eye on the kids when I was doing dishes, the utilities (oh man what a difference our ranch has made!) etc. We built our ranch with 3 bedrooms on the main level approx. 2000sf on each level. We left the basement unfinished but plan to finish in the next few years. It has 9'6 high ceilings, tall double windows with transoms in every room except for the storage room and bath. It is very bright and doesn't come close to feeling like a cave. In fact there seems to be more light than the average above grade home. There are 2 bedrooms framed in the basement with a large bath, huge storage room, storm shelter(we are in OK) huge living room, pool table area and bar area. The main level spare bedrooms are on the small side, 12x12 but since we will have the huge basement bedrooms I was ok with that. It is SOOOOO nice to live on one level again. I feel like we really use the space, in the two story I felt like I never went upstairs other than to put the kiddos to bed and dust the bathroom that was never used. I feel like the space allocated on the main level is very comfortable and we were careful to use every inch possible to make the main level very functional. Overall, even with young children I wouldn't have a two story (other than the awesome views from up there, we found out after we built would have been great for a playroom or something) Another thing I hated about our 2 story was the kids being on the upper level with our master on the main level. I always thought about fires and how I would get to them. At least with them down you can access them better if the stairs are blocked. I wouldn't want my boys downstairs by themselves yet but it works out well that they can be on the main level until they are a little older. Regarding the appraisal, we did not get even close to the going rate for the basement that above grade gets. They did a net adjustment for the basement and comped us something like $20,000...not even what our 4 car garage added! Another con if you want to call it that, is the home looks smaller from the front than a 2 story would. Honestly that doesn't bother me much since you can't really see our house from the street anyway, it is about the same as any other ranch out there.

And please post when you do get the plans so we can see. We're all house junkies on this forum. (For example, one of my favorite things to do is go on Sunday's to look at open houses and I bet I'm not the only one!) I can't speak for how to interview or questions to ask, but can suggest some things once you've narrowed it down to the "one". Start putting together pictures of homes you like, rooms you like, etc. The more research you do like that, and you'll start to see patterns in what you like. Put a list together of MUST HAVES for your home. Put together a second list of wish to haves and a third list of I'm dreaming but wouldn't it be nice because you never know when a good architect or designer can add in your dream wishes too. If you must have certain rooms near one another, spell that out roughly. As I said, I wanted the view from my great room/master/dining room/DH's study to be my pool and back yard and I wanted my rooms to create a backyard courtyard feel. I also wanted my laundry near my bedroom but didn't need a laundry room. Have your budget in mind. Know your priorities. It's obvious that you're not looking for a large house. Do you want to be able to have more details like crown moldings, wainscoting, etc? One thing though is DO put that garage in now. The cost really is minimal. :) Best of luck. Keep an open mind and don't rush the process. I started in March and thought I'd have it worked out by the summer. HAH! Getting it right on paper is a lot cheaper than having to make changes once you start building.

So we have walkout basements on both our main house and our vacation house. I'm currently in the process of remodeling the one on the vacation home. We decided to put a lockable door between the upper floors and the basement so we can have the option of renting / air B&B it as a separate unit. I'm putting a small kitchenette and a bathroom down there, so renting would make sense. We may end up doing the same thing with our main house and renting it to students from a nearby college. In my mind, the walk-out makes this possible, since you can have a separate entry and safe egress in the space. Even if we don't decide to do it (hassle of renting, etc), I think the flexibility is worth the cost. Here is a photo - I just recently pulled the garage door out and made it a walk-out with a regular door and window. https://www.instagram.com/p/BTfBZl-DRvY/

Will the left hand side truly not have any ground up next to it? How long will the retaining wall need to be and what will it eventually die into? What direction does this face? How will this level be used? We have a partial walk out basement where one side just has exposed daylight windows and then the lot falls away so the other side of the house is a full walkout. Our short (3 ft tall) retaining wall is only 8 foot long and tapers down to the ground at the end. Also consider how elevating the house 2 feet changes things in the front. Are you in a subdivision or how wide is your lot and how does the fill affect the front yard? Also while we are only 2 steps up into the front of the house, we are 5 steps at the garage side. I was sick last year and let me tell you, those steps were a problem. How old are you are how long do you plan to stay in the house? Are the steps a potential issue or no? We also have 9 ft ceilings in the basement so that also raised us up. Some things to think about that aren't just $$.