I agree on having our kids appreciate what they have. They really don't know how good we've had it! We have 1 incredibly small bathroom we are sharing (that right there has been a growing experience for me - not loving that nor the lack of water pressure - ack). It's an old home - as in no outlets or switches in one of the bedrooms upstairs. They were sharing a room but they've already rearranged. The room without any outlets also doesn't have a heat vent so I don't see my oldest staying in there come winter - but it is also the largest of the 2 rooms. :) We also have no dishwasher and no a/c. Those are basically the comforts that we had that we are now getting used to being without. I keep reminding myself that there is no perfect home and surely there will be things after living with it that we might think are too large, too small or a little off one way or another. Our pantry is pretty sizable - fits our chest freezer which I'm excited about but the doorway is off the kitchen, not IN the kitchen proper. That bugged me for a while but I think it's going to be okay. I was off a bit on my $250k number - dh informed me that it's more like $280k. :( Besides the roofing the other number that came in considerably higher than we thought was lumber. It recently took a jump so that was a bit disappointing. We are hoping to get all of our quotes by the end of the month so we can lock in our I/R before it also takes another jump. We will be doing all priming, painting, laying wood floor, tile, setting cabinets, some trim work, putting stone on fireplace (we have done that before and it's actually a very rewarding project but took way longer than we thought), hardware on doors and cabinets, lighting, ceiling fans. We too will be doing some of those very things you mentioned after the fact. Definitely closets and even the small office we have will be done after we are in. With work schedules and keeping timing on track it may come down to having to hire things out that we originally planned on DIY. We are not moving communities or school districts and are paying rent so time is money to a certain degree. For now though that is what we hope to do in sweat equity. I think you are wise to start working through house plans now. There are certainly many details to ponder. We were hoping to be about 2000 sq feet total for the main and upstairs but ended up at 2400. We don't feel the rooms are excessively large or that we have rarely used rooms so we went ahead with it. I had a few things that I really wanted configured a certain way and made sure they were laid out accordingly. After those boxes were checked I really didn't feel so picky about the rest. Hopefully they will live how I feel they will in my mind! :)

graywings, Thank you for the kind words, I wish you would leave a review on the book website, the contest is based partly on reviews and ratings. The books here are free, I think that paypal thing is for donations, not sure? For me, it's all about hearing what others think of my stories, there are more of mine there along with my 1st. novel.

So trippy, Yuan Gong. What an existentialist you are. Why can't Snidely have his opinion? It's his, that's that. I think all of us can tend to be bratty tourists. I try my hardest to not be seen as an obnoxious American and I'll get another chance in 6 weeks when we go to Kryzgyzstan and Croatia. I didn't spell K-stan right but it always confuses me. But I was that obnoxious American after over-imbibing whilst jet-lagged. We went to a pub when visiting DS in Berlin and I had two delicious apple ales which went down like water. When walking out a couple of German patrons had their two little dogs with them, and they reminded me of my own two little dogs at home. So I picked up one of them and kissed it, and realized I made an egregious mistake. The Germans were not too happy with the drunken American. My son was very embarrassed by his crass mother, but we still laugh about it today. What's accepted here is not accepted everywhere. Who knows, some Americans might be offended if I did that here! I blame the jet lag combined with the ale, lol.

That is so refreshing......in more ways than one!