Zep, here you go. Continuing education - neat. I'm hoping to take some classes this fall. 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If you are replacing everything, yes, you are gutting it. I truly don't think anyone here means to rain on your parade, but gutting and renovating the 3 most expensive rooms in the house for a temporary solution is a financial disaster. You aren't even reselling so there's no chance you'll get any of it back, except for a few fixtures you can salvage for the new house, like faucets. I remember what it's like to have a house for the first time. Oh, the plans! But the reality is going to be rough. And expensive. And a remodel is a multi-month disaster zone. In addition to your chosen materials, you will also have to be prepared to spend quite a bit of money to maybe deal with bringing those rooms electrical and plumbing up to code, as the local inspector will likely require. You may have to upgrade the floor system for the tile. So... are you ready to spend $50k or more in just materials for a temporary upgrade? For $10k a year (assuming you have the cash and aren't going to be paying interest, too), you can get a whole mortgage payment in a lot of places. $50k could go a LONG way to toward new custom home. I suggest living in the house for a while before proceding. It will help you identify the things the NEED to be upgraded versus your wish list. If the rooms are basically fine but you just don't like them, paint is cheap. Pulling down floral wallpaper is painful but practically free. Replacing an existing floor with a floating floor is pretty cheap too if you rein in your material choices. You can refresh a room pretty cheaply without gutting it. Now, if the rooms are in some ways non-functional, consider more frugal solutions. For example, if the cabinet bodies are in good shape, they are probably better constructed than all except the most high end cabinets sold today, and they're free. Cabinets are *expensive!* One option is to paint the cabs and change the hardware; another is to paint the bodies and replace the doors. Hopefully this starts giving you some ideas for ways you can make the home more attractive and comfortable without pushing construction of your new home with the things you really want too far down the road.

Update on the Panasonic Convection/MW: I cooked stuffed peppers last night and decided to preheat the oven. I combo cooked for 25 min total but it took a little longer to get everything put together so it was preheating for a while before that. When my daughter got something out of the cabinet above she commented that it was warm and it definitely was. I got out the manual (which has a picture of the oven on a counter below wall cabinets) and under placement of oven it says "3" clearance on each side and 1" on top, do not block air vents, do not place near a hot, damp, surface such as a gas or electric range or dishwasher, do not operate when room humidity is excessive." Also, I couldn't find it on display anywhere when I was looking. They have it online at Sears and Best Buy but not in the stores and none of the 4 appliances stores that I went to had one either. I ended up buying it sight unseen at Buy.com . So far I like it better than the Sharp. Hope that helps! attention. I did notice the cabinet being warm on occasion but never checked during or right after cooking. I cooked the stuffed peppers for 25 minutes total but it took me longer than expected to get everything put together so it was preheating for a while. I know that doesn't help much but I thought I'd throw that in. Also, FWIW, when I took down the wallpaper in the kitchen several weeks ago, the paper behind that oven had come away from the wall. I read about the Panasonic here on Gardenweb. It seems stupid to have a countertop oven that size that nees 6" clearance above it month, teh paper beThere's about

... FIL has been at the house 45% of the time and his wife from China 20% of the time ... FIL's stepdaughter moved to the house as well ... FIL's wife from China is now starting to spend more time here ... I understand now why this situation has been acceptable for a while, and now it's not. The dynamics of the household are changing, and since it's not YOUR house, you have no say-so. I'd be irritated in that situation too. large reason of why I don't really want to build the new house anymore is because I want to keep open the possibility of one or both of us going to part-time at work (80% or 60%), or taking extra unpaid time off. I don't know what we'll really want - I keep hearing that leaving your kids at daycare and going to work is much less work than staying at home with them! You're right to consider these things before you build. If you build at the top of your budget, you're probably locking yourself into working full time -- and removing your options before you have kids isn't a great idea. Keep in mind, too, that sometimes life makes choices for you: A friend of mine -- young, healthy, took great care of herself during pregnancy -- never thought she'd end up having a preemie with special needs, but her plans to be a working mom flew out the window when her daughter was born. And we're assuming that you'll have one child at a time; if you should have surprise twins, that might influence your choice about whether to stay home or not. The big point is, keeping your options open by keeping your housing costs low is wise. Keep in mind, too, that having kids doesn't mean just diapers and daycare. You're going to want to start to save for college and other kid-expenses while they're still small. Speaking as the mother of TWO college students, you definitely want to have your financial act together by the time they're teens -- that's when the real costs hit. Having done both, no, using daycare isn't less work than staying home -- not by a long shot -- but it's different work. The reality is that small children are lots of work. If you're at home, it's easy to be tired all the time because you're constantly meeting the kids' needs, which are constant and immediate. The never-getting-a-break aspect can be hard. On the other hand, if you're going to work every day, you're excused from some of those constant needs, but when you come home you still have to put in just as much effort to give them their bonding time /play time /reading time /etc. -- and the cooking, laundry and housework is every bit as time consuming -- but you have fewer hours in which to do it. You'll have more money if you're working, but you'll have more things to juggle too. The right choice for your family probably rests in your personal circumstances and details: how flexible your jobs are, how difficult it'd be for you to re-enter the workplace later, whether one or both of you travel, availability of day care, even your commute time plays into the equation. My thoughts: I think you should look for a mid-point. Clearly you want to get out of FIL's house, especially since things are changing in the household. But building is expensive and scary. So look for a happy medium between staying and building. Either move into your rental house "as is" -- someone lives there now and is okay with it -- or buy something modest. Then build later when your life and finances are further down the road.