Redbirds, If it will make you feel better, try ripping up the carpet in a concealed place (closet) and see what you see. Perhaps you won't miss it if you pull it all up, and it certainly counts as "cleaning" in my book. Also included in my definition of "cleaning", is painting, though you might obliterate some clues to former features by painting over them. If you pull wallpaper, be sure to keep samples. If your house is very old(pre-20th c.), be cautious about removing wallpaper though. There may be very interesting lower layers, that are worth investigating before tossing them. With landscaping, you won't be able to tell what you've got until you've been through an entire year. A very good thing to do about landscaping at this time of year is make an accurate scale plan. (You don't need a professional survey; you can do it just by running measured lines from a couple of known points until you've got the dimensions down. Then locate everyother point off of your markers.) Use the time in the winter to identify all woody plants, and mark on the plan. Buy a bunch of plant labels and begin, as early as you can, labeling everything you find, and marking it on the plan. Be cautious about early weeding and garden cleaning if you are new gardener as many things may look like weeds at first. Better to let a weed grow than yank out something you didn't recognize. If I'm working in an unfamliar climate or garden I also make a "parking" space where I can transplant anything I'm not sure of and can't identify enough to know whether it's a keeper. Most times, it is just a weed, but you never know and that has saved my bacon a few times. Molly~

Do you have electric heat and water heating? A gas connection for the dryer in your utility room? If any of those are gas, you can run gas to the cooktop, but it's a mater of how far and what you have to go through to get there. If you don't have any gas, it's not likely that it will be cost effective and I'd look to induction. I like gas and had reasons for sticking with it, but my kids are grown now. With little ones, induction might have some safety advantages.

herbflavor, We bought the place because it was all that we could afford at the time without a mortgage, and the housing crisis of 2008 was still fresh on my mind and I absolutely did not want a mortgage, and still don't. We could have qualified for one but we didn't want one. Our next house will also be paid for in cash but it's going to be our "forever" home and we are projecting that its going to cost 200k. DH owns a business, and now I also own a business. Both our businesses do well. We are not rich. We are middle class. But we will not get a mortgage; we are very debt-averse. -------------------------- homechef59: "I'm going to continue with the wall extension for the refrigerator. You said the refrigerator would be too big and stick out. So, frame the wall with an L-shape into the dining room just far enough to make the refrigerator sit flush with the line of cabinets. Just trying to keep a lid on costs and get you some improvements." That is still moving a load-bearing wall, which costs $3k+, right? -------------------------- scone911: "Given your sketch, and based on instinct and experience, I wouldn't put any more money into this house. It's not worth the hassle, and I don't think you will get it back if there are mass market developers in the area who can undercut you every few years with a new subdivision that has all the bells and whistles. This house is already nickel and diming you, and that's really bad for your finances-- when you are young, you have a golden opportunity to start saving for retirement, so you have the power of compounding working for you. Throwing cash into a money pit house on speculation that it might be worth something someday, if everything breaks just right, is asking for trouble, IMO. Don't take that risk if you don't have to." We own it outright; there is no mortgage or lien or backtax; nothing. Free and clear. "I'd divide the land, if possible, and put a stick built or modular in the new section. Keep the old place as a rental if you can. At least the old house gives you somewhere to live while you build, and a modular can go up fast." We prefer to save up our cash towards our "forever" house instead. Also, we think at this time that what the property really has going for it is the land. If we divided it up it would lose a huge amount of its charm. The house itself has no charm at all; the land has charm. It has trees and wildlife and feels like you're in a forest; it's quite pleasant. "If you can get the land divided and ready to go in the next couple of months, you might (just possibly) be able to move into a new place by Christmas-- and get on with your life." No, because that would require getting a mortgage. We believe debt is something you do when things are more certain, and given the state of the economy and world affairs we are very far away from the kind of comfort level that would draw us to a mortgage. I suppose that wraps up this particular thread. I'll post a new one with a much more accurate to-scale sketch of the kitchen, dining and laundry floorplan so it can be hashed out better. Thanks again everyone! This was very insightful and educational.

Continuing...our custom house needed painting after eighteen years, inside and out. We had replaced a small kitchen island with a large custom one. When we moved to our 1803 dream, it needed paint, inside and out, including our famous 1927 roof. It needed some electrical work and plumbing done because we gutted a twenty year old kitchen to install a kitchen to accommodate both of the cooks in the family. We spent a (planned) fortune to line and cap five fireplaces, but we had budgeted for that, fireplaces being so important to us. We had to remodel a twenty year old bathroom for our aesthetic, not for function. Most everything we have done has been for our design vision and to be a good steward of this historic property. My husband is an amateur woodworker and restored the shutters, showing me the difference in the construction of the shuttered on the original portion of the house versus the latter 1836 addition. We didn’t replace them with vinyl shutters, he repaired them. We haven’t ripped off the plaster from the walls, we cherish it. For those of you who don’t love an old house, that’s fine. Just please, please don’t buy an old house and “modernize” it by tearing down walls for open concept. The mantles in the front and back parlors are too formal for my taste BUT they are staying, being original to the 1836 addition. They are part of the history of the house. How many posters here are ripping out a perfectly functional fireplace to “update” it, even if it is original to the MCM or the Victorian or the 2010 house they just bought. The Scotch Irish in me cringes when people “hate” the solid maple or the cherry or the quarter sawn cabinets and rip them out or paint them gray. Stop discouraging people who buy history.