Hi Laurie You are funny- thinking you'd get banned! That made me laugh. I LOVED your story and almost cried too. I have a new baby now ( will be 10 months in a week) and i too am just realizing the pain a person in her shoes would be in.. it's amazing how people touch your lives and they may never know it! When I was young- an old old woman and her husband from the Netherlands owned our home. We were very very poor and rented the apartment upstairs. She had the most amazing gardens- veggies on a terraced hillside, surrounded by raspberry and blackberry bushes to keep us kids out, a light-up windmill out in front a huge glass greenhouse.. we had preying mantids everywhere and learned so much about them. She taught my mom to crochet, and I learned from mom when i was 8.. and I make things for so many people. I'm fairly young and people comment that i am like an old lady crocheting and gardening and cooking... if I am anythign that old lady- it'd a compliment! She died when i was only 7 or 8 but I cherish those memories. I never knew how much all that stuff meant to me until a couple of years ago. I hope she sees how much she influenced my life by letting me grow up in her paradise. it's been bought and sold a few times now and turned low maintenance of course over the years. trees cut down, all just grass now...plastic tarps covering the gardens ni front and covered with woodchips.. but i have seen the daffodils where the windmill used to be- they tore right up thru that plastic. And it makes me smile. A new family just bought the house last spring. I was thinking of stopping by one day to tell them about the original owners and the property. They have been working hard to make the place pretty again- so i think they might actually care. Anyway- Laurie your story made me think of my old land-lady. thanks fo rthe trip down memory lane! I hope they both can see the influence they have had in young women's lives. I hope all of us turn out to be great influences to someone one day too!

I have the same situation. Today I checked on the nest only to find a dead baby hanging from the side of the nest. I removed it and then waited out of sight to see when the parents might return. I've seen no sign of them for several hours. The two remaining babies are calling and calling. They too should be leaving the nest soon (although they still look young to me). do I dare try to feed them on my own??

Such a great, great, great movie. I have a story about it and I swear on my children's lives absolutely true. Tragic ending, IMO.... Sometime in the mid-80's, as was typical, teen me is chilling out in the pre-5000 channel era watching an old movie on a Sunday afternoon. I love Cary Grant, and have parents that are renovation addicts, so this one is particularly fun for me. Mom comes in and joins me, we laugh at the silliness and finally she says, " Uncle L has that house." Me, "Who?" "My uncle L, he's W's father." "Why don't I know him?" "Because he's an abusive and mean old SOB that no one likes very much, but he built my Aunt M that house - she's the one that died long ago in the car accident." "He doesn't have THAT house!" "Yes, yes he does, they built a bunch of them to promote the movie, although he couldn't get one of those. But, Aunt M wanted one. So one day he just called the studio in Hollywood. He actually talked to a producer on the phone and convinced them to send him the plans. I'm pretty sure they still have the plans and signed letter from the producer that came with them. He also owns a whole bunch of land where he goes hunting and fishing - he had all the timber and siding on the house cut from his own property and waited for it to cure before he built the house. It's an amazing, beautiful house." I was in it since that conversation, and yes, it was. Here's the tragic part - the immediate family never told anyone when it was time to sell it. My uncle died 9 yrs. ago this Spring (he lived in the house until his death in his 90's) and DH and I were looking to move to the town he had lived in to be closer to DH's work. We live in that town today. We really wanted to buy it but my cousin insisted on selling some of the land separately for commercial zoning - we didn't want commercial property right up against us, so we said no thanks. The house with a small amount of yard around it ended up being sold at auction for less than $200,000, I believe it is being used as a rental property and every time I drive by it I want to cry. It looks terrible and unloved, and honestly, the old guy had kept very good care of it until the last couple years. It has such an amazing story behind it, and I am sure that almost no one knows that it is a Blandings Dream House - except my cousin, I don't even know how much his own kids know about the story or if he kept the paper work that went with it. I would love to put the word out about it, because I believe there are organizations that keep track of the houses built in the promotion that try to get them preserved. But I'd just feel like I'm screwing over my cousin, and that the fools that don't take care of it now could stand to make a killing on it just because of what it is. Too bad, isn't it?

Personally, I would take the route where I do nothing and lower the price accordingly. I would get a few contractors to give you a ballpark estimate for the cost of improvement that you are considering. Then price the house (townhome) such that it would be about that much less than what you would have gotten with the improvements. The total take home amount is the same to you since you did not outlay the improvement cost. From the descriptions, I would say the cost will add up quickly if you are paying someone else to do the work. Try to sell the house as-is with the lowered price toward the end of your stay. If you sell it without the work, then great. Otherwise, take the house off the market, and you can do the work once you move out. I think the work will go alot more smoothly when the house is empty. Also, factor in what you are willing to take as the "lesser price of the house" so that you are spared of the hassle of organizing workers with little ones around. That way, you know that there is a dollar value associated with the hours that will cost you. This will also lower the price of the house. For some, this is 0 and other it may be tens of thousand of dollars. Only you know what this value is. Depending on the neighborhood, the house without the improvements will be enough of a bargain where you will have NO trouble selling. Talk to a good realtor and get a feel for the value of "improvements" in determining the price of the house. Remember bargain-priced entry-level houses move quickly.