Colorado Karen What a great and fun adventure! There we were ---in Colorado---getting ready to retire and wanting to buld a house on our 18 acres in Paso Robles. There were ample reasons NOT to do it---. We would still be in Colorado while the house was being built. We wouldn't be able to be on site regularly to---keep an eye on things. Just in general we feared that NO builder would/could come in on budget---and we had a VERY tight budget! And then there was the fact that the stress of designing and building a house is one of the leading causes of divorce---.We were nervous. But Randall Jordan, and all the people who work for Palomar Homes, made it work. Randall was a master of calm. Most of our communication was accoplished via phone or email and Randall was amazingly available and prompt with responses to our many queries. On task and alert. We could call at any time during the day and, as long as he wasn't out of the office or in a meeting, Diane would patch us thru to his office and he'd answer with a friendly "Hello" and we'd say "Hi Randall. It's Karen and Richard in Colorado and we'd like to talk to you abou some little house detail" and he'd say, "Let me just pull up your plans" and he'd be right there and ready to go. We alwasy knew that he must be busy doing something else right before we called and yet, once we got him on the phone, he was always able to shift gears quickly and address any issue we brought up. The contract was clear. Limitations were clear. During the entire costruction period, we made only two visits to the site and found no real surprises. We noticed one window in a slightly wrong locaation and it was immediately corrected. When we went out for the obligatory walk-thru to OK the basic framing, we were impressed with the quality of the rough framing and with the general tidiness of the entire work site. We made a few small changes along the way and all changes were effected thru clear and transparent "change orders". We added and subtracted a few items, kept track of the plusses and minuses and, in the end, came in right on budget! Remarkable! Altho' the budget was tight, we didn't want to sacrifice quality. We opted for 9-foot ceilings and a concrete floor, and solar panels [there were great rebates!] on the roof. All other choices were kept modest and simple. Formica counters in the kitchen and very basic bathroom tiles. So the house has both a modest quality [formica] and a dramatic quality [9-ft. ceilings and concrete floors] and what ties it all together is---the workmanship. Of course there were many people involved in providing the manyforms of workmanship---but the person on site, the construction manager, was Troy--- and Troy did a great job!! He made sure things were done the way we wanted and, just like Randall, he was very available, by phone or e-mail. And after we moved in, if we found [and we did] someghing missing, or unfinished or not what we had stipulated, we just called Troy and he came out and fixed it. Always good-natured and patient. We are very, very happy with the finished product! Thank you Palomar Homes. Special thanks to Randall and Mary, Diane and Troy--- And thank you to everyone who helped build our house and make our dream a reality. read more