The biggest news is that we have paint on the outside! It is a cloudy day and it changes in the sun - the pictures of the back are closer to what it looks like in real life. It is Farrow and Ball Stony Ground.

Front

Friends Porch

Window showing trim color

Back

Screened porch - the ceiling has tongue and groove on it (it is vaulted) and the wood is for a stone fireplace going out there

Laundry sink

Mudroom lockers

My pocket office

Kitchen marble

View from front door through den

Dining room

Basement bar

"Trying to get the floor plan right. please tell me thats the hardest part! wow...what a headache already"

wow tell me about it. were already arguing over layout, cost, pros vs cons, who gets which room, linoleum vs. travertine,.....

Our ideas get better but the plan gets lagrger and I'm already down about $30k with the latest revision. ouch.

Here is the view of the back of the house.
Wing walls just got poured. Taking forms off Monday.

athensmomof3...what material are your laundry cabinets built out of? Are they painted wood or another material? Beautiful home you have going on there!!

We've made TONS of progress in the last month. Hope to get over there to take some pics tomorrow. Then I'll post my update!

Hi everyone!

Our build is just getting under way. We're building a post and beam house with Western Red Cedar logs. Our contractor is applying for our building permit this week. Demolition will start soon and we should break ground by the end of the month (still have a foot of snow here!). I really appreciate all the help I've gotten from GW so far!

We actually live on our property (we'll building a 2nd house) so we should be able to keep a close eye on things. Here's our driveway which I love!

And here's some of our log beams being assembled off site. These will support the loft level.

Here's part of our 1km of riverfront.
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Spring is on the way and maybe we'll have a bunch of new builds starting!
Eliz, its nice to see such a unique house! Love the roof lines and the way it sits on your land!
Athens you chose a great color! And your porches looks awsome!
Wow Kramer!! Three levels! What a beautiful home!

As for us, we FINALLY are getting our standing seam roof installed! It has been 10 months since we began construction. The porch across the rear really slowed down the roof to say the least!

We've got the interior electric all in place and plumbing run also. Alarm wiring run and just waiting for the roof to be finished before finally getting to insulate.... maybe next month I'll be showing some sheetrock!

Link to the blog is at the end of the post too
Front View: Roof going on...

View of the rear: 10' deep timberframe porch across back and sides really makes it look huge

Here is a link that might be useful: More info on the blog

athensmom - I love the paint color! Everything looks great. quick question for you - is that the Certainteed Moire Black roof? (I been looking at old threads, and just wanted to confirm that's what you went with) I want a dark dark gray..but not quite black...even color throughout, and this may fit that...

So fun to see all these houses go up all across the country!

The paint color was very hard. We have clad windows that we thought were cream but they had an undertone that made them very hard to work with. Everything that went well with them we hated! It looks different on my monitor than it does in real life, but I can see where they painted the trim around the window that it will look good when the plastic is off the windows, the trim is painted and the copper gutters are up. We are doing shutters across the top so that is another question!

Yes, Andi K - that is certainteed moire black on the roof. We wanted a very dark gray with very little color variation. It fits the bill. It looks black in some light (i.e., no light), and medium gray in others. I like the consistency of color though.

And yes the laundry cabinets (and all the cabinets) are painted wood. . . we found a great cabinetmaker and were incredibly happy with the quality/finish of the cabinets.

@Bave - Hang in there...design takes time - gotta make sure you nail that! And yes, far to easy to have sq. ft. creep - we did by about 1000 sq. ft.

@Athens- beautiful home - love the cabinets!

@gbsim - we are doing a metal roof - great to see yours.

We are finalizing or plan right now. We own our lot and should be getting ready to get started soon. It's exciting to see a couple of others around the same stage!

Laura, your property looks great. Love the driveway and your riverfront.

Athens, what color are your cabs? Do they match your trim?

Well I didn't realize I missed posting in February, but having a newborn and building a home (and working full-time) is a much larger undertaking than I was prepared for!! So we are in the drywall stage! The mother-in-law unit has all the drywall and the main house is getting up this weekend. We also got our knotty pine soffits in place. And our son's secret door to his hidden play space under the stairs is getting figured out. We met with the finish carpenter to go over all the trim. We are still having a hard time getting cabinets for a good price. Anyone know of any cabinet makers in the pacific northwest please let me know! Here are some pics, but if you want to see more you can check out my blog where I have more detail. First pic is my son Harry who is 2 months now. He's just so darn cute :)
Thanks!
Shannon

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Here is a link that might be useful: Let's Build a Home

The cabinets are velvet white, an older Porter Paint color that they can still mix up. The trim is *supposed* to be the same color but the paint store didn't do a good job. They are matching it to the cabinets for the final coat. We have had a terrible time with the requested paint not matching the swatches . . . The dining room is the wrong color too! That too will be fixed when we do the final coats.

We have sheetrock done...FINALLY. All doors and windows are in...so it's finally warm in there. Taping/texturing starting today. They will start prepping the master shower on Thursday. They have to grind the concrete to make it a roll in shower. Should have cabinets installed by the end of March! A little bit of siding to finish now that all the doors are in. Here's some progress pics...

It's getting now to where I'm thinking of things I wish I had done or not done, or better ideas for the floor plan, but too late to change it all now. In hindsight this house would have a much different floor plan! But, its going to be beautiful and have all the space we need, plus some. So I can't complain! Is it sad that I already have remodeling ideas?!?!?!? lol Can you believe I FORGOT to have my fridge recessed? Totally kicking myself for that!

LauraJane, your setting is gorgeous. I was thinking deep south when I saw all of the green but you said you have snow, so I guess those were summer photos.

GraceShan, what a cute baby your Harry is! Enjoy the moments! And you're building a beautiful home.

Nikki, I envy you for being at the sheetrock stage... one day I'll be there! Sorry about your fridge... but is it really too late?

graceshan - harry is soooo cute! i keep coming back to just look at his sweet little smile. i miss my boys being that little and snuggly! The house is looking great!

Thanks everyone for your sweet comments about Harry! I never even imagined how fun and rewarding being a mom would be... and I just love it :) Just can't wait until the house is done and we can move out of this top floor apartment. Tired of hauling the stroller up 3 flights of stairs and hauling laundry down 4 flights to the w/d units. Getting old really fast!

Nikki, looks like we are pretty much at the same stage in the building process. I found a couple mistakes over the weekend that need to be fixed (including windows off center!). Seems like they should be able to fix your fridge?

Our Preliminary drawings are very close to be completed. Just some minor tweaks and we should start our construction set soon!

secured funding with the bank, now time to list our current home and start this one going soon. My home blog and plan is linked.

Here is a link that might be useful: home blog

gbism....oh, I've had that envy of others for MONTHS!! Now my envy is of those who are near moving in!

For the fridge...well, it's too late to move the wall. I realized it right after the electrical and plumbing was done. Plus to move that wall, would throw it off from the wall across the doorway (the fridge is right next to a doorway)...if that makes sense. It's a change in the wall that would affect other walls, so that change should have been made in the planning stages. Probably not impossible, but right now we'd have to rip out sheetrock, plumbing, electrical, and figure out how to make it look good with the doorway there. So, easier to just leave it alone...plus I don't want to delay things any more! I might see if the cabinet maker can make the fridge panel deeper, but not sure how that will look on the counter side of the fridge. My fridge is stainless, but the sides are gray. I might look into painting the sides black if it looks too bad.

I think making the panels thicker will look nice. I don't know how much room you need but you can do all sorts of things without taking down the wall like removing the sheetrock behind the fridge and turning the studs sideways behind the fridge. This may not give you as much room as you need but could gain you several inches. . .

We turned the studs sideways in the walls of our master shower to give us some extra room and it made a huge difference!

Making lots of progress. Dodge yet more tornadoes last week and after losing our house last year, can't help but be a little nervous about the weather. Here's progress so far:

I wanna be where many of you are - breaking ground, building and getting close to final! We have final elevations and floorplans - now on the construction drawings. So exciting!

That's quite a house, michelle. I'm sure it will be amazing.

gbsim ~ those pics were from last June. We're building in Southern BC.

Michelle ~ Wow, impressive house!

dnilsen - Glad to see y'all are making progress and I hope things are going smoothly. Tornado missed our land by less then a mile, again. ICF (concrete) for the new house is no longer an option, but a requirement, we've decided.

We're coming up on a year of trying to sell our house - just lowered the price to what we paid for it. We are probably going to talk to our builder this weekend. We're hoping to start getting a few things done while we continue to wait - work towards finalized floor plans, narrow down financing, etc - anything we can do now that will save time later for if/when this house ever sells.

@Michelle-Look at all those windows! I'm going to love watching your progress. It's going to be amazing!!

It feels great to finally be able to post here! Our home site has been changed and we couldn't be happier with the new location. We have the basement blocked and treated. Framing starts Monday due to more rain headed our way. We have our electricity and water ran to the land. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's progress and posting my own. Harry is adorable!~Abby

Rear View:

Front View:

Walk-out Basement:

Storm Room:

Basement:

Walk-Out View:

Here is a link that might be useful: My attempt to blog... :)

@Graceshan - OMGosh, your little guy is ADORABLE!

To all - thanks so much for the kind comments on our plans - we wanted lots of glass to take in the vistas from almost every point of our corner lot.

Have a wonderful evening.

M

Well, drywall started going up yesterday. Very cool to watch, but I have to say, it feels so weird not being able to look through the walls anymore!

They did a tray ceiling in the dining room, which we didn't ask for (or pay for) because I'm not a huge fan of them. I'm not sure if we should just leave it or not?

My husband and I are building our 3100 sq foot, 1.5 story home in MI on 20 acres in a country setting. We broke ground August 2011 and hope to move in around August 2012. They are currently working on the siding while HVAC (geothermal) is being done on the inside. The house has a full walk-out basement with a covered deck on the back. The current picture is not the best quality so I will try to add more later.

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Hey Khall10!!

It's good to see you again. The weather here has been such a big issue the last couple of years, and I think you guys would be good to go with the ICF. The area under our front porch is a storm shelter/safe room. Lots of rebar and concrete. We are not taking any chances. I hope you can get started soon. I can't wait to see what you all build. We are hoping to be in our house by June of this year. I was afraid when this last batch of tornadoes went through because there were many people that rebuilt and had just gotten in their houses and then lost them again. I just cannot imagine going through all of that again. Although ours was lightening......I have a new respect for the weather.

Here are a couple nicer pictures. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the siding color and trim colors, as it took me a little while to grow to love the combination once it was on the house. There will be ledgestone on both sides of the porch in Chardonnay.

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Andi_k that's one of the prettiest house lots I've seen in a LONG time. I'd have a nice garden spot out there somewhere:)

SMPop, I love the contrast of the shake and siding. I think the chardonnay will go prefect with it. Are you putting stone on the front grade of porch and, if so how much? I know exactly what you mean about growing to love....it's your every thought and want it to be perfect. I am going crazy picking our stone out. We have harbor grey siding and did a peak of rugged canyon and I can't make my final decision on stone color. I don't want it to be too too grey and don't think a tan will go with it!!! What company for ledgestone are you going with?

Thanks Annicade!Yes, we are putting the stone on the porch and on all sides of the house on any exposed block. The country ledgestone we picked is from Owens Corning. We went to a showroom shortly after breaking ground to chose our style/color and have based all the other exterior decisions on that. Good luck- I hope you find something you like!

Jon_Dear - thanks so much~ we searched for about 3-4 years to find it and we absolutely love it! We are the last ones to build in this little area, so nothing else will end up behind us or on either side (there's actually one house about 500ft away on one side of our house, but that's the closest one)

Here are some shots of the framing progress the past couple weeks....

View from kitchen banquette windows....

Here is a link that might be useful: more pics online

All of your homes here are so lovely and I'm so impressed with your views and locations of your building sites. Love seeing all the different builds from around the country---but the BEST build on this thread is HARRY!!

My husband and I found and purchased our 2 acre building site in February. Have selected our builder and our 3720 sq ft floor plan and have signed the deal and made deposits. Building permits were applied for in February---just waiting!! We're meeting with the project manager this morning to discuss siting, driveway/access and garage door orientation (working on doing a side entry). Have been to the builder's design center and decided on most of the interior selections. Trying to decide on exterior paint colors, shakes, and stone. Kind of stumped but I know it will come. Breaking ground soon!!!!!! Can't wait!!

All brick and stone on! Hope to start drywall in the next couple days.

I know this is fairly common, but I love the way they kick out every other brick at the top!

As I have stated on another thread, we are having drainage issues. Below is our "pool" that really wasn't planned!! LOL!!

Things are beginning to dry out now with the help of a sump pump and warm weather! YEA!!!!!

Hope to post framing updates next month!!
Love all the different pics of the stages everyone is in!!

So, I'm feeling lazy re: uploading/posting pics, but here's the link with updates of our framing progress...

Here is a link that might be useful: pics

Haven't Posted any pics in quite sometime. We are finished with drywall and paint. Trim is going in along with tile and finishing touches on electrical. Hope to get power moved from the temporary power pole to the house next week. Bathroom and laundry room cabinets should be in by end of this week (fingers crossed!) or maybe next week. Need to get flooring ordered and a thousand other things that I cant remember! Does anybody else feel like for every one thing that gets taken care of ten more pop up that you hadn't thought about!!!

Here are some pics

front elevation

My columns I built

Rear Elevation

Love the "Coastal Crown Molding"

Living view to out back

Master bedroom with alternating stripes of flat and satin paint. This took me forever! But so worth it.

Floor tile down in Master Bath

Sewing/Laundry Room

Upstairs Door being painted

Stripes for our soon to be second son's room. These took significantly less time than the master bedroom! Practice!

MichelleDt your house plan looks AMAZING!!!

cbusmomof3 I agree about the not being able to look through the walls! I had to go back and look at framing pictures this weekend and everything looks so different!

Hope to have slab poured on 3/29. Slowly, but surely. The view is worth the wait. Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii.

What a difference three weeks makes! Here are our latest pictures .....
View of the house as you drive up (actually the back of the house)

Front of the house, plus the garage:

Entertainment center in the Living room - with high efficiency wood burning fireplace:

This is the most fun--beautiful homes and stories from all over the country--and a precious baby! We started our build in November, and should be finished in June or July. I'm astounded at how quickly things have moved, but being in Texas and in town means things have worked in our favor. Our new home is just down the street from my kid's schools so I get to check in daily, such a plus! This is our first build, but we are long time lookers! We are building a Spanish style 1 story on 2 1/2 acres. It was important to me that the house be unique and a real reflection of our style and taste. We are having a great time, but wow--lots of decisions involved--I keep finding myself unable to make a choice because I'm afraid it might be wrong! Driving my DH slightly nuts, but hoping it is all worth it in the end. Will post pics in just a few--have to figure out how to do so first. Thanks to all for sharing all your advice, lessons learned, and beautiful pics.

We hope to be closing May 1st, so ours is moving right along. I'm limited on pics though as the kids play on my phone when we walk through the house and I never remember to take my regular camera, just my cell phone camera.
Exterior:

Living Room with laundry room door/hallway to back right and basement door open on left

Dining room from eating area/kitchen

Dining room

The fun part is starting for us! I stopped by today and the cabinets were being installed. He'd just set the vanities but the kitchen cabinets were all out of their boxes and I was very pleased. We're doing a two tone kitchen and I've been fretting about how the stained cabinets would look...and I love them!! Yay! I didn't have my camera with me so I can't post pictures but I can get some tomorrow at the interior trim walkthrough.

Tile and trim is supposed to start this week and they are templating for the granite on Friday as well.

Over the last month, we've kind of become the "squeaky wheel" and things seem to be much more organized and efficient :-)

Finally figured out how to post photos:

Things are a little dusty, but progress is being made!

cvtxmama - is the floor stained concrete? It's beautiful; can you explain how it was done?

Yes, it is stained concrete. On the arabesque pattern, they created a template and carved around it. On these other two photos the guy--really an artist--freehanded the design, carved it out and stained by hand. It turned out better than I ever imagined--just incredibly unique.

The scrollwork is in the entry, the medallions down a hall, the game room has a checkerboard with scattered scrollwork, and the arabesque is in the great room. Again, it is still dusty--they covered it back up to finish construction then will return for touchups and a final coat.

Yay! I finally get to play in this thread! I got pictures today of my hole in the ground. Those of you who are building will appreciate how exciting this is.

Last summer, I got our barn built on our acreage in SC, then headed back to FL to wait out the winter weather. A pop-up camper is not the place to be in the winter! As luck would have it, my old employer was more than happy to have me back for 4 months, so I enjoyed the warm FL weather and re-charged the bank account. I'll get back to work on our property in a couple weeks. Meanwhile, the excavation contractor has taken out the trees and dug the hole.

The house is going to be a small, single-story Craftsman bungalow, all ICF. We're building on a walk-out basement, so there is plenty of expansion space should we ever need it. The goal is to have a super-efficient empty nest for our retirement years, not that far away now. Hopefully, I'll be a 'regular' on this thread from now on, although I don't have internet access, so it will be sporadic.