I live in the land of the cheap AKA: do-it-yourselfers. To be fair, I am also one of those 'do it yourself' types so I'm not dissing that per se. In recoginition of that, I do onsite consults/schematic plans for an hourly charge for small projects and do it yourselfers. I charge around $100 per hour (since that seems to matter so much) and will spend 2-3 hours on site. When I leave the client has the sketch and the very basic knowledge they need to proceed (what parts they can do, what parts to hire out and where to get materials etc.). Works for me since I don't have to spend anytime beyond the time on site working on the plan. I'm in and I'm out. Is it as good a plan as one I've spent much more time on? Of course not. Is it better than what the vast majority of homeowners could come up with themselves? Absolutely. The OP could likely find someone to give them a consult. Not all consults are the same though. It seems a great number of so-called professionals lack the ability to draw to scale quickly or recall plant material names etc. under time pressure. You have to find someone who can do both of those things. And while I'm sure there are those on this thread who will look down on me for being willing to do the small jobs or consults, I actually end up making more per hour on those jobs than on my more elaborate plans. And in tight markets, many people will spring for a consult even if they won't spring for a full design. I do have the luxury though of working because I enjoy it. My husband supports the family and I earn the fun money. Perhaps I'd do things differently if I were more career focused but my kids are more important and I won't put them in someone else's care so I have to accept that my career will be less than it might have been if I'd chosen differently. I like being able to help even average Joe's have access to good design.

Hey beekeeperswife. I was born in Savannah and my family still lives there. I am not far away in Atlanta. We were just there over the weekend. Where will he be going to school? My husband and I both went to college there. I don't know much about the current crime statistics there but I have not heard about anything really terrible. I will do a little more research though. My MIL will have the scoop for me. I will post later after I talk with her. I think downtown can be rough but like I said I haven't heard anything significant lately. Please let me know if I can do anything else for you or provide you with any information. Feel free to email me privately. Christine

Hi, my name is Stephanie, and I'm the parent of a teen son. ;o) My oldest turned 15 this month. It is taking me forever to post to this thread b/c I have so much to say I don't know where to start! And now I've got a lot on my mind, and I've had coffee too late at night, so you are in for it this time! LOL! This might be a book. It's not exactly fear that I feel about raising teens, but it is challenging. Makes me appreciate the simplicity of potty training! I'm just getting started, too, there are 3 more lined up behind him, every 3 years. So a year from now I'll have 2 teens, and soon enough they'll be 19, 16, and 13... and 10, so it looks like I'm here for a while! (That is what the PTAs see in me, "Oooo! She's gonna be here for years! Let's get her!") What have I done to myself!?! The food bill alone is giving me gray hairs, the boundaries navigation is going to make me insane. We don't parent with a Rule Book. But a set of standards and expectations guides us: respect, responsibility, honesty. DS is a sophomore, he has a girlfriend of, oh, about 4 months now. Started at school, classes together, phone calls, IM-ing. Once summer break started, they wanted to spend some fun time together. She comes here, they go to our neighborhood pool; he goes there and to her family's church for the weekly teen night. They are never alone, in private. (Ha, here they also have the company of not only me, but 3 younger siblings, who can be an excellent obstacle to privacy! LOL) A few times a parent has dropped them off for a move, ice rink, etc. for a couple hours. Public places of amusement, no "just hanging out," the mall is not OK with me, I think they need to have a plan for what they are going to do with their time. I limit it to twice/week, just b/c I don't think they need to spend all their free time with each other; they should have time to hang out with friends, family, and just by themself. DS also has summer reading requirements for his honors lit class, so he has school priorities even now. So I'm really good with how this is going for now. Tonight, my reason for being out so late.... he got a message from her that she and a friend, and her boyfriend, were going to the movie at 10:00. I agreed to drop him off and come back b/c the theatre is at the front of our subdivision (it's not even a bad walk in good weather) and I knew we'd be up anyway. As we pulled into the parking lot, she called to say she misunderstood, her friend's dad was taking them to a different theatre, 15 minutes away. So, figuring it was too late to catch them in time, we came home. Then she called again, said we can wait for next show at 10:45. Well, this is late, won't let out til after midnight. But I agreed as long as he didn't have a problem with me staying and watching the movie too - in a distant seat ;o) B/C it would be a waste of my time/gas to go back home when I needed to be back less than 90 minutes later, and it was just so late. That was my compromise, he took it. I agree with the idea of noticing opportunities to share our values and "wisdom" with our kids. The fancy word for that in my education classes was "teachable moments." Teachable moments are very important to me. There is a corrolary, sometimes we get opportunities to learn about our kids, and we need to watch and listen and learn who they are and where they are going. Tonight I felt like I had one of those. Ended up being out later than I wanted either of us out, further from home that I wanted to be, not reading a book and soaking in my tub like I planned to be. ;o) But I observed the teen social life and now know better what to teach my son (in the morning!). The friend his GF was with also met her boyfriend there. Turns out he was older, driving, and with 2 carloads of friends. Which means some of them had to be 18 to be driving at night with other teens, legally. I didn't know any of them, other than just recognizing faces from the neighborhood or subbing at the HS. They were well-mannered enough in the movie, I didn't observe any inappropriate behavior. But outside, one sat on the curb smoking. They all drove off leaving the younger girls standing there waiting for the dad to pick them up. If I had not been there w/DS, those 15 y/o girls would have been standing there for 20 mins alone, after midnight. Weekday night, there was no one else outside the theatre. So DS stood there w/the girls while I sat in the van at the curb. Once the ride was there, his girlfriend came to my window and thanked me profusely. The dad picking up late said nothing to me, didn't even look at me. As we drove away, I asked DS the obvious question, "So Kristy's boyfriend is older than her, huh? Did you know him before tonight? Did you know any of his friends with him?" He said, "No, but I can't believe he didn't wait for Kristy's dad to get here. That was weird, what a jerk." (Good boy! LOL.) Tomorrow I plan to have a conversation about knowing what is going on better before he agrees to go somewhere. It's not just cuz I'm nosey, but b/c he can't vouch for the behavior of people he doesn't know. He needs to make himself more informed, so he has all the information to make the best choices. We can just never have enough conversations with the kids, can we? That is one thing that boggles my mind. I feel like I have so much to tell him, to talk to him about, to ask him... so many conversations to have. Yet if we parents talk too much, they block it out anyway. I have to think hard, to choose the words carefully so I get in what I need him to hear before he stops listening. Make my point before he tunes me out. Make every word a valuable one, so he knows when I'm talking it's something he should listen to, not another Rant From Mom. I think I will be so much more confident and prepared when the rest are teens, but I bet they throw their own surprised in just to keep me on my toes. I am aware that they are watching their brother now, so what happens now sets the bar for the future. If it's true that we learn to parent from our parents, I had a good education. My parents were great. I was minimal trouble as a teen, good student, worked, volunteered, studied/practiced my music. I didn't even taste alcohol until I was 20, never tried a cigarette, much less any illegal substance. My friends were the same way. I was a questioning kid, would defy a rule I thought was without merit. But my parents didn't really make that kind. When I refused to attend church at 15, mom fussed a little, but they just went without me. My cousins caused a lot of trouble, from bad grades to teen pregnancy to arrests. They had a lot of priveleges, and distracted parents who made up for it with more priveleges. We're all adults now, and they have turned out fine, no one is still causing trouble. They just took the longer road to find their way. Now when we talk about growing up, they will say the always envied my brother and me because they wanted parents like ours. Even though there were more limits at our house, they loved to spend weeks with us in the summer b/c they knew the limits, they felt safe there, like someone was paying attention. One cousin told me that now that she is a parent, she looks to my mom as her example, not her own. As kids, I would never have guessed my cousins felt that way. I woudln't have thought it now, either, if they didn't say it. But since they have, I see it looking back. Even the one who caused the most trouble, never gave Aunt Susie trouble, he wouldn't have wanted to disappoint her, she believed in him. It is sweet to know now that my own mother was the stable factor in our whole family. So if I learned from that, that is a very good thing. I commented to them that my mom has always had higher expectations of my that she does of anyone else. It was a whine, sometimes that has gotten to me over the years. But my cousin responded that I was lucky, because it is so much harder when your mom doesn't have any expectations of you at all. Made me think about what expectations I put on my kids. She's right, it's better to have high, but reasonable, expectations for your kids to live up to than none at all. My expectations come right back to the standards I try to set: respect, responsibility, honesty. Among all my old and made up Mom-isms, I repeat to them often "Behave in a way that makes you proud of yourself." Oh, and this Friday I agreed to chaperone a small group of friends at the pool, pizza, b-day cake. I let DS to the inviting, but the parents who I do not know well called me so find out what was going on, if I would be there, what they should expect. I was happy about that. So I'm going to get another learning opportunity, but this time with kids my son does know well. I do like his choices in friends, and he is always comfortable with me meeting them and their parents. Maybe that's just b/c he knows he doesn't have a choice anyway. ;o)

My GC and I have shared this responsibility, although I accept that our arrangement has perhaps been a little non-standard. One of the ways he has kept within my budget was to find stuff - quality, brand names - at HEAVY discount either as salvage, auction, whatever and that kept his material costs downs (he got our high end polyacyanawhatchmacallit insulation that way, at a local building-materials salvage yard, also the brand-name, brand-new windows he put in the attic which I believe he got for about $20 each when somebody sold them after purchasing and then not using them for a project). From the get-go our agreement was that as long as the materials he used were quality (and legal!) I didn't care how he aqcuired them. So far, no complaints. Otoh, I have picked out all the things that really mattered to me and he deducts those costs from our fixed bid agreement. Cabinets, floor tile, wall tile, paint, counter, light fittings etc. And I've been happy to help keep the costs down - I don't have a problem with it going into HIS pocket instead of a big box store, eg when I picked out the paint and laminate for our attic I had a 10% off coupon for Lowes and used it - the ACTUAL cost will be what we deduct. He's doing a LOT of work for a very reasonable fee (perhaps even undercharging a bit) so I feel like it's only fair to return the favour wherever possible. So, I guess the short answer is this: for things that really matter to you, pick them out yourself. For things that he can get cheaper or more easily - hopefully passing the savings on to you - let him do so. Just my 2c.