bdpeck-charlotte: Do you have any photos, an online album or anything? Everything you've listed describes the home we built ourselves about 5 yrs ago! Unfortunately, we are about to rebuild, thanks to a particularly nasty tornado that came through southern Oklahoma in Feb 09. We aren't straying too far from many of our original choices (why fix if it wasn't broke?), but are looking to improve upon any areas we wished we'd done a bit differently. Main diff this time around: one-story instead of two. Bigger pad, more dirt-work, but the older we get the more attractive a single-story home becomes. If you'd rather than share any photos for any reason, no worries. I'd just love to see what sounds like an absolutely gorgeous home. BTW, I completely agree w/your TRUE description of "custom" as it applies to home-building. The GC situation in our area is similar to yours, but we found a builder who understands our standards, realizes I'm a person with VERY strong opinions, and was open to the fact that I refuse to build without two specific men who kept me sane the first time. It almost trivializes their contribution to our first home to call them "subs", not to mention the trusting relationships that developed during the previous build, but I knew I couldn't rebuild without my painter and my carpenter. Any builder who wasn't willing to work w/them (for whatever reason - had their own guys, so on) wasn't going to be the right builder for us.

I posted this on the flooring forum, but didn't get any responses, so I thought I'd post it here :-) Dh and I are building a house. We are using hardwood in the main areas, carpet in the bedrooms, and are stuck on what to do with the baths and laundry room. We have always had tile, which is ok to us. We ran across a Alloc Laminate floor that resembles slate that we really like. It is commercial grade. WOuld you/have you used/seen something like this in a bath or laundry? How do you think it would hold up?

Can we add an island on top of the floating floor? I would not recommend it. How is this different than adding a heavy kitchen table or hutch on top of the floating floor? weight preventing the floor from doing as it is designed to. Alloc specifically states, "...All Alloc floors are floating products, meaning they are not fastened to the subfloor or any other fixed objects. Restricting the floor from floating will prevent it from properly expanding and contracting due to changes in temperature and humidity..." Something of that weight may prevent the floor from floating, expanding, and/or contracting with the changes in temp and humidity. Besides, how were you going to anchor the cabinet ? Were you just going to set it on the floor, hoping it does not move if someone bumps into it, causing scratches in the alloc that would require plank replacement to fix ? you cant anchor throught he alloc ... it needs to remain a floating floor. make sure you allow enough expansion space for a wet area. Here is a link that might be useful: Alloc Instalaltion

Forget these percentages that are worthless to all but the specific neighborhood they were developed from. ALWAYS start with the land value in your neighborhood and what direction the neighborhood is going. Then assess the demand for what's on it with a cool and critical eye. In many neighborhoods, especially older, still or newly desirable ones, most (sometimes almost all) of the price inflation has been in the value of land, even while the houses on them depreciate both physically and functionally (3/4 bath for the master, what master?, etc.). Many nice homes in these neighborhoods would require extensive add-ons of square footage and remodeling of existing space to meed market standards. In neighborhoods where now only the affluent can afford the land, many very nice homes are teardowns, with buyers planning to bulldoze everything on it. In neighborhoods where the land didn't appreciate much, any improvement beyond a new coat of paint might be a waste of money -- economically. Personally being an entirely different matter. In many newish outlying subdivisions the land might be all the way up to a whole $20K (from the $800/acre the developer paid), and most of the value would still be in relatively recent construction that hasn't had a chance to depreciate too much, either functionally or physically. What's the return on new kitchens over newish but boring in these neighborhood? Probably very bad, plus many of these neighborhoods are in danger of significant accelerated depreciation in future. As for your own home, ask yourself: Does your home have what buyers interested in your neighborhood are looking for? If not, what would it take to make it so? Then ask yourself, if you invest that money in the house versus investing it another direction, what would that choice gain or lose you? If you have an almost original 1890s kitchen that got new Formica on its 27" counter in the 1970s, remodeling might well be actually profitable -- IF the owner sold the house. If it's a good condition 1998 golden oak U that bores you, it could be a money sink. Depending. Don't forget to subtract depreciation if you aren't planning to sell immediately. Today's maple Shaker will be tomorrow's raised panel golden oak. Note that if a 1980s 3000 square foot home in reasonably good condition that suffers from 70% functional depreciation due to 8' ceilings, split level, and few and small bathrooms is sitting on a $220K lot, only a cheap refurbishing of the kitchen might be appropriate, the kind of thing a real estate agent trying to sell the place would do -- according to the numbers. Of course, owners for whom it's their "forever house" might strongly disagree. If you're living in a genuine old Craftsman, Southern Shotgun Colonial, Mid-Century and people are always calling and sticking offers in your mailbox to buy it for prices that get your heart fluttering, you're in a different position entirely -- economically. Odds are you're somewhere in that very broad middle and that a boring but sensible approach will serve you far better than a more exciting and promising "percentage" that suggests you can spend all you want -- offered by the very people hoping to sell you that really expensive product. Note also that I'm NOT advocating a strictly economic approach except for those who are turned on by that stuff, or really need to stick to one. This is your home you have to live in, and the value of investment in your own pleasure needs to be tossed into the pot -- my own personal approach since every choice requires tradeoff. Do I want to remodel the kitchen or tour China, or should we just put the money in the accounts we started for our grandchildren? Ex-appraiser