You didn't mention how many bedrooms, so if you have a 2 bedroom house, 4 baths would just simply be wrong. Let's look at it from the buyer's perspective so let's say you are the one looking to buy a house. In this imaginary scenario, if you wanted to buy a 4 bedroom house, the difference between a 4 bedroom 1 1/2 bath house vs. a 4 bedroom 2 bath house likely appeal to you (and certainly to more prospective home buyers). You would see a higher selling price in most cases too so let's switch gears and now make you the seller. You could apply some changes in the "redo" to play down the bath part and have the "powder room" become the main highlight. However, in real estate, more can be more and if the "bath" looks like an after-thought, it could negatively drive down the selling price, so careful consideration should be used when contemplating the new design. So, since selling is about having interested buyers, think of the many listing services and real estate search engines today that will not show a buyer who searches for a 4/4 home any of the 4/1, 4/2, 4/3, or 4/3.5 homes - that means you aren't appearing in as many listing searches. However, listings for a smaller 4/2 would also show the 4/2.5, 4/3, 4/3.5, etc... - basically a listing shown to more prospective buyers. Another example is that it is all too common that many home owners believe they will stay in their home for decades but often don't due to some unforeseen disaster, health issue, relocation, tired of the old house, neighborhood goes down, a foul smelling or noisy business goes in up the street, etc. I know a couple, who planned to retire in their home, only to move within two years of purchase because their daughter needed help with her very sick baby. Making a room into something to be remodeled later doesn't really work because fewer buyers want to buy a "gut and remodel" home which is definitely not a selling point by highlighting what something "could be". Any issues in retirement could also limit your funds to properly remodel yet again for the purpose of selling plus remodeling will likely be more costly in the future than today. So what's the bottom line? Living in your home - you need to be happy, so do what makes you happy and don't worry about the what if's; but should having a main floor bath make you unhappy, don't do it. If your home is two bedrooms, don't do that either. For any other reason, if you don't mind the extra bath, it certainly can't hurt and will likely help should you ever decide to sell. Who knows, when your retired in-laws need to move in with you, having that extra bath may help out tremendously.

Thanks for the compliment on the hardwood. It's actually bamboo. It's the Java Fossilized bamboo from Calibamboo. I think I'm there first residential install on the east coast. This stuff is absolutely gorgeous and I love it so much so far. We've been in the house a few weeks, just haven't had a chance to update the pics. I can tell you, whatever you decide to go with will be the right thing for your family. Facing the disability with my husband, and having it be very real and in our face forced us to look at some very real issues. We have a 12yo daughter. It spurred us to decided to go 100% handicapped accessible. My husband couldn't stand the thought of a future time when my daughter might need him in some part of the house, and he couldn't get there to help her. The idea of her sick with fever throwing up in the only non-wc accessible bathroom as he sat in the chair outside trying to comfort her...or having a nightmare as he tried to make corners to get to her bedroom. We knew that at age 12 there wouldn't be too many more of those times, but grandchildren will come one day.... He couldn't live with those thoughts... so we made the whole house accessible. Today a paraplegic could move into our house with access to all but the basement, and we are 100% ready to pop in the elevator as the shaft is prebuilt. However, if he did not have MS...and we only had our minor mobility issues and those of guests to think of...our decision might have been totally different. My inlaws built 100 feet from us on the same 17acres. They both have serious mobility issues. They lowered the switches, raised the toilets, raised the outlets and made the master wc accessible. The other bedrooms and second bath however are not accessible at all. At their age, and with their only surviving child and grandchild living next door...the money just wasn't justified. My grandparents, both just shy of 90 on the other hand are living quite happily in their 2 story home. Nana is blind, Grampa has COPD and a heart condition and needs oxygen frequently. They both can still walk, if a bit unsteadily and refuse any changes. On bad days Grampa sleeps on the sofa downstairs instead of heading up. I just wanted to give you a bit of generational prospective from my family....thought it might help. Laney Here is a link that might be useful: Calibamboo for flooring

I used a Harman P68 pellet stove to heat my entire home last year. Its about 2,600 sq ft. It heated the main house and upstairs easily. The family room we added on is 46 feet from the stove and has 11' ceilings. When its cold we use the oil to warm it up at night then turn it off when we go to bed. I used very little oil. I still heat hot water with the boiler. We run are stove 24/7 with no problems. Its designed for that. The harman has a large ash pan and you can burn about a ton before you have to empty it. I would think you could heat your whole house with the stove depending on the layout. I used about 4.5 tons last year. I bought 5 tons this year at $219.00 a ton. I have to pay a delivery charge but don't have the bill yet. Probably end up being around $235 with delivery. My oil dealer said I use about 1,100 gallons a year. some is used for the hot water but not much i have found. I figure it costs me about $1,200 less a year to heat with the pellets pepending on the price of oil. I figure the stove will pay for its self in 2-3 years. There are other benefits. Not using foreign oil, non polluting, burns a waste product etc that I like. the heat is very comfortable and does not seem to dry out the house like a wood stove. I wish the pellets were around 200 a ton but demand has increased them. Hopefully they won't go higher.

OK now i'm learning, haha. I had never noticed or heard of the daylight with walk up door basement before. I'm mostly familiar with the full above ground walkout. That is an interesting option. Also I had assumed they could move the dirt around to make both levels walk out on grade, but now i see that would be an awful lot of dirt/expense. Or dig deeper so the back door is at grade, then put retaining walls on either side of the lower walk out door? That sounds a bit exessive too. I don't mind a few steps down in the back of the upper level, maybe I can minimize this by going more rectangle shaped. Say 34' deep into the hill by 22' wide gets me up to a 5' drop front to back. Thanks again for taking time to show me the grade sketches. I had an old F150 3 on the tree... loved that truck!