Kevin Daum is the award-winning author of six books, including ­Building Your Own Home For Dummies.

Janice Brewster Weiser has written extensively on custom homes and is a former editor of Log Home Living magazine.

Peter Economy is a Wall Street Journal best-selling business author and ghostwriter of more than 100 books.

Anne Mary Ciminelli is an author, editor, and ghostwriter.

Introduction 1

Part 1: Getting Started with Custom-Home Building 5

Chapter 1: The Custom-Home Process in a Nutshell 7

Chapter 2: Preparing for the Process 21

Chapter 3: The Land Grab: Selecting the Perfect Site 39

Chapter 4: Defining Your House Style 61

Part 2: Assembling Your Team 81

Chapter 5: Architects and Design: Time Spent Is Money Saved 83

Chapter 6: Engineers and City Folk: Approval Bureaucracy Made Somewhat Easy 109

Chapter 7: All the King’s Men: The Contractor and Their Cohorts 125

Part 3: All You Need Is Dough: Financing Your Custom Home 141

Chapter 8: Cash Is King: Borrowing to Your Advantage 143

Chapter 9: Knowledge Is Power: What You Don’t Know about Construction Loans Can Hurt You 157

Chapter 10: Qualifying: It’s the Bank’s Way or the Highway 179

Chapter 11: Show Me the Money: Flowing Cash through the Project 203

Part 4: Hammers and Nails: Overseeing the Construction Process 219

Chapter 12: Excavation and Foundation: Getting a Solid Start 221

Chapter 13: Framing and Rough: So Much Goes behind Those Walls! 237

Chapter 14: Heading for the Finish: The Devil’s in the Details 261

Part 5: All the After Stuff 287

Chapter 15: Making a House a Home: Moving In, Furnishing, and Using Smart Tech 289

Chapter 16: Taking It Outside: The Art of Landscaping and Hardscaping 297

Chapter 17: Making Your Nest Egg Financially Sound 313

Part 6: The Part of Tens 321

Chapter 18: Ten Common Custom-Home Mistakes and How to Avoid ’Em 323

Chapter 19: Ten Great Ways to Lower Construction Costs 329

Chapter 20: Ten Common Stuck-in-the-Middle Problems and Their Fixes 337

Chapter 21: Ten Ways to Build Sustainably 345

Chapter 22: Ten Helpful Custom-Home Resources 353

Index 359

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