kristy blockly

That's good to know!  Thank you!  

So helpful, thanks guys!  I definitely see the wisdom in observing the land for a while first.  I am still leaning towards finding a straw bale architect.  I suppose the best architects will take your ideas and turn them into a home that meshes your dreams with their expertise.  Also thinking they will know how to design to get permitted most easily.  I'm also thinking I'd like to hire a straw bale contractor (like Simple Constructs) to oversee and kick off the actual building.  Perhaps after a few more years of researching, my confidence in my abilities will be a lot higher and maybe I can do without a huge professional team.  We have a good sized budget for this project and want to build something that will last and hopefully resell well someday.  

I appreciate any more tips about the "correct" order of steps.  Thanks!

Hi all,  
In about 4-5 years, we'll be ready to start building our own home (strawbale or adobe, not totally sure yet.  We're in SoCal. Using all cash.  Considering building in Ventura County or San Diego County.  Want to hire an architect and perhaps a contractor to supervise, but we want to do a lot of the work ourselves.)  Right now I'm in research and savings mode, but not sure what my first real steps should be. For example, I'm not sure if it's wise to hire the architect and design a home before I buy the land, or buy the land first then do all the design and hiring?  Do you have a simple checklist of the main steps I need to take in the correct order?  Or maybe a blog post that chronicles the process of building a home, from the planning stages to the execution?
Thanks!