the wife and I decided to go the timberframe route our new house. I would agree that most of the houses that we looked at being built around us with traditional stick frames were poorly built and thrown up hastily with the idea of putting the largest possible footprint on the existing lot to obtain the greatest square footage.

Not that appealling for us.

I will say that we are starting a family and we will be building a 2500 sqft house though (including home offices) flame me if you must for building a house that is too large, but according to the town planning and zoning, our house will be the smallest residential structure built around us within recent memory( save additions). The next largest? Pool houses and garages. no joke.