I've got lots of time to write about this subject because I am NOT selling this year - mostly a side effect of last years drought and the drought that is supposed to happen this year, though it has been raining pretty good here lately. I grow and sell ornamental plants and herbs from my home garden and I only sold at one farmer's market about 50 miles away last year. I live and garden inner city. There is one much larger market nearby but it is really a re-sellers market and I cannot compete with the prices for plants (in the spring they will have over 30 plant vendors!!) and it is difficult to get a space. Because of the high gas prices I imagine plenty of shoppers will NOT be driving too far to shop - which could be a good thing for vendors. But because of higher prices across the board most people will have less disposable income so there won't be a lot of experimenting with new veggies or fruits. But then - with all the stress and pressure on the wallet, I guess plenty of people will want the "fun" shopping experience you can only get at an outdoor market. The charm of the small market I sold at last year is that it's set up in a downtown parking lot with plenty of shops and galleries around and neighborhoods within walking distance - which is where most of the customers come from. But in order to succeed (its a relatively new market) it really needs more customers and with gas getting higher I worry that people further away are just not going to make the effort to drive that far to shop. Personally I believe that in order to make farmers markets successful you need plenty of them. They need to appear at convenient locations in every small town so that people get used to shopping at them. I also believe that only a section of the population wishes to walk around outside and shop in the open air - no matter what you do, some people would just rather shop at the grocery store or the mall (shudder). This area just came through an extreme drought where city drinking water was measured in days, not months, and yet plenty of people are out shopping for plants this spring. Garden centers are full, the farmers market vendors report good sales - legally we are only allowed to water once each week. I just couldn't wrap my head around selling something to people that will probably fail once the rains stop, the heat sets in and outdoor watering is restricted again. Besides most of my spring crop looked pretty awful. So I miss the extra money but not the extra work - and I worry about what direction to take for the future.

It's not unusual for our clients to begin the design process by reviewing stock plans on the internet as well as our own designs. There are a number of excellent designs (and plenty that aren't, too) available for purchase. In our experience, stock plans typically require modifications to meet local code requirements, community architectural guidelines, and any changes the client wishes to make to tailor the plans to their specific needs. Clients occasionally ask us to estimate construction costs from magazine study plans consisting of a floor plan and an artist's rendering of the home. The limited information study plans provide makes estimating construction costs from them a dangerous exercise as Architectrunnerguy noted in his post above. A best case scenario is probably +/- 10% of actual construction cost if the plan is substantially similar to one we've built in the last 1-2 years (older cost data are not that useful.) Unfortunately, many prospective clients consider such guesstimates from multiple builders to be competitive bids and choose their builder on that basis. Builders who "guess" low are often rewarded with with the job even when their final contract price is much higher than their guesstimate. The client rationalizes the choice by concluding that everyone would have been higher by the same amount in the end. Please keep in mind that even if you are making changes to a stock plan you'll need to purchase the plan from the plan's copyright owner in order to avoid copyright infringement. Best wishes for a successful project.

My experience in selling our house in Oct 2009 was atypical for our area ( nothing was selling in out area or neighborhood, but I think will relate to your situation. The house was built in 1990. I have not read all of the responses but here goes. We painted the entire house to a neutral walls and white trim because it needed it. We did not paint the brick FP. We removed the wall paper in the FR but left the wainscot and folk wallpaper in the Kitchen and Bfst nook. Realtor had a cow and said house would never sell, but this still looked great. Maybe not HGTV but I was tried of taking wallpaper down... We replaced all of the carpet- bedrooms, finished lower level and FR- with a neutral flat more commercial berber from HD. Because it needed it and looked worn. This was cheap with free install. We had already moved out of the house and the upstairs had no furniture but all the windows all had white wide slat wood blinds. The living room had my Persian area rug and the piano. The dining room had a garage sale round dining table with a floor length canvas drop cloth for the table cloth and four black dining chairs. Oh and an ivy plant in the center. The family room had my old sofa with a white slipcover and my old leather ottoman with a copper tray on it. Oh yeah and two throw pillows. I changed out the kitchen knobs. I spray painted the light fixtures bronze, these were cheap shiny brass. Our house was spotless. Inside and outside and empty except for the mentioned items. The realtor listed it on a Friday night and it was sold by 7pm Sat night to the first people who looked at it Sat am. For asking price. Within 5% of two comps. We became friends with the buyers as we built a house on our adjoining property and they said they chose our house because it was newly painted and had new carpet so they didn't have to do that. They loved the wallpaper in the kitchen but immediately changed out the kitchen knobs. They wanted to buy my "dining set"... This house was under $500.000 and we spent under $3,000 to do the carpet and I did the painting. I will say that if the house was a more expensive and more upscale neighborhood, I would still have emptied and minimally staged. Nobody is buying your décor and even if you have to pack up and put everything into storage and live like Spartans I would do that at least. When we started cleaning it became apparent that the paint and carpet needed to be done. Once a house is emptied unless its newly painted even if clean it still can look grungy IMO. Sometimes people give a painting cash allowance at closing - that might suffice for some buyers. Most of the staging/updating I believe if for a certain price point. You know to help buyers choose between several closely comparable properties. If your home is appealing to a certain demographic because of a higher price then wouldn't those buyers want to pick their own flooring, paint colors fixtures etc?

Like it. Well done. Looks neat now and leaves plenty of room to grow. Have you considered adding a basic concrete birdbath to the middle of one of the more open spaces? https://www.allbirdcage.com/large-parakeet-cages/concrete-bird-bath-top/ The bowl is usually separate from the pedestal and can easily be tilted to empty out any dirty water to refill it -- or just hose it out … doesn't take that much longer. You can usually find such yard items on sale at a reduced price in mid to late fall as store are clearing away their garden center products to make room for holiday related items. Do choose one with the bowl smaller at the bottom and wider at the top so if the water freezes, it has room to expand and will not break the bowl. In the meantime, you have room to plant some bulbs or even annuals in the spaces between the shrubs and the sidewalk: you might consider outlining your sidewalk in liriope or something similar that will grow well in your planting zone and survive winter to thrive again the next spring.