Snakes I can stand(as long as I don't tell my wife they are around!) Yellow jackets I HATE. Almost every year I find a nest in the ground and I usually find it the hard way. Neighbor sees me busy at some garden chore, then sees me go into some major body contortions with some acrobatics thrown in then add wildly flailing arms ending in a headlong flight across the yard with the arms still flailing about my head... Then he usually comes casually strolling over with a big grin on his face and asks "How's it goin?" I give them a little kerosene cocktail served at dusk which always gives me satisfaction in sweet vengence. Guns aren't much good against yellow jackets.(grin)

FREE Web sites for genealogy research: rootsweb.ancestry.com--forums organized by surname, locality, and other topics such as royal ancestry, etc., originally not affiliated with ancestry, but it is STILL free, and has archived posts going back to the 1990s. usgenweb.org subdivides by states and counties, also message boards where inquiries can be posted. genealogy.com has free surname and locality forums. familysearch.org contains the LDS church's International Genealogy Index, formerly only available on microfiche at branch Family History Libraries. cyndislist.com has a wealth of websites/links on many, many genealogy subjects. Treasure Maps website: google the name to get the right address, because it's one of those sub-sub-sub-divided ones that I'll probably screw up. Also, google the surname, and/or an entire name, alone or combined with terms like "family" and genealogy. If it's a name other than Smith or Jones, misspell it in creative ways. My great-grandfather's surname (Braman) was misspelled on the census as late as the 1930s! As far as Ancestry goes, I subscribe to the United States option, almost solely because of access to scanned images of the US Census. Looking at microfilm using a viewer left me dizzy and nauseated:b. You can search or browse the records, and enlarge the image to decipher handwriting. To me, it is worth the price, but that's a personal decision. Other than that, I have found some useful info in the paid databases, but not a whole lot. All Censuses are available at the regional branches of the National Archives, on microfilm. Sorry this is so lengthy, but this IS the heavily edited version, LOL.

Robo -- inspired by your suggestion, I did a minor rearrangement in the space. I tried our sofa across the main entry but it pretty much closes off the room. It's too wide, a shorter sofa would work better. So I utilized the chair instead. I had to angle it, though, as that is DH's tv-viewing chair so it has to face the tv. The slipper chairs are so cute, I really like those! This is what I've currently accomplished, a partial division via that big chair. I like it better than what was there before, it feels a bit more private and everything isn't just lined up against the wall. Of course, after these changes the boys both were on the piano last night AND this morning, and they both asked me to do a lesson after school today. :-/ Moving the furniture around made the whole space more exciting to them for some reason. Also I have better access for opening and closing the corner windows now, so that's pretty nice. You asked about the piano height -- it's too tall to be a sofa console unfortunately. The old black piano was shorter, but also too tall. Pal -- I've thought about somehow putting a divider in the entry before, but we don't want to spend any more dollars on unnecessary construction since we are planning to move. DH could build a wall divider relatively inexpensively, and we've talked about it in past years but he didn't agree that we should divide the space like that so I know he won't want to do it, especially since he knows I want to move he thinks it's dumb to do any more changes. The flooring does need to be addressed, it's not good and I think if we try to sell it will be a major deterrent. So right now I'm looking for "decor-only" solutions. With that in mind, what if I moved the tall bookshelf out of the living room and used it as a divider in the entry? Here are the issues with that shelf: - may not be very stable as a stand-alone piece (right now it's secured to the wall) - the back is not finished - it's actually pretty unattractive, it's a "white stain" Hemnes shelf fom Ikea that I painted white; the paint didn't adhere well at all. I painted it because it looked greyish-pink next to the fireplace and we thought it would be a great idea to make it match...it was not a great idea. I like the idea of defining the entry via flooring, but since the construction of a wall is pretty unlikely then would change in flooring still be a good idea? An alternative is maybe I could purchase a rug. The problem is that it will need to live beyond the door swing, otherwise is will impede the door.

Have you looked at the HOA agreement and the contract you signed? Have you looked at any architectural guidelines enclosed in it? You say this is an exclusive community. These days they often have rules about setbacks, building material allowed, roof pitch, landscaping, etc. under the guise of keeping up property values for the neighborhood. For example, you probably couldn't plop down doublewide that's big enough (if one existed) without being in violation of the HOA rules. Also, have you checked what they were including in the sq ft minimum? In some places the basement isn't included in the stipulated sq ft. Just above ground air conditioned space is included. All of the things you haven't mentioned can and will increase the cost per sq ft. When we looked at neighborhoods to build in the first thing I did was request a copy of the HOA covenant. I then used a highlighter and a pen to go through the agreement with a fine tooth comb and mark every single thing that would affect the cost of building our home. I'd already chosen a builder so I went over everything I marked and discussed with him how the things I found would affect the cost of the build. if you haven't done that yet you should do that ASAP. It may be very eye opening.