After looking at about a million floor plans and never finding anything that was quite what I wanted, and after trying to work with an architect and then firing him (because with each iteration of his drawings, he kept making the design bigger and bigger and getting further and further away from the relatively simple farmhouse style I had in mind!) I finally took matters into my own hands and designed my own floor-plans using the Punch! Professional CAD program.

I then took my plans to an engineering firm to have them design the foundation and check for any potential structural issues. I also asked my uncle who builds absolutely gorgeous custom homes in NC to take a look and let me know if he saw any problems with building what I had designed. (Unfortunately, I live in Texas or I would just hire my uncle to do my build because he does absolutely top-notch work AND tends to build the style home I like. Plus, my Dad would kill him if he took me to the cleaners. LOL.) With a thumb's up from both the engineering firm and my uncle, I feel confident about my floor plans but...

Now that I'm in the "specify everything" stage, I'm stymied about how to proceed. I can and have been making lists of the "surface" features I want and have tracked down info on how to figure out things like what R levels to specify for my region of the country; etc. But there is just SO much in a home that is "hidden" - all the REALLY important stuff actually! And I recognize that I don't know squat about most of it.


In searching for go-by spec sheets on the internet, everything I have come across seems to fall into one of three categories:

1. Spec sheets for commercial projects that go into massive amounts of detail on literally EVERYTHING (down to stuff like what length and type of screws to use when installing door hinges!)
   
2. Tract-home builders' so-called "specifications" lists which merely point out a few features that the builder thinks will help sell the houses (eg., hardwood and ceramic tile flooring throughout; ceiling fans; fully landscaped).
   
3. Spec sheet "forms" - usually supplied by banks/mortgagae companies that provide blanks to fill in wants/wishes about room sizes, layouts, finishes, and a few "upgrades".
   
   
   The first is overwhelming; the second totally useless; and the third asks for less info/detail that I originally supplied to my architect... and that clearly wasn't enough for him so how could it possibly enough to guide my builder?

I just know that good custom-home specs need to fall somewhere in the middle of these but I'm having a hard time figuring just how detailed I really need to be.

It would also be helpful to see exactly how other custom homeowners have worded their specs. I.e., do you just list features to be included or do you use language like "The contractor shall..."? How do you organize all the various details within the spec sheet? By room? By which subcontractor is likely to be doing the work? How do you deal with making sure that the builder goes ahead and puts in things that are standard and pretty much necessary to a house that you don't specify? In other words, for example, if you specify a particular brand and size of window be installed, do you also have to specify that it be installed per the manufacturer's installation specs so as not to waive the manufacturer's warranty?

So, this is a plea for anyone who would be willing to share even a few pages of their spec sheets with me. Email them to me at

bevangel_72 at yahoo.com

Or, better yet, if you can post a pdf of a page or two so others on this forum can use them as go-bys as well...