My Dad built a rambling modern style home.  The entire design was done at once, and then built in consecutive phases, over 14 years.  He, and three of the other engineers he worked with, all designed their own homes to be built in phases.  All of them took 10 to 15 years to complete the construction, and were completed with little or no debt load.  All were modern in style, and incorporated what are now considered state of the art conservation features such as deep eaves designed to shade large windows through the summer, while allowing full sun exposure in the winter, and seperate gray water systems, to provide irrigation water for gardening, and decrease the loading ons the spetic system. 

Phase I: bathroom; kithcen; a small living room/entry/dining room; what would later be the family room at 14 by 20 with two doors, and a temorary movable closet partition wall; second 7X12 bathroom, with plumbing stubbed in, used temporarily as bedroom.  All over a full basement that housed the mechanicals.  And a 20X25 attached carport.

Phase II: finish the basement to provide a play room, and office space for my Mom, who worked from home as an inker for a couple of engineering firms. 

Phase III: Build second carport attached to the first; and then, enclose the original carport, install a fire place, and picture windows to form the final living room. 

Phase IV:  Build a two story addition on the end away from the living room, master suite on top floor, two more bedrooms on loser floor, finish second bath, remove temporary partions in family room as bedrooms are completed. 

Phase V:  Build third Carport, enclose second car port into shop and office space. 

Phase VI: Convert third carport into garage. 

The advantages to this design for phased construction plan is that all of the siding, trim are consistent accros the structure.  The exterior finish was stained redwood, and natural stone with white trim.  Restain as you side every addition, and the color stays constant accross the structure.   And, having a fully developed plan, allows you to frame for future doors, windows, etc., as you go. This costs a bit more initially, but saves a great deal in the long run. 

I think I have the original drawings for Dad’s rolled up in a tube somewhere, I’ll see if I can find them, and post a scan. 

Another approach is to build the exterior shell, as a “Storage building”, with only a few penetrations, and use something like T1-11 as the siding.  This allows you to dry in quickly, and work in the dry, untill you are very nearly complete, with a minium of access points for vandals or thieves until the interior is nearly complete.  At which point you cut the plywood off the preframed window openings, install the windows, and new siding over the T1-11, and move in. 

I worked with a carpenter who built his out of town retirement home over five years that way. He’d drive up in the RV, and hook up to an RV hookup he built as part of the initial build, and then work on the house for two or three weeks, before he left again.