Again, a lot of these things are a reaction to economics and some by availability. Some are a reflection of values at the time. Used ties were a very cheap construction material that allowed people to manipulate grades in big ways at comparatively low costs. This is what is now going on with modular block walls. Bark mulch was a byproduct of the timber industry and got to be useful re-use of a waste product (it used to be very cheap 50 years ago). It eventually became a commodity on its own. Now other waste products (old fences, pallets, and some demo material) are ground up to supplement or replace bark mulch. It is helped along by the values of the time which include the notion that recycling a waste product is "the right thing to do". It always helps when these materials are making somebody some money as well. Recycled tires are definitely more embraced by eco-superheroes than by high end consumers. This is a head scratcher to me when I visit a town owned park that has this under a swing set adjacent to a salt marsh. The stuff is kicked around everywhere, looks bad, and smells. I don't know how you can clean it up without removing an equal volume of soil effectively doubling the volume of waste. I don't get the idea of why dumping it here is better than dumping it somewhere else. But, some people felt they were saving the world doing this. I'm sure they will blame "industry" for misleading them. Availability also affects fads when something that was not widely availably becomes widely available and people react to the novelty of it. Red lava rock in the eighties, bright colored dyed mulch, strong colored concrete pavers, granite cobbles from India, ornamental grasses, ... These existed for quite a while before they became widely available. When they did become available a lot of people rushed be on the cutting edge of doing "new things". Novelty goes a long way, too. I'm fascinated by the way western cities and the people in them find so much beauty in colored concrete pavers and modular blocks while here in the Northeast they are viewed as extremely cheesy and tacky. Even multi-million dollar homes out there are fully dressed out with it. What is embraced here is possibly old and passe there.

is it possible? of course it is. I am doing it right now. The only thing I am paying someone to do is electrical, plumbing, mechanical, drywall (I hate doing it), and shingles (again, hate doing it). I have done everything else. But then again, I have experience in the field. Both phyisically building and design/project management. My findings are not typical of a normal DIY since its probably not fair to group it into that category since its basically my professional day job. But in a nut shell, you NEED to know something about it. Subs wont take you serious. Googling and watching youtube is a start, but you need to know far far more than that. Being handy is different from building a house. Now its not to say you cant do it. Me or anyone else here does not know the skill sets you both have, however based purely on assumptions forms from reading your wording of your question....its way over your head, sorry to say. Another issue you can run into is financing. It can be hard to find financing that will do it without a GC they can trust to get things done on time and correctly.

"..as for an obit, who knows if newspapers will even be around...." Obituaries are online now. Funeral homes in my area publish detailed obituaries on their sites as part of the funeral package. Newspapers nowdays have websites listing the obituaries they publish in newspapers. A funeral director told me the only reason they publish in newspapers now is that older people can't wrap their head around the idea of an online obituary and insist on spending hundreds of dollars to still put one in the newspaper. I'm sure that will change in years to come as people who were born in the Internet age die and see the Internet as the sole form of communication. The problem with obituaries is that they are written by family members and are filled with outright lies and exaggerations. When the "info" is submitted for publication no one 'fact checks' it like they would for an article and it is treated just like any other ad in the newspaper. When my uncle died, the person who wrote it up put in that he had received his bachelors degree even though he had never even attended college. My uncle was always resentful that he had not been allowed to attend college so I guess the person who wrote that figured that that made it all better by "fixing" history. A lot of people noticed and brought it up at the memorial service.

thanks, everyone. My agent warned me that we wanted to keep the furniture out of the contract and negotiate that separately, so I'm not sure why it is now important to have a price list this early in the game, when there are not even any offers. I agree that we should not "muddy the waters" of the more important negotiation for our house. I frankly feel like all of this is premature and I'd rather focus on getting offers in, rather than pricing furniture, which can be done later down the road as we need a 45-60 day escrow period since we are remodeling our new home. weedyacres, I haven't discussed my concerns with our agents as they had our house open all weekend and we've been out of town and just returned, but I plan to discuss with them and let them know that we'd like to hold off on providing a price list at this point. chispa, thankfully we have some furniture in our new house left over from the old homeowner that we'll use in the interim. We're ok with living with out a few pieces for a few months while we bridge the gap. Frankly, I just don't want to move this stuff as it does not go at all with our new house style, and I know we will be getting rid of it eventually. We are only keeping our piano, our personal belongings, electronics, kitchen appliances/accessories and artwork. Pretty much everything else we either want to sell to the buyer or sell on Craigslist. I'd do an estate sale, but it seems like those companies take quite a bit of profit!