I'm thinking about the same thing, and this summer I took a two week Home Design/Build course at Yestermorrow (yestermorrow.org). I really recommend it as a way

I'm thinking about the same thing, and this summer I took a two week Home Design/Build course at Yestermorrow (yestermorrow.org). I really recommend it as a way to work through your designs, both on the broad scale and in the specifics (building to code, budgeting, utilities, etc).