Making Plans

Mark and I have started making plans for our forever home.  It was about this time last year that I realized the reality of building our forever home was not that far away.  We're not breaking ground next year, but we hope and pray that we can begin building in the next five years.  We decided to start the entire process by doing some research.  We are making a deliberate effort to be informed before we ever begin.  We hope that all of the effort and careful planning will save us time and money.  When we built our current home in 2002, we had no idea what we were doing.  We knew we needed a house plan around 1500 square feet, but other than that we were pretty clueless.  I think the main thing that I looked for in a house plan was if it had walk-in his-and-hers closets.  Let's just say I didn't have high expectations for design.

Nine years later, I'm older and wiser, and I have much higher expectations for our forever home.

Now that I know better, how do I do better?

We're turning to these books for inspiration and information.

I recently purchased Get Your House Right.

I'm also interested in the books below.

{Images amazon.com}

Please share any other resources you've found helpful in designing, planning and building a new "old" home.  We have a very open-minded approach right now and would love any suggestions.  I kind of think of this home as "the house that blogging built" because so many influences have already come from blogs.