Here's the problem~if you plan to quit, you can't go planning to do all these other life changing things. Buying another house may not be something you can think of now, if money will be tight and you certainly don't want to quit your job, buy a new house and plan a baby all in the same year. You'll be stressed more than you are from work. The biggest stress factors in your life, are changing jobs, getting married (which you've already done), having kids and moving. Some people can handle all that just fine but think about you. Are you okay with changes? I would also stop and think about how important family time is to you. Yes, you'll be home more with the kids during the day but if you're working nights and weekends part time, you won't see your husband all that much. You'll be headed off to work when the kids are heading to activities. You'll be at work most of the weekend while the rest of your family is at home or out doing other stuff. I remember just trying to work part time when I was in high school and how little time I was at home with my parents and brother. I felt left out of the loop. It also was a pain when the weekend came and I didn't get to do anything but head off to work. Try adding children and a husband to the picture instead of parents and the family if you ever worked part time before. My MIL used to work a 3-11pm shift at work and it killed her. She didn't get to see her husband that much. He works swing shift and really she only saw him when he was also on 3-11 (he was home while on 11-7, but in bed sleeping until after she'd go into work). She missed being home for supper, in the evenings just to watch tv, seeing her grandkids and doing things during the week. She felt left out quite often and her husband was very lonely at home alone all the time. Your husband will often be getting the meals and caring for your daughter in the evenings. Can he handle doing that himself? (Not saying he can't but there are men out there who don't help at all and are clueless) The bottome line is the decsion is still totally up to you. You just need to weigh all the facts and decide if you can handle the money situation (it will still be tight if you take a part time job because they don't usually pay all that much and options are limited) and some other changes that will occur. I'm not saying you should not do it but I thought of other things that it seemed others weren't. They were focusing on pretty much all the good aspects but you need to know the bad, too in order to handle this. You can't go into the situation blind. Good luck to you. ~Leslie~

If you have ever been to Kansas, you know it is very rural and the only retirement village is in the Kansas City area...and that is just too expensive for us to live there. I asked DH if he thought we should "look ahead" 10 years and what we might need....his reply was "you and I both know that no one is guaranteed of a tomorrow, let alone 10 years....we will take each day as it comes." And he is right...my first husband was killed in an auto accident when I was only 33 years old...he was 37....left me with three small children to raise. I spent the next 25 years of my life making a home for them and making sure they got a good college education. When I was 58, I met my present DH who was widowed for 10 years, so we do know that it makes no difference how old we might be, we might not be here tomorrow, let alone 10-15 years from now. We do want a nice, handicapped accessible home for us to enjoy now and when we are done with it, a house that our kids would have the best chance selling it....and that would be in the larger town. The smaller house is in a "bedroom community" for a somewhat larger town about 18 miles away and the economy of that town is in the toilet...lost most of their industry due to the bad economy...so there are quite a few empty houses there right now. The builder of the new house in the little town, sent me pics of the house and it is certainly not handicapped accessible, so we'd have to do modifications to that also...and believe me, it is very generic...but for $135,000, that is to be expected. His health is so very good and I have arthritis, but thanks for replacement parts, I am managing. DH was "well fixed" when we married, but through some bad "futures" on the SM, and what his son has done to him, those funds are gone....so we must think of how best to handle what assets we do have....namely, our present home. It is on the market for $342,000, which is at the top most price range in this town. It has only been on the market for 3 weeks, but might have to consider lowering the price soon. All of this "planning" has been good for DH...he has been "lost" after the business had to close and this work is all he had known for 60 years, so has spent countless hours drawing plans for the new house and for the remodeling of the little house...as well as figuring the costs of doing both.....so it does give him back a little of "his old life"...and I think that has given him a "boost" to be able to do some work again. Yes, I could personally finance the buying of the $77,000 house, but will not be able to do the remodeling...but we could live in it while remodeling is being done....it might even clean up better than we think. He has drawn plans for a 2,080 SF, 3 car garage, new home and it will be built on a very beautiful lot that we bought for $21,000, 3 years ago on a pretty little lake...oh how peaceful~~~ and he thinks after getting all of the bids back, we should be able to do it for about $180,000...which after selling this house would be very doable and have some left for "playing". Chisue~~As far as the "land under the house"....in the small town, not much, it is only 50'wide x 140'deep.....under the house that we build (about 3/4 acre), it would be worth at least the $21,000 that we gave for it. Both pieces of property are in the same county, so the tax rate would be very similar.

I am liking the slightly darker grey beverlyfla posted. I might also look at painting the entire wood section a shade or two darker and then the door a little darker than that. Looking at this again, I would not use the garage door paint. That section is distinctly different from the garage and the rest of the house -- different siding, different roof, different color paint. From what I am seeing, taking that beige and putting it against the light grey would just be all wrong.

The white does look nice... Do you mind if I go slightly off-topic? What does everyone feel is a reasonable amount of exterior house washing per year? I ruled out white because neighbours I asked advised that they wash their white houses 3-4 times per year and that was too much for my taste. What do others think?