Up, up and not away!

Well, I for one, in 30 years have never kept a mortgage for more than 10 years. I doubt that many people have. Hell, most people don't stay in the same home for 10 years, much less keep the same mortgage. I've been in my present house for nine years and am on my third mortgage. My current mortgage is a 5/1 at 4.25%, which is set to adjust is March 2009. I hope to be out of my house before then, but if not I will just refinance again. I've saved quite a bit of money by not having paid a higher fixed rate in the past nine years. Now, as for your question as to which direction rates will go. As of this morning, rate futures indicate that there is a 100% chance that the Fed will cut its rate by September due to the current liquidity problems in the market. In fact, the ECB added 95 billion Euros into circulation today and the Fed added 12 billion dollars. Some analysts on CNBC this morning were predicting that the rate could come down 50 or 100 basis points rather than just 25 before the end of the year if the credit markets continue to deteriorate. I realize that a Fed rate cut doesn't mean that mortgage rates will automatically come down, but it does give you an indication of which direction rates should trend.

sweeby - I asked DH what size sink he wanted, couldn't get a straight answer so I went with 2' to see how it worked in the plan. I'll just have to drag him to Lowes or HD so he can put eyeballs on sinks & figure it out. He has told me that he doesn't want a farm/apron sink. What size do you have? holligator - thank you for pointing me to that thread. I really like the way you eliminated the Barrier Island & Destination Fridge. We've been walking through model homes to get ideas & its just bumfuzzling how many have kitchens with exactly those issues. Go figger. BTW - should my pantry door open in? DH & I are the designers. Don't get me started on the architect who, even with 14 Powerpoint pages outlining what we liked and how we wanted the house to function came back with a kitchen where I face toward the doglock to cook & the prep sink has me bumping butts w/ DH at the cleanup sink. grrrrrr .... buehl - when we were in Greenville (we live in Houston) we walked through the houses of some builders are interested in and took pictures. The kitchen/nook/keeping room in the posted plan is our own modification of one we saw that we liked. Above is a picture of the oven wall in the partially completed house. One of the things we did was to push that wall so that it is in the same plane as the short piece of wall the arrow is pointing to. This gives us a longer run for the cleanup sink and counterspace. To my eyes, it doesn't bother me that the ovens are close to the door. I dunno. I could shove the ovens 6" to the east, balance the sink between 2' cabinets. Would that be enough and would it make a significant difference? To do more would require the "doglock" to be reduced which may not be a big deal since there is plenty of space in there DH really, really wants a cozy feeling banquette. We deliberately made it smaller than the usual bump out breakfast nook to get that feeling. And, we did mock it up using chairs and pieces of cardboard in our own kitchen. Our plan is to sit in the chairs so that we can look out to the woods while we eat. Also, I've mocked up putting a leaf in the table to extend & there is still plenty of room to get by. Something that is important to me is that the banquette serves as my mini-retreat, as well. I don't want to be too far from DH when he is watching TV in the keeping room, but I sometimes need a little bit of space so I can read with less distraction. I also picture myself sitting there propped with pillows, my feet up, a cup of tea in my hand just watching the rain or snowflakes or squirrels or birds and thinking deep thoughts. ;^) scootermom - yes, where to put the dishes is one of the things that concerned me. But, you nailed us empty-nesters on the head. We do just dish up from the cooking zone and carry our plates to the table. I doubt we are going to change our ways now that we've forgotten what serving bowls are for. LOL! ci lantro - above is a picture of the builders house from the prep sink. Our keeping room will have another bank of windows on the wall that has the fireplace. The outdoors seem pretty close, to me. Also, I stood in my current kitchen at a distance that approximates that & the view to the outside wall windows looks fine. Even if we moved the kitchen to an outside wall, we have a sloping lot. The back of the house will be one story above ground level at that point. We'd rather have the banquette and keeping room on outside walls for the views. cook1 - a keeping room is where we plan to do most of our TV watching and just livin'. In other times & places it might be called a den or family room vs the more formal great room or living room. Some plans also call it a hearth room & most of them have a fireplace. We opted to shift the fireplace out to the screened porch & have an extra wall of windows in the keeping room. After 18 years of being cooped up in AC for most of the year because of the Houston heat & humidity, I plan to be out on that screened porch in December with my down parka and that fireplace blazing . In any event, we have fireplaces in the great room and master bedroom, so 3 is enough. Again, thank you for the comments. We've never built a new house, before & this is our "forever" home so its a pretty big deal. Jo Ann

I am planning to get rid of a window. My architect suggested instead of trying to actually take the entire window out, to black it out from the inside. I haven't gotten the entire details, but he suggested this because the house is brick and will always look like it used to be a window, but by blacking it out, we can configure the kitchen how we want and from the outside it will look like a window with coverings on it, but on the inside you won't know its there. He said commercial remodels do that all the time. I have no need for the window in our kitchen and am in desperate need of wall storage cabinets and prefer my cooktop to be where the window is, rather than the sink. And my window looks onto the side of our detached garage. We also have three other large floor to ceiling windows in the kitchen, so light isn't an issue. I don't think there is anything wrong with taking out a window, just think about how to frame it back and fix the outside of the house, or black it out. And make sure you have some light coming in the kitchen or you will end up with a drab dark kitchen and you may regret it. This is our kitchen at night. From House inspiration And this is the front windows From House inspiration