Building a house means you commit to meetings.

10 am, Steven meets at Emerald Hill with Don Waters, designer, Waters Design Group, recommended by Ranserve, to consider door handles and other hardware.

11 am, Ron and Cris from Ranserve arrive, upend two garbage cans, lay two shelves across the cans to create a desk, unroll a set of plans, switch on Ron’s iPad to read the structural notes from Ben Feldt, scroll the touchscreen on Ron’s smartphone to navigate Ben’s location map, and convert Ben’s notes into plans for framing — what size beam, stud, LVL or hanger goes where. Ron and Cris say framing begins tomorrow.

130 pm, Steven meets at Ranserve with Brett Grinkmeyer, architect, and Michelle Hastings, sitting in for Mark Rehberg, who is at a job site waiting for an inspector, to review options for exterior siding — Hardie Plank, smooth, 7-inch reveal. Michelle has to compute cost of primed Hardie that must be painted, vs. Hardie with integrated color that does not have to be painted for 15 years; paint and painting labor vs. not having to paint — but how much more expensive than primed Hardie is the Hardie Plank with integrated color?

5 pm, Steven picks up Jacquela at work and they meet at Austin Stone Works with Kim Strmiska to review options for fireplace hearth capstone and shelves in the master bath.

Decision 1 — the vanity in the master bath will be white.

Decision 2 — the countertop and backsplash that come with the vanity will be grey — because the square sample of the countertop is a near-perfect match for a quartz slab in the boneyard at Austin Stone.

Decision 3 — the shelf behind the vanity will be surfaced with the grey quartz in Kim’s boneyard.

Decision 4 — We will use the same grey quartz for the shelves in the master shower.

Kim, Jacquela and Steven walked the yard, eliminating multiple candidates for the potential fireplace hearth capstone by comparing stone with samples of the kitchen tile and family room oak flooring.

We narrow it down to two candidates — a fine-grained grey granite, photo above …

or a heavily veined and honed granite with a lot of reflective mica that reminds everyone of Vincent Van Gogh.

Kim has to estimate costs based on approximate dimensions that Steven will supply.