Thank you @tiadonald Good luck with your new home. I would say if you want anything other than what they "normally do it" make sure they fully understand exactly what you want. Don't leave anything to chance. We have finished our build. We took a design with the floor plan I basically liked and modified it (a lot!) I did the interior. My husband acted as contractor, and we had a great build contractor that did the build to my husbands requirements as we wanted our home to be very energy efficient. So we have double studded walls, spray foam insulation,on demand tankless recirculating hot water system with a push button demand system at each sink. This modification saves having to run the water until the hot water reaches the point of use. We installed an energy efficient mini split air condition/heat pump unit. We do not have traditional duct work in our home. ( not needed) we have installed a heat fireplace and transfer fans in the walls to move air if needed for temp control. We did not use it at all this winter. There are many other features that make our home energy efficient. Our energy dean is low compared to a regular build. I really love the way our home lives. We did have a few issues with our plumber, tile installer, ( we actually wound up doing almost half the tile ourselves) and cabinet maker but we are really enjoying our home. It is a work in progress with decor but, Here are some pics of the results:

Ah, honaleea, I see it now. There you are in an empty room, 11 x 14, with no furniture, sleeping on the floor. Maybe we could help you if you could give us a rough sketch of the room, showing doors, windows, and closets. If the ceiling is other than a normal flat ceiling, we need to know. Do you really have NO furniture? Is there a budget? Is there an Ikea near you, and that's a very important question, so please don't forget to answer it! Where do you like to shop? What colors do you like?

I am a single mom of three awesome kids and I always dreamed of moving my kids to a small town, owning a charming old fixer-upper, doing most the repairs myself or with my kids and growing old in it, so we moved to the mid-West and purchased a home built in the late 1800’s... I now wish we had stayed in our new home in California! There are so so so-so many issues which continue to rear their ugly faces in my old home, most of which I never imagined... for one, not one door in my home will stay open without being propped open because my house leans but luckily, theres no easy fix because one room leans to the east while another leans to the south and another to the west.... you get the picture! Also, somewhere along the life of this cute little home, a previous homeowner decided putting siding containing asbestos over the original beautiful wood planks was a good idea. So now it’s going to take a whole $$ hazmat crew $$ to remove it and bring it back to its original beauty (thank you previous homeowner!). There are other issues like the entire subfloor needs to be replaced, the material used for the walls and ceiling is this horrible fiber stuff, so that has to be replaced with drywall. Spiders, bugs and even snakes (I like snakes, hate the spiders & bugs) keep finding their way into my kitchen cupboards and although I’ve searched and searched, I haven’t been able to find anywhere they could be coming in. The opening to the attic is about 15” square, so getting up there is fun especially if you’re claustrophobic and arachnophobic, but the squirrels have had no problem finding their way in and out of the attic and crawl space above the room addition and just when you think you’ve managed to get rid of them, the winter comes and they chew their way into the attic again.... Long story longer, it would benefit you to be rich and a great DIY’r if you plan on purchasing an old house because otherwise you’ll be living in a depressed, leaning, cancer causing, spider infested, did i say depressed house until you come into enough money to repair it or have it repaired... Basically, I wish I had watch “Money Pit” prior to purchasing this house. P.S. We’ve lived here 12 years and I do love my little old house, just not all her issues.

A mix of entertaining & clearing the clutter. A hard combination!