Thanks for the compliments on the stone. I can kind of take credit since I picked it and found the source, but I have to give most of the credit to my builder, he is truly one of a kind.

I hope noone here feels reluctant to post pictures of their new builds because some houses are larger or more expensive. I love seeing all the pictures and can appreciate even the smallest homes that are well built and thought out.

Anyway, thanks for the compliment twotogo and elizabethtontnbuild.

The stone is an Arkansas Stone from Schwartz stone in Arkansas. We paid $160 per ton deliverd(about 300 miles).
I'm not sure which trim you mean but the columns and stone around the windows is limestone. Azek and Hardie board also visible up top. Windows are Anderson.

Awe, thank you very much. It has been quite a trip, and I have loved it. For the most part, it has been pretty stress free. Most things went well and went on budget except for electrical and that has been a bit frustrating and making things tight here at the end but I won't go there now :-)

Anyways..... the fans, I will post a closer picture. They are not for everyone's taste, however it is a John Marshall design and I think their thing is they make many different themed fans.

These are called Stallion Spirt.

The upper deck has a neat fan also. It has some sailboat canvas for the blades.

I kind of went ceiling fan crazy. There are just so many neat ones. And neat lights too, my kitchen looks like the lighting department at the Home Depot. And I discovered I really love sconces too...(hmmm might have something to do with why electrical went over budget? that and 5 miles of wire, no joke) But hoping the kitchen lights look better once the island goes in. I have never had a kitchen that has had enough lights, and I think I have fixed that now :-)

Anyways, here are the fans

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Here is a link that might be useful: Our Build in Pictures

Ramor: Your facade looks great; elegant design and striking materials.

We're trying hard to be in by the end of the month but don't know if we'll make it. Still need final plumbing, hardware install, tile backsplash, touch up painting, wood floors finished, carpet, landscaping.

Well, it looks like we are within a week or two of getting the building permit!!

mitri- your house is coming along great & looks beautiful! Do you mind sharing the details about your fan and your faucet? We are making these decisions now and I love the look of yours.
GL as you finish up & can't wait to see more pictures.
Thanks.

Thanks Crescent! The faucets and soap dispensers are Danze Opulence. The smaller faucet on the left side of the main sink is a Danze Melrose bar faucet. We're going to use it for filtered drinking water. The ceiling fan is Hunter Georgetown from Lowe's. Thanks again for the kind words, and good luck to you too!

big kahuna -
is the FP wood burning and if so how is the TV fairing?

i like the freelanced pantry.. does she like the shelving units? were they more affordable than built in shelves?

the deck rails.. wow cool.. I like the clear ones but know i would hate cleaning them but thee seem invisible too, how do they price overall compared to the wood spindles or clear?

thanks mitri-hope you make it in by the end of the month!

Crazyone, Thanks, The FP is gas, ventless( 99%) efficient. She didn't want to mess with wood /mess. It was also less $ than vented. No chimney /flue etc needed. She loves the shelves..with plastic shelf liners. Likes flexiblity and ability to move them out. Cost was about $75-$95 at Sam's, Lowes etc Its 6'x10'I believe so 4 racks. Never priced built ins. Rails again werent priced against spindles but Im sure cheaper for them. Cable rails are more but it depends on the design and layout. I had all the individual turnbuckles at all thos columns. Some designs can cut those down alot. They were about $15/each on ebay staore. Cable was about $.60/lf. We also had alumninum mid posts made and powder coated (Not cheap) But the look was important and the clear view with no cleaning glass. It has a bit of a nautical feel that I also like for lakefront designs. Railing cap is IPE.

kahuna- interesting FP.. DH loves building and cleaning the real wood so we are good on that and i love watching it.. my concern was for TV since windows are on either side but will look into that later.

yes your cables are very nautical.. the design is lovely. I wasn't something to look nice on the ranch wrap around but not heavy looking wood if I could avoid.. but also not the high end price of the glass.. and really can it ever be no clean? :-)

Crazyone, Now if you are doing a woodburning FP you might look at this one..

http://www.renaissancefireplaces.com/en/renaissance-rumford-1000

I have yet to price it and Im sure its a bit expensive but has some great features and Im guessing really heats well as Rumford styles are known for. They have some great demo videos on the site. Good Luck

i'm here! first of all, it's so exciting to see everyone's progress! it's given me hope that we too will catch up and finally begin to move beyond a snail's pace. as you all probably know, the north atlantic region was hit hard this winter and we saw the kind of snow that only comes around every ten or fifteen years. i think our total was somewhere over 42" which is a major big deal for NJ. of course it took quite a while for it all to melt ...and then came the rain. moving around the exterior of the build is impossible since it's more like quicksand than mud; one of my legs was swallowed up just below the knee so even though our stone has arrived it's still at the warehouse. as we move into april i'm not holding up a lot of hope we'll see it go up anytime soon since we are still expecting our spring rain. i don't think the nor'easter we just went through counts. one (sort of) good thing to come from it was it took down TWO of our 100' trees at the root that were slated to go down anyway. we are incredibly lucky (not to mention grateful) they fell AWAY from the house! the storm also did us the favor of taking down a multitude of branches from the very tops of the remainder of trees that we would have had to address. so we're looking at recent weather as simple spring cleaning.
so: our glorious trim is up and (almost) finished and as of today we are finally insulated and 'ROCKED! it's nice to see all the spaces and to be able to experience the "flow" of the house. i need to do some last minute additions to the electrical and the plumber needs to come back and change out the standard drains he installed earlier to kerdi system drains. i've made my toilet selections (big fun!) and everything is moving; still slowly, but surely!
i need to show you all the rear of the house but as mentioned, it's impossible to move around out there. it was a gorgeous spring day today and if the weather remains cooperative i will post back again. send good vibes for sun, please... continued good luck to everyone!

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Our architectural review board gave approval to proceed over the weekend. The builder plans to clear the lot this week & excavate next week. WOOT!!!!!!

Thanks for all the support over the past (nearly) two years time. We're getting there.

Jo Ann

I love your house kateskouros. Looks like you are at a similar stage to my build. I haven't ordered any toilets yet but I did order a couple of whirlpool tubs yesterday.

I really like the way your upstairs windows are cased and look forward to seeing more pics, especially after you get the stone work completed.

Kateskourous...Sweeeeeeeeeeet house. Thats gonna be fantastic. Cant wait to see more... That damn mud will dry up soon I'm sure! Jo Ann it's about damn time! Get thing moving... Just kidding glad to hear progress is being made. Let the fun begin!

We are just in the planning stages of our build! We haven't even touched the land yet, but here it is...

17.4 acres, primarily wooded except a slight clearing (how convenient) where our house will be. We're so excited...and of course a bit overwhelmed! Luckily there is not too much snow left, so we can start clearing soon.

Kate - thanks for posting the pix. The Nichiha looks wonderful! We're going to have similar trim under two window sets in our front, so it is good to see how nice something similar looks. I just wanted to say that I think your actual house looks much better than the rendering you posted from the architect what seems like ages ago. Your house just looks so much more "homey", in such a good way, than those early glimpses of what it would be.

DH & I have often observed that the artistic renderings one sees on a plan mill site usually look so much better than the photos of the house when it is actually built. With bigkahuna's girlfriend's house, there is a very different effect going from the rendering to the photo of the house, above. Its like "reality" becomes hyper-reality which is even better because the shadows are real and the trees and the lake in the distance. It feels like what was in the 3D rendering is what was actually built, but it is even better.

Enough quirky observations. So glad to see the progress being made by everyone in spite of the horrendous weather this winter.

thanks everyone for the nice comments. i have to say i'm thrilled with the nichiha and a little proud of myself for sticking to my guns about using it. both our architect along with the builder were pushing for hardi and somewhere along the way my husband even sided with them. -not that hardi isn't a great application but i knew as soon as the nichiha samples came in it would be perfect for this house. funny how as soon as it started going up all the boys were standing around patting themselves on the back for making such a great choice in materials. it was hilarious! now they're all recommending it to other clients. what is it with these guys??

but anyway, i do know what you mean drjoann. while large, i would like to think the house has a very welcoming feel to it. thanks again for compliments. i can't wait to see pics of your build; it's very exciting in the beginning. enjoy it before heading into the "tired and emotionally drained" phase! bigkahuna: i could stare at glimpses of your lakefront home all day. so please post more pics!

Slow going as we are doing most of the work ourselves. Finished the Advantec on roof and hired out the metal roof. Husband built chimney and applied cobblestone. french door in, windows almost all in. Interior partitions done. But, what color to make this house? Any Ideas?

Here is a link that might be useful: House Progress

Hello Everyone!
We are in the "waiting for prices from builder and hoping it is in our price range" stage. I am so emotionally invested at this point that I will be crushed if it doesn't work out.

All of the houses shown here look wonderful! Congratulations to all and here's to a productive Spring!

Kate, I love the look of that Nichiha, but I am concerned because there is not even a distributor in our state (there is one from a neighboring state that is covering us). Need to do some checking on that. Sounds like your installer had no experience with it but seemed to do fine installing it?

drjoann, I am very interesed in your comments. I too have noticed that the renderings often look so great and then when I look at the photos the house doesn't look very good - sort of plain and uninspiring. It has worried me! I am looking at a 2D drawing of our design at this point, so I am hoping that mine would look much better in real life like you mentioned about kate's and bigkahuna's girlfriend's houses. Interesting observations!

pps7, I really love the look of your house - can't wait to see it progress.

polkadots: the builder had never heard of it. the guys were so thrilled with it when they finally began installing. they said it's much easier to work with than the other products since it doesn't bend at all, so less breakage. it really is beautiful in person!

Very first picture of something actually, physically being done:

Builder sent this from his cell phone with the message "And it begins ....."

Yeehaw!

Jo Ann.... I can almost smell the fresh dirt being moved! Good luck and enjoy the ride!

Congrats, Jo Ann! You finally are under way. I hope you'll keep the pictures coming.

Everybody is looking good, making progress despite the crummy weather. Spring is right around the corner (tomorrow, actually) and the weather seems to be finally cooperating, at least for some.

I had a mild panic attack, this AM, when I realized that something irrevocable was actually happening. At work, we have a phrase "Paralysis by Analysis" & as a project manager I've often had to tell the designers, "This is it; we have to cut metal if we ever want to fly." Well, I've finally had to let go of all of the pieces of paper and simulations and say, "This is it; they have to move dirt & pour concrete if we ever want to live in this house."

Last Sunday, when we heard that we had Architectural Review Board approval, I bought a battle of bubbly, but we haven't popped it, yet. Tonight's the night. I'm gonna cut loose in more ways than one. ;^>

congratulations drjoann! since we're living on site i personally loathe when the 'dozers start moving dirt around. that's when the snakes move into our garage. ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

KATE!!!! From one Jersey Girl (Elizabeth -> Hoboken -> East Hill Englewood -> Houston, TX) to another .... thank you. I was so nostalgic when I saw the sandy soil in the pictures when you first broke ground. I've lived with Gulf Coast gumbo (a type of soil) for 20 years and now I'm going to red dirt. I think that I'm going to put terra cotta colored porcelain tile in the mudroom just to hide the red dirt of the Upstate. ;^)

Jo Ann

P.S. Love the wallpaper for your laundry room. I'm going to do my laundry room in the colors of those white towns on the Greek coast ... cobalt blue, turquoise sea and white ... aaahhhhhh.

P.P.S. - I asked on the Kitchen Forum, but can you please tell me where you got that 48" Capital at that price point? Boy, that is the way to go. What a deal, I tells ya!

sorry, i didn't see you posted back to me about the range. i bought all the appliances from the same store so i'm sure that helped. i took possession of most of them several months ago (actually about a year ago!) to avoid any further price increases. the warranty doesn't go into effect until install though. here is the info. if you want to email me i'll forward my quote sheet.
michelabelle@yahoo.com

Top Line Appliance Center (i went through the roselle store)
576 North Ave East
Westfield NJ,07090
www.toplineapl.com
908-232-5200 ext 28
Fax # 908-232-5201
NEW LOCATION - 3.5% Sales Tax
150 West 1st Ave
Roselle NJ 07203
908-298-0400
Fax: 908-298-0401
"2 miles off the GSP"

All of your homes look great. We met with the builder last night for final plans so will get started soon.
Gopintos - can I ask where you got your stallion spirit fan? I did a search and can't find it. My daughter is a barrel racer and would LOVE that fan. I even looked on ebay.
Anyway. everyone batten down the hatches. We're fixin to get some back weather in Texas.
Sunny

Kate - thanks for the info. There is no Capital distributor in the Carolinas, so if I want one, I guess it will have to come from ATL or up north. - Jo Ann

Congrats to everyone on their progress!!

Sunnny - I can't find the fan on ebay anymore either, but I did find it on Bob Villa's site.

http://www.bobvila.com/SmartBuys/Outdoor_Ceiling_Fans-Fans-Lighting-1.html

I didn't look anymore so you might be able to find it elsewhere also. It is a John Marshall fan.

I posted in another thread, I have taken a bath in my new house :-) We moved our bed so my husband said that makes it official, we have moved in.

It isnt 100% complete, but it is finished enough. I wanted to be able to get everything out of the rental and have time to get that cleaned back up. I thought I kept a sort of tidy home, but when you move, you see what kind of slobs you really are :-)

anyways, we have one completely working bathroom. Kitchen has f&f working, the microwave isnt hooked up but using a countertop one that goes elsewhere later. I dont cook alot anyways but wanted to try to do better. I bought one of these nuwave oven things and tried it last night and I think I am going to like it.

Okay so anyways, we have a new old address again. It is great to be back home. We have been gone for over a year and it feels almost like we never left, like we have always lived in this house.

It will probably take another month to finish the inside, and the outside.... who knows when we will get around to everything but I figure we have the rest of our lives to work on it.

Thanks for all the great ideas and advice. I have spent countless hours on here, and it made all the difference for our new home.

I have lots of decorating to do now, even though I have little style and little budget left, but here are a few shots I took just because I had to take some pictures. I have bought a few pieces, probably plenty but I am afraid to put anything on the nice new walls :-P

Master Bedroom
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One of the Guest Bedrooms (with our niece and granddaughters in mind)
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Main floor Bathroom
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Here is a link that might be useful: Our Home Page

Gapintos,

I love the tub in your master bath. I've never seen anything like it.

Congratulations to all who are starting their builds and to all the lucky people who just moved into their new homes! I'm still 6 weeks away. My wood floors were down as of Friday and will be sanded, stained and finished next week. The tiler has all of my bathroom floors tiled, but not grouted. My cabinets and appliances are sitting in the garage.

So close but yet so far. Hopefully this week there will be something pretty finished to take pictures of.

bigkahuna,
Do you have a picture of the exterior deck stairs showing the cable rail? If you do, could you please post it?
Thanks
I love the Ipe (I knew it as guayacan - when little). I used it many years ago for a kitchen countertop; it's a very heavy and dense wood and I am pretty sure your girfriend will love the color when it ages.

One of our neighbors sent this picture to us from this morning. Apparently, some of the "rogue" turkeys who live in our neighborhood are really enjoying the insects and grubs being turned up by the earth moving equipment.

Here is a link that might be useful: Can't wait until T-day?

Wow! That's pretty cool. I can't wait to see what crawls out of the woods up at our place. The neighbor said bears are seen from time to time(!) We have a big hollow tree with a number of BIG holes about 15-20 feet off the ground- I'm curious as to what lives in there. Other than birds and squirrels, the only wildlife we've seen at our place was..... a box turtle.

I know there are deer and critters that can eat our little doggies. YIKES! Proximity to Paris Mtn provides refuge for lots of wildlife. OTOH, I heard from neighbors that some of them are feeding the "wild" turkeys so the flock has gotten pretty big. An abandoned pet peacock was trying to muscle in with the turkeys but they were less than impressed with him. Poor guy.

Hey, there's a llama ranch up your direction which is within cycling distance of me w/o crossing the highway. I hope they will let me come and pet the llamas. I LOVE llamas! They're so Zen - they walk around humming "OM". (Can't have a herd of llamas because of restrictions on livestock and can't have one as a "pet" because they emotionally need to be part of a herd.)

Well, on March 1, we had half a slab that had been sitting since mid-January. The weather finally broke March 2, and on March 4, they installed the steel above-ground tornado shelter- aka-DH's closet. By March 25, first Fire Rock fireplace was being installed and framing almost finished!

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bigkahuna
beautiful house. i have question about your walk in closet lighting. i was told to comply with code the lighting had to be completely closed, no chandeliers or open lighting. how did you get around that?

Great post. I loved reading about everyone's progress. Bigkahuna, I love the decking, that wood is gorgeous!
I've mostly been hanging out in the kitchen and bath forums. Our siding is going up and interior walls are being prepared for paint. I'll post pics when I get a chance.

After nearly six months of slogging through the mud, we finally poured the roof on our earth sheltered house March 8. Framing starts next week. I hope, I hope. :o)

joann: stay away from the turkeys! seriously, those guys are NASTY. stupid, but really fierce! there was a flock congregating in the middle of the road i was driving and i had to wait a good TEN MINUTES for them to take their party to the side. i thought about getting out to herd them out of the way but then remembered others' warnings. so annoying. they wouldn't budge and i didn't want to get turkey guts all over my fender. (!)

After lurking around here for almost two years, I can finally say we are starting our new house! In December of '07, we decided to build. Getting our property ready to build on was a challenge, to say the least. My husband's dad and aunt owned land that was inherited by his grandparents. We decided to buy my father-in-law's half of this property. My husband and his grandparents were extremely close, so this whole process has been very sentimental for him. Anyway, when his grandmother passed away in 2000, his dad and aunt did absolutely nothing with her home and property. The house finally deteriorated to the point where it was beyond repair, so it had to be torn down. His grandfather was a hoarder, but hoarded things like old cars, tires, equipment, small outbuildings--you name it, he dragged it home and dumped it. We took it upon ourselves to clean everything up by ourselves and it took about a year and a half of weekends to demolish the house and have all the junk hauled off. It was a huge, frustrating mess. People thought we were crazy for taking on the job. Finally, the property was ready to build on and turned out beautiful. We still needed to have it surveyed and split in half, so we hired a surveyor. Turns out, the last time the property was surveyed (in 1942), it was done wrong. The surveyor could not get the boundaries to line up correctly with our neighbors, and it took him 4 months to figure everything out. In the meantime, we drew up our house plans and found a builder. Finally, everything was done, the property was split and put in our name, and we were ready to build. We went ahead and paid to have all the dirt work done so the pad could settle for a few weeks. We were literally 2 days away from starting the house when we found out we were in the planning zone for our nearest big city (Fort Worth, Tx). We were 10-15 miles outside the Ft. Worth city limits, and not even in the same county, but we were in their planning district. As such, we had to follow the rules of the Ft. Worth zoning commission, who required us to plat the property and dedicate the first 30 feet of our entire piece of property for future expansion of the road. Essentially, we had to give them a total of a quarter of an acre! Had my husband's family acted upon a exemption clause a few years ago, we would not have had to do this. However, their procrastination and laziness got the best of them and the clause expired. Back to the surveyors office! It took him another month to plat the property and we submitted it to the city offices. They took another month and a half to approve it. Two weeks ago, everything was finally signed, stamped, and filed. Our dirt pad has settled VERY WELL by now! While all this was going on, our lumber estimate decreased by over $7000, the fabulous framer and foundation guy who were previously unavailable are now available and scheduled, so I have to believe that the timing just wasn't right back then. Everything happens for a reason, no? Anyway, our builder delivered our temporary electric pole yesterday, we're meeting with the bank this week, and we couldn't be happier for everything to finally begin! Our builder says we will be moved in by the time school starts in late August, if not a few weeks earlier. SO EXCITED!!

Martaelena, Sorry I didnt see your post before... There is no stair down from the deck. I had originally designed it with a spiral stairs down. However she decided with a bar a few doors down on the lake she didnt want possible drunks stumbling up the stairs or the lost security she felt with it. It was laso cheaper to exclude. Several others in the area did the same so she followed their lead. Oh well. It would have looked great !

Blondie, Not sure if it makes a difference since there is an island in the room and the size of the room. I didnt worry about it in this case since we didnt have isnpections in the rural area.

Sherwhy, Thanks..The deck is Ipe if you are not familiar with it. They have a ton of info on porch and deck forum if you are interested.

Look what these guys went and did to our lot, yesterday!

Our neighbor sent us this picture along with some others of very impressive equipment.

That's a thing of beauty, Jo Ann!

Thanks, Jay. That is some red dirt we've got. I plan to tile the mudroom & screened porch with porcelain tile that looks like red saltillo out self-defense. LOL!

Jo Ann

Jo Ann, You better get out there and keep an eye on them...doesn't look like they can keep things straight. Looks like just a bunch of corners.

Glad to see your getting things started..good luck

bigkahuna - ummmmm .... one of the reasons I've never posted a plan (besides the fact that DH doesn't want me to - don't ask) is that there are a "few" corners. I knew I'd get an earful about how expensive it would be to build. Well, we're OK with what it is costing us and the window seat in the guest BR and the half octagons that are the breakfast banquette and my Master BR sitting area are so damned cute that it is worth it. ;^D

Love the Ipe on your GF's deck & hope you keep us abreast of how it holds up. We're doing Ipe on our modestly sized rear deck. Trex would have been an upcharge and now, we'll have beautiful wood. Managed to work natural stone veneer rather than manufactured into the budget, as well, by removing heaps of it from places that only the turkeys (wild ones, not our neighbors) would see it. LOL!

Thanks for the good wishes - Jo Ann

Just kidding about the corners.. Although they do add cost, sometimes they are required to get the look and feel you want.

The Ipe should last about 50 years so I'm not worried. You do have to treat it to keep its best look but thats life with natural materials. Look into Woodrich for that. They seem to have a nice product. We need to get my GF some ordered and get it treated this spring. She prefers the rich deep brown look.