We are finally going to start building just waiting on a soils test that we needed for the PAD cert we have been waiting for 10 years, I feel so old now. I am very excited to get this started and hopefully finished. here is photo of our plans

@fixer687: "Attaboy" We would love to get some solar and a Powerwall on the property, but I think we'll have to contend with the HOA to see what we can get. Roof angles and facing aren't optimal for solar gathering so we would need an installation similar to your picture. Considering the lot is all heavily wooded, the best place for installation would be on the south shore of our penisula, but then we'd have to deal with the DEQ since it's a designated wetland.

BethA thanks for the nice comment!

So this is our site today. Pretty much want to cry. The street is up to the left of the photo. The lot is sloped. The street flooded because the drains weren’t cleared on the road and then because we don’t have a curb yet on the lot all the water rushes into our site. What a mess!

Alison.....OMG! I would be freaking out a little (a lot). Will all that water effect your foundation?

Alison - OMG. I think a good cry might help... I would.

So the foundation has already been waterproofed so should be ok, the water is now draining too so that’s good. But we definitely need to ask a ton more questions. The slab hasn’t been poured yet so that’s good but the basement is full framed in so not sure how that all works. It’s basically rained every day here in the last month though so although this water is annoying it isn’t like the site is dry. It was an exceptional rain event with the drains on the street not draining. But yes I’m fairly panicked

Alison, I wouldn't go further until you find out about the drainage or this could be a continuing problem. Good luck.

This is an extraordinary event of water that should be running down the street coming into the lot. No drainage system could have handled it nor would they have been expected to in a normal situation but this isn’t normal. If the lot had a curb, if the drains weren’t clogged at street level, if the excavation site weren’t open to the elements none of this water would be here. We had something like 80 mm of rain today alone!

We had our walkthrough and we are scheduled to move on the 1st. I should have taken more photos, but I was busy marking items for the punch list.

Here is the guest bathroom

Here is the rec room bar, the finished concrete turned out so much better than I imagined.

My mudroom, our back door is gr same color as the bench

My kitchen:

Family room with gas fireplace

DH’s bar/butlers pantry

I didn’t get pictures of the rest of the house, when I start moving in, I will be sure to share more.

Just got back from the site and feel far less worried now. The reason the water all got in is the access to the suite was wide open for water. Basically looking at house straight on the right side there is a basement suite access. Since the lot hasn’t been fully backfilled yet the water poured in from the street, down the slope and straight through the suite entrance filling it. Lame but not really a realistic occurrence in life. Once the house is built there will be a garage in the spot the sloped area currently is and it will be fully back filled of course. There will be a trough for any rain water that collects on the driveway. Also the suite access will be sheltered properly have steps down to it and more natural barriers preventing water from getting down there and causing chaos. That said I have no idea how the water will dissipate now!

Pumps.

Alison, that happened a lot to my build in the beginning, the GC just kept pumping the water out.

dazureus Flood plains are a great location for solar. Not good for much of anything else. Dig deep.

Our wall oven and microwave will be beside the fridge too.

So, our offer got accepted on the land we want to build on. We are just waiting to close and then begin the design process when we are done renovating or temporary housing. I THOUGHT THIS DAY WOULD NEVER COME I’M SO EXCITED!

DC, your house is looking beautiful. Love the green!

Alison, so glad it's not as bad as it first looked.

Alison. Reconsider your oven/fridge placement. Not only is it uneffecient to place a heat producing appliance adjoining a fridge, it may void the fridge warranty.

@DCtoVA looks great! Your door/window casing is the same that we just selected. I also have that same four panel slider...love it. I assume this is a predominantly craftsman style home?

Also, is that in Arlington?

Karl, we are in Alexandria, we can cross two streets and be in Arlington. To be honest, I am horrible determining home styles. The outside of the house is fairly colonial/craftman-y. We tried to keep it similar to the neighborhood and not change the appearance terribly much. The inside is more transitional/craftsman.

We don’t want to change it. The designer, builder and appliance contact all have the plans and are on board. The wall oven and microwave are in a pantry wall beside the fridge but not touching it.

I guess I will jump in here and start posting! We are going to be building on 32 acres north of Seattle. It's family-owned property, was a working dairy farm for over 80 years, and will be a hobby farm for us (cows on the pasture now; we'll be adding chickens and pigs at some point after the house is built).

We're going to be building an ARG masterpiece. Our current home will go on the market at the end of February, and we're hoping for a quick sale because all of our equity is tied up in it and we need that for the down payment on the construction loan.

Right now we're searching for a builder, and have made contact with a few that we'll meet with for further discussion. We thought we'd found a builder but he fired us when we didn't use his draftsman to get the blueprints put together...better to find that out before we started building, I guess!

I've posted this in another thread but here it is again, our ARG one-of-a-kind home.

Alison your fridge/oven should be fine. Don't sweat it.

Celinabobeena, good luck on a fast house sale. I can't wait to watch your new house come together.

Celinabobeena....This is exciting! I’m with jemimabean.....so much fun to see things go from conception through to completion. Even though many of us have had our building trials, it is an exciting time. Hoping for smooth sailing for you!

Looks beautiful (LOVE the cupola).

Even though many of us have had our building trials, it is an exciting time.

Yes it's exciting...NOT. I haven't had this much anxiety since I was in my late teens and wondering if the boy was going to call me or not.

cpartist......isn’t anxiety exciting? Get’s the heart pumping :)

End of January update: Exterior almost complete. Drywall finishing taking place this week. Sealer/Primer coat next, I think? Hardwoods to start next week. Garage doors to go on next week. Cabinets coming mid February (will believe that when I see it.) I think the "slow" part of this build is coming to an end! The gas line was hooked up a couple of weeks ago, so the temp heat should be affordable. They are running propane heaters in the garages during drywall, but hope to be done with those soon! Having a devil of a time picking out light fixtures and can't seem to decide on a fire pit design. We have been very lucky with the weather here in MD so far (fingers crossed) and my builder's subs have also been great so far (fingers double crossed). So happy for all of you that are at the finish line! I wish I could blink my eyes and be there too! I am not looking forward to countertop and backsplash selections!

Gorgeous. Excited for you. It is coming together nicely.

Intoodeep....what a gorgeous...and ginormous house you have!

Went to look at the stained glass today to see how it's coming along. I am so happy with it.

First is DH's office. This is the outer window and there is a matching one on the other side with a separate design panel for the middle window. It's not completely finished as can be seen by the unfinished leading.

And this is the window for the kitchen backsplash behind my prep sink.

Beautiful CP! I am currently in packing hell, but it has to be done before the movers come tomorrow.

CP the stained glass is gorgeous! That's going to be quite the tricked out backsplash!

Intoodeep you are in the home stretch - looks beautiful and i really love your stone entry.

Celinabobeena you are building in one of the prettiest parts of the country so I'm really looking forward to your build - how far north of Seattle? We had some fun times in Marblemount and Mt Vernon areas.

CP that's gorgeous! We need a "love" button.

I got to see part of my kitchen cabinets installed today. They're pecan from a tree we had to take down because it was too close to the house. No issues from what I could tell except... my sink is a Kohler Whitehaben farm sink... and the base is for an undermount (face palm). Cabinet guy has already ordered my counter from Silestone - who does the templating before shipping. It's getting worked out, but it was communicated and on the first set of plans. I didn't look that closely at the final set because nothing changed on the island - learned my lesson there!

BethA - I LOVE your cabinets. They look very similar to what i am hoping that mine will look like. Except that mine won't be real wood... :)

BethA that is so cool that you are using wood from your land and it's gorgeous! I love those dark streaks in the wood but I'm weird that way. Are all your cabinets pecan? We had a walnut tree from our land milled and dried and our son made shelves for his tiny house. We have a lot of it leftover but didn't think it through carefully when dealing with the miller - so many other things going on. What we need is a hunk of it for a mantle over our porch fireplace but it's been cut too thin for that.

DLM we're about an hour north of Seattle in good traffic. About 30 minutes south of Mt Vernon. It is absolutely beautiful country...the views to the east are of the Cascade mountains, which are my absolute favorite part of living here.

BethA.... those are gorgeous, gorgeous cabinets!

BethA those cabinets are stunning.

Seeing lots of great photos. Some tips: #1. No paint rollers on doors. Yes, you probably paid more for the smooth sub-finish (vs wood grained hardboard) so expect it sprayed or brushed. #2. Trades are very busy, so your best defense is to have 100% of your decisions premade, materials delivered to project, before the show up. #3. make all plumbing & appliance selections before top-out plumbing & cabinet drawings.

BethA... those cabinets...swoon! Beautiful!

We have a huge Ponderosa Pine that we have to cut down as it is too near our house , of course it is the most symmetrical lovely tree on the lot :( DH plans to make our dining table out of it.

Jeffrey brings up a good point about spraying doors. Our doors were sprayed, but how in the world do you do touch ups on a sprayed door so that it doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb ??

nidnay - I have been able to do touch ups on our door with BM Advance paint and you can't tell at all. It's a really good self leveling paint and designed specifically for trim, cabinets and doors.

gthigpen....all my paint is Sherwin Williams, and the trim paint is a custom mix (had to match it to my cabinet color), so I don’t know if SW has some kind of paint like that that I can get in my custom color.

nidnay - SW does. It's called ProClassic and it gets lots of favorable reviews. I would have used that had we chosen a SW color. But I'd find out what kind of paint was used for the initial spray. That likely will have the best results with touch up.

CP - the stained glass is beautiful! Glad that is working out for you :)

Thanks everyone. The kitchen cabinets are pecan. The uppers will be painted white.

Here's the built-ins in the office. It's black walnut (natural stain) from another tree we took down. The bathroom vanities will be out of this as well as the live edge fireplace mantle.

BethA....just beautiful...and so amazing all this wood is from trees on your own property. I love that. Will you carve a heart into a cabinet door (just kidding). Seriously though, you should do something on the inside of a cabinet door or drawer to identify this unique quality about the cabinetry.

BethA how were you able to use the trees so quickly? We got quotes on using cedar from our lot and were told it needed to dry for 1-2 years before it could be used at all.

Nidnay - great idea! We'll have to come up with something.

Alison - we are using cedar from our land, too. Our front porch was just laid using it; the posts are solid cedar. It was milled and air dried for several months. Then we took it to be planed. Everyone seems confident that it should be fine (the mill, carpenters, etc.) - I've got my fingers crossed that they're all right. The pecan and walnut was kiln dried right after milling (back in July or August). Air drying would have been preferred for it, but we didn't have time. Everything was (luckily) mostly unwarped and what was warped could be planed down.