In every major, life-altering project, a little reality must be injected before large cheques are signed over to a contractor.

Luckily, I have a cousin who's built several houses for his family over the past few years, and he's intimately aware of some of the problems and pitfalls that can and likely will arise during our home-building project.

I took our builder estimates and our preliminary drawings over to his beautiful home last week, and he fine-tooth-combed them over coffee.

For some reason, he and his wife spewed said-coffee out of their noses when I suggested he could be the one to take over and contract our dream-home project.

On the plus side, I did discover coffee wipes up quickly and easily from oak hardwood floors.

He confirmed that our low-bidder came in at a reasonable price based on our specifications and the size of our plan.

He and his wife both noted that it's wise to budget above most allowances for lighting and plumbing fixtures.

Inevitably, you will find the perfect fixture at your builder's supplier is also the most expensive.

Because we have been waffling on whether to go with OSB sheeting or plywood on the walls and roof, I asked my expert cousin what he thought would make the most sense.

He felt that the quality of Oriented Strand Board wood sheeting available to builders is more than sufficient for use on our walls and the roof. Going with OSB instead of plywood should save quite a few bucks.

One of our builder finalists also made some excellent, cost-saving suggestions when I met with him last week.

Our preliminary plan calls for three tall windows in the great room overlooking the treed backyard. He thought it would be a lot cheaper (and a more effective way of taking advantage of our view to the back) if we made it one large window instead of three separate ones.

It would take a lot less work on the framer's part, and maximize the unobstructed view.

Our prelim also calls for an 8/12 roof slope on the main roofline. He suggested we change to a 7/12 ratio to save on roofing and lumber costs, and to make it easier for the roofers to do their thing. He also felt the 7/12 slope (6/12 is at 45 degrees, for perspective) would be a truer reflection of the Craftsman look we are going for.

Finally, because of the relatively narrow front-to-back depth of our foundation (32 feet) he thought we could avoid the added expense of the steel-beam support in favour of a paralam wood beam.

Designer sit-down

My cousin put a steel beam in his new home, and he said if he had it to do over again, he'd likely go with a wood beam, as it had worked well for him in the past.

We will be taking all of these suggestions to our designer when we meet with her this week. She will take those changes and work the preliminary plans into a full set of construction drawings.

Once we have the complete set of drawings, we can go back to our builder finalists and get detailed cost estimates before choosing which one to go with.

It seems like it's been a year since we started the planning process, but we must be patient.

The worst thing we could do is barge ahead with little forethought and end up with a house that is horrendously over budget or an ill-conceived mess.