Building ideas

After spending many hours reading and re-reading books like The Stonebuilder's Primer I've decided that the garage/barn will likely be the first built.

The reason this choice was made in the scenario using the buildings below is the size of the garage makes it livable and it has the least amount of stonework. I figure that the base can be constructed rapidly with stone to a point, and then the rest could be anything from steel I-beam supported to SIP walls. Likely SIP will be used for the upper half of the building because of the overhang, stone would be impractical and heavy not to mention never used in that fashion for a half-timber design.

I-Beams could be used to support the roof ridge beam and a more open floor plan. The lesser need for stonework would allow a "practice session", if you will, to learn to work with the material for the gatehouse and the large amount of stone needed for the main building. The main building's material is still up in the air... It would take hundreds of tons of stone to build it, and that leaves the problem of insulation. If I were to create a gap for insulation I could wind up increasing the wall thickness by 50% because it would render some of the wall non-structural. One could simply throw an insulated stick built shell inside, but what if you want a nice interior stone wall for decorative purposes as well as thermal mass? It's gonna be a lot of work!