We just built a small house (companion unit) for my elderly in-laws to live in. My husband designed it. (He’s an architect and doesn’t typically do residential but he had big ideas.)
While we didn’t have post and beam construction we did avoid the engineered roof trusses that are so common here – I can confirm what was said about the city of San Diego requiring metal brackets where the post and beam meet. Be prepared to spend some money on structural engineers to sign off on everything. (Our structural and civil engineering bills were pretty significant.)
I can also say – do your vetting of your contractor in the most extreme way you can. I can’t emphasise this enough. Our first contractor ripped us off for more than 100k (saying he provided work that he hadn’t) then walked off the job when we caught him and wouldn’t give him even more money. It was a nightmare. Don’t just call the references the contractor gives you. Don’t just check his license. A legitimate complaint can take YEARS to show against the license. And that’s only for the people willing to go to the trouble that is neccessary to follow up with the CSLB.
That said – there are good contractors out there. But keep in mind that even the best contractor is trying to maximize their profit – so they’ll cut any corners they can get away with. So you need to be very familiar with the plans and do your own supervision. It’s pretty close to a full time job. We’re still trying to get resolution with our 2nd contractor on things they swapped out without our permission.
That said – the satisfaction of seeing a home go from an idea to completion is really pretty darn cool.
