Thought I should introduce myself - have been lurking and reading and taking in all the collective wisdom for some time now, and only just started posting.
We knocked down our little cottage after many months of agonising over building plans - should we renovate/build new etc. Had 3 different sets of plans drawn up and even got to the stage of getting a building licence to do the renos... Anyway, we are now building a brand new 2 storey house and the first floor roof should be on by the end of the week. We have been really happy with how things have gone so far - we are based in Perth where building times are incredibly slow! - but we're looking at mid year for completion - 12 months all up.
Really interesting reading and looking at all the timber frame houses being constructed, it's very much double brick/concrete slab over here in the west.