| As someone who works in residential construction, this is one of the better looks at what a 'good' process looks like from the homeowner side of the equation. The only places where my advice would differ: - They finished the floors instead of having a subcontractor do it. Everyone's comfort for various home improvements tasks differs, but this is one that I typically see farmed out. The people who do it everyday are very fast and competent - as a first timer it's hard to avoid making mistakes. I also advise people to avoid floor stains. One advantage to a real wood floor is it's easy to repair and refinish in the future, but this gets a lot harder when you start needing to stain match. Floor stain also kind of violates the tenants of 'honest materials' that the author discusses. - To build on their point about veneer plaster walls, cost really comes down to subcontractor comfort with that detail. It's only 'slightly more expensive' if you have a contractor that does it all the time. If you live in an area with a lot of plaster homes, you'll have more luck finding someone who can do this work affordably. For example, I once had an architect specify a particular plaster finish ('venetian plaster') where we could not find someone comfortable doing the work within a two hour drive. - They discuss the slow drying of the floor finish they used as a negative (true). A good place to use slow-drying finishing techniques is the exterior, as you can leave it alone for a lot longer as compared to a floor you want to walk on immediately. For example, pine tar exterior finishing materials take weeks to dry, but you don't NEED to touch the siding during that period. - In the second part they show a north and south elevation of the finished home. The north elevation really doesn't reflect the historic character they succeeded so hard to emulate and/or build from in other aspects of their home. Comparing these two elevations is very instructive. I hope their next published section addresses energy efficiency and adjacent topics (like window selection). It's a huge part of building a modern home that doesn't always get the attention it should. I did appreciate the time spent discussing air flow in part 2. Building on their reading list, if you like older/vernacular homes start with: "House" by Tracy Kidder "A Field Guide to American Houses" by Virginia Savage McAlester "American Shelter" by Lester Walker "The American House" by Mary Mix Foley And maybe move on to: "A Concise History of American Architecture" by Leland Roth "American Vernacular: Buildings and Interiors, 1870-1960" by Herbert Gottfried "Norwegian Wood: The Thoughtful Architecture of Wenche Selmer" by Elisabeth Tostrup "Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn" by Thomas Hubka And then maybe: "The Well-Built House" by Jim Locke "The colonial House Then and Now" by Francis Underwood "Little House on a Small Planet" by Shay Salomon |