Hello All,
We are starting on our journey of knocking down our 1963 house and building a new one. I could not be more excited, I grew up in this house and am moving back in by building a new one to care and live with my parents.
We are going to build a house with around 3500 sqft on 2 levels and unfinished basement. We are in Northern Virginia. After surfing the web for over 2 months we have come up with a layout that should serve our family well. We should pick an architect soon and intend to start the project in August/September with next spring move in.

Our situation is unique in the sense that instead of using a builder, we will be working with a very very close family friends of ours who retired from house building industry after 2007 bust but will do the project for us. He worked for your Ryan homes of the world for over 25 yrs and has put up over 500 houses in his life. He know his game and has the relationships but is not very up to speed with new energy efficiency, materials etc. and I plan to fill that knowledge gap.
Our idea is catch the low hanging fruits to maximize our bang for the buck and build a house that is better than the cardboard houses that are going up all around us. We will be doing a 2x6 construction with TJI Joists.
Where should I start reading up? I will be back with a ton of questions in few weeks!