That sounds a lot like what I did, only I lived in my little dwelling for 6 years and then "added on". I bought 8 acres of open land in 2003. Built a little 24x24 double car sized box with a 6x6 bathroom in one corner. Shower, no tub. Electric tankless water heater, because I knew I wouldn't be living there the rest of my life and didn't want to waste that electricity keeping water hot in the future. Along that wall, there is a full size washer and dryer, shop sink (deep plastic free standing), full size dishwasher with adjustable top shelf to fit quart jars, Jenn-Aire drop-in cooktop with down draft exhaust vent, and more counter space with a microwave sitting on it. I had a larger toaster oven that replaced the need for a full sized oven. I have a full size refrigerator and an upright freezer (that's in the big house now). The cabinetry is all raw unfinished oak and particle board stuff I got from Lowe's and hung or placed myself. Particle board/formica counter tops. Bought an old chemistry lab drawer cabinet and topped it with more counter top. That's my "island" sitting next to a couple of sets of 6 ft tall, 2'x4' metal frame shelves that separate the "living room" from the "kitchen". Separating the "living room" from the "bedroom" was a rack I built to hang clothes on. There's baseboard heat on 3 walls, and a through the wall AC/Heat combo unit mounted up high on the "living room" side. So half the structure is "wet" (bath/kitchen) and half is "dry" (living/bed). Had a little 13" TV sitting on top of a stereo. Two doors. 8 windows, ceiling fan, electric outlets mounted 4 feet high instead of 18" from the floor. I can actually see the outlets above the couch and not have to crawl around looking for them. Very nice! I hung all the insulation, the paneling (actually outdoor lapboard panels with a woodgrain finish that looks really nice, rustic, cabin type). I hung the cabinets, painted the concrete slab floor, the ceiling, trenched and buried 700 feet of water line, made the connections to the supply and the house, and hired everything else out. It had a 12x24 covered porch on the front, and a 12x24 pad on the back (in hopes of possibly adding a greenhouse type structure in the future (not yet)). Had a septic tank put in that was large enough to compensate for the little house and the future bigger house. Worked out very well! In 2011, I added onto the front of the structure more carport, and a 3000 sqft house and use the original structure now for tool storage and canning. Bought lots of surplus office shelving cheap and use those for storing extra empty jars, full jars, tools, and other junk. Stereo is still there and I crank it up when I'm canning. So these are connected now by 36 feet of covered concrete pad (3 car carport). Metal roof covers everything. Vinyl siding, gutters. Quite happy with it all now. Quite happy I built the little house first. I couldn't afford the full house in 2005. So it all worked out. Built a pole barn in 2010. Nice to park the tractors under. Want to channel the water to tanks to use for irrigation. Have two 40 ft storage containers on either side for dry storage of materials and tools that can stand the heat. Have another one out in the pasture with a bunch of my brother's stuff in it and another couple thousand canning jars. i struck it with someone on Craig's List one time and made an unbelievable deal, so I had to store them somewhere. :-) They keep getting more and more expensive, so maybe one day, I'll start selling some of them off. Lots of older jars that I'd never consider using. Lots I would. Still collecting... :-( :-)

YEA! I just bought Chamomile tea - so that item is checked off the list for now, I pretty much have everything but the Thermometer and a marking pen. I'll be putting the set up together myself, so figure it will at least be an all day project. Dawn, yeah, I usually put my seed trays on top of the fridge until they germinate. Right after I see a few pop up, I move it to the lights and let the rest follow suit. I have grown African Violets before, and they are also easy to propagate from leaf cuttings. Regular AVs are small plants (can get pretty wide), but there are also some very small, tiny even, AVs that are super cute. As a former avid Begonia grower, I also used to grow a lot of them under lights, growing from seed (very tiny, dust-like seeds), and some will root via leaf cuttings like the AVs, pieces of rhizome for the Rhizomatous varieties, and stem cuttings from the canes, shrubs, semps, Rex (which I don't grow because they are just more finicky than I care to deal with), thick-stemmed, a few tuberous (not the large-flowering ones that like to grow in the cooler Northern climes). I used to show my begonias at the local, regional, and national show levels. But that is a very long time ago. I recall one of the entries was a fish tank in which I put plants I had grown from seed - about 10 different ones, that were meant for a high humidity environment, and it was gorgeous. I may get back into some begonias in a very small way. Begonias of this category really do like light gardens because they are shade loving plants and lights don't emit anything close to the intensity of outdoor sunlight. There is a local begonia show around March or April here in the city, of the Barkley Branch of the American Begonia Society, and they always have a plant sale along with it. If I can remember, I may go and p/u some there. The small Rhizomatous are better suited to light gardening. The fluorescent tubes that come with the garden are T-5s. Apparently this is a good blend of the red and blue spectrums for good growth. Mmmmmmmm, a Mesclun or microgreens mix sounds very, very good. Thanks for the suggestion. Yes, I am thrilled - I always put everyone else in the family first - I don't buy clothes or shoes, except when I have to, or anything special, other than my coffee beans, so it's kind of a guilty pleasure I'm indulging in. But, life is short, and it only took be approx. 30 years to make the decision to go for it. I'm sure I have tons of seed in my "seed box" that will be suited for growing this time of year. I'm attaching a link to an image of several different rhizomatous begonia leaves just to show that there are so many more types of them than what we see used as bedding plats. Susan Here is a link that might be useful:

I got my Breville today! Very prompt shipping, especially with Labour Day yesterday!! I was in the midst of processing my cucumbers, onions and peppers when I got the delivery. I tried to buy cucumbers on Sat and not a cuke was to be found in 3 stores. Grrrrrr. They were advertised in the flyer, so I went today hoping that a shipment came in. There they were. I wanted to get my relish started, and not knowing for sure that I would get my "new kitchen toy" I borrowed my old processor from a friend and went to work. Not to worry, I'll be trying the Breville out soon and give a report. Everything feels quite nice and sturdy and well made.

Just saw that Pinterest updated their their terms of use. I haven't studied them but the language in the email is encouraging. They're addressing people's concerns with Pinterest being able to sell content. There was some paranoia from some users about getting sued for copyright infringement by the owners of the original content if Pinterest did that. I always thought that scenario was far fetched (why would Pinterest sell copyrighted material just because one of their users linked to it on their site?) but I can also see why some may have felt that it was a risk. I know others have a beef with Pinterest for other reasons but this one seems to come up a lot lately. I've seen this topic debated in this very forum so thought I'd share the news with this for those who were holding out on using Pinterest for that reason. I've found Pinterest to be very useful in keeping track of ideas for my current kitchen project. There are other tools but I find Pinterest the quickest and easiest way to keep track of ideas in a visual way. This is from the email Pinterest sent out followed by a link below to the new terms "Our original Terms stated that by posting content to Pinterest you grant Pinterest the right for to sell your content. Selling content was never our intention and we removed this from our updated Terms." At least we know they're listening. Here is a link that might be useful: Pinterest terms of use