It really isnt a Guestimate (No more than $1 a sq. foot off) I have 100% of the framing done All 2X4 ($650) I have 100% of initial Electric done (Inspecting both Wed) I have basically everything bought to finish (Toilet, vanity, mirrow, doors, knobs & locks, drywall screws, drywall mud, casing, baseboard, fireplace etc. Basically the only thing I still have to pay for is the drywall which I priced out at $600 ($650 delivered)and the Carpet which I have a budgeted amount at $23 a sq. yard ($1540) I am saving on the follow: Drywalling the celing (Plus I like the look of it. I have a few monster soffits that I can view 75% of all plumbing and ductwork from the large unfinished area) Newly constructed house (Already Insulated to code)(just insulating ceiling in the media room and walls surounding, and around the 1/2 bath) Paid a family member to do the Electrical & Plumbing (cheaper than contacting it out but made sure they had a little money in their pocket when complete) Did all the other work myself and will do the rest. I have discounts on Carpeting and primer and paint. Had a one time 10% off coupon for Home Depot (Bought all doors, knobs, locks, mud, fireplace, drywall screws, drywall accessories, base board & casing. I am using left over flooring from when they built my house for the 1/2 bath. I have gotten ALLOT of help but even if I hadnt I would have done the electrical myself and hired a plumber which would have been a wash. Either way it would have been under $10 a sq. foot easy. Total Project = $5,100 + or - $200. Please note I used basic doors, casing and base board. step up from the bottow of the line.

Hey bobyoe! Glad you straightened that out for everyone! However, your comments do raise an issue that "$ per sq. ft" obsessed folks need to think about when they talk to a builder. It's the cost of the whole project that counts, not just the cost of the house. Plus, the features, finishes, and location of the house within a market area can make a 10,000 sq ft house cost less than a 6,000 sq ft. house. No one gave us a good ballpark estimate for things like professional fees, permits, impact fees, drainage systems, or site work before we started. Most of those items were not related to the size of the house. Those costs will end up being about 18% of the total project costs. No one could convince my "$ per sq ft obsessed husband" that the features he wanted in our house were equivalent to building multiple luxury kitchens. He is convinced now :-). Same thing goes for the outside entertainment areas. He thought the covered areas should be priced like a garage. Wrong. The spec'd finishes bring the entertainment areas to a higher cost for build out than any non-plumbed room in the airconditioned space. The thing that I think we could all agree about is that you can buy an existing home at a significantly lower cost per sq. ft. in today's market. Major builders are dumping new 5 and 6 bedroom 8,000 sq ft homes in our county for $600-$800K. Yeah, they are in outlying areas on small lots, but they are brand new homes. So, in addition to size and features, you have to price in: 1. supply and demand, and 2. location within a location. We are in Palm Beach County, Florida. Our lot costs vary from $20 million per acre on the ocean in Palm Beach, $10 million per ocean front acre 15 miles south on the same island, $2-5 million per acre intracoastal waterway on the same island, and $50,000 for a 1/4 acre builder's lot 15 miles west of the ocean where the national builders are dumping their inventory. Why bring lot costs into the discussion? It's because builders will hit you hard for building in an area of high land costs. I guess they think they are entitled to a big premium if you are paying premium prices for your lot. That's my 2 cents for the day!

The tabs really do a great job (there are some older threads with loads of posts singing their praises!). We used Cascade Complete initially, but Miele came out with the tabs sometime around when we first started using our DW. A bunch of GW'ers tried them and kept raving about them so we decided to give them a try. The CC worked perfectly fine and everything came out spotless. However, the tabs seem to give the loads an extra level of clean and sparkle. Also, the air in the DW just had a fresher quality (odor) after running a load with the tab vs CC. The DW after a CC cleaned load isn't bad, just less fresh smelling. FWIW, some on this forum use 1/2 a tab (and possibly even 1/4 tab?) to clean most loads. Again, my stuff comes out fine with a 1/2 tab, but a full tab just seems to raise that sparkle and clean to another level. It's not overly noticeable, in fact, I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me, but some others here have said the same thing. We don't usually run our DW every day, so I like the sense of security (that everything will get clean) that using a full tab gives. Last night I had a pretty empty DW, but one of those few items was a stinky plastic food container that would have been quite foul smelling by morning let alone this evening, so I ran the DW before bed instead of waiting, with a 1/2 tab and everything came out great. PS there were some posters who had trouble with grit (undisolved soap powder) build up in their rack glides from using Ecover so you might want to do a search for those threads discussing that.

I bought mine at my neighborhood glass/mirror shop. I had 4 cabinet doors that I wanted to install glass panels. I brought one of the cabinet doors into the shop so that they could measure. I chose panels that are clear glass with a bevelled edge because I wanted the clear glass (no frosted or seeded for me), and the bevelling adds a luxury look to the glass. The bevelling almost doubled the cost of the glass but it was worth it IMO. In about a week, the glass shop called me that the glass was ready. I brought the 4 cabinet doors in, they installed the glass (I think I left the doors there overnight and picked them up the next day). My cabinet doors have easy "clip-style" hinges, so once I brought them home, it was cinch to hang them (though they were a little heavy). I thought the cost was very reasonable. I had checked with some online glass places, and the online places seemed more expensive, and I would have had to deal with shipping, and the installation. I really liked the customer service at my local place. The people there were so nice and helpful. My advice is to look in your yellow pages and find a couple of local glass stores and call them or stop in to tell them what you have in mind, and see what they say as to cost.