Modern Cabin on the Blue River, four miles from Breckenridge, CO., at 10,000′ elevation, is our second home.  We live in central TX, so we were long distance for much of the construction process.  We had very specific priorities:  keep it small, keep the budget under $500,000 (our first budget limit was $300,000 haha), highlight location on the river, open floor plan, master on the main floor, 3 full bathrooms, 3 bedrooms – each bedroom can fit a king bed and nightstands, lots of storage, classic modern – not trendy or themed design – we want our cabin to stand the test of time, maximum efficiency with minimum maintenance. Our architect was from the CO area, very familiar with building codes.  Fortunately he was living in our TX city, completing an advanced degree, so we had face time throughout the design process.  He helped us through an organized bidding process, to find our builder.  We chose a local CO craftsman builder, which was an excellent decision. His was not the lowest bid, it was in the middle.  We went through our builder’s vendors for materials, but we made all decisions, well in advance of when materials were needed in the building process and sticking to a budget for each category.  Our builder and his subs maintained high construction standards – a must for long distance decisions. The weather also was ideal and the foundation was poured in May.  The cabin was finished in December.  Building long distance was an interesting challenge. But we really enjoyed the whole process because we had good architectural guidance, a buiider we trusted and we knew what we wanted – so making materials and design choices was fun!