Thanks for sharing your experience. It's so great to hear from others who have gone through the process. We are building a house out in the country, as well. We are planning on doing the back up generator (we are in wyoming) so it's nice to hear that it is worth the extra cost. We are not putting in a basement (the water table is too high on our property) but I do have some concerns about my laundry/mudroom. I don't know the dimensions but we ended up stealing space from that area to make our master bath even larger. In the end we are doing a stackable washer and dryer but that will leave me room for a big closet for coats, as well as, a smaller closet with a doggie door for the cat boxes. We will also have room for a bench/cubbie unit. I've worried that I will hate the stackable washer and dryer (I'm short and with 3 small kids they will be used alot) but I thought I'd appreciate the extra storage. The mud is ridiculous here but we've been living in a mobile home on our property for a year while we built so I'm hoping that just the extra space (3 kids, 3 cats, 3 dogs in less than 1100 square feet now) will help me look past the mud that will be inevitable for a long time. We are afraid to pave our road because my hubby worries he will just tear it up snowplowing with his tractor in the winter. And it's true that gravel is cheap (relatively) and can make a big difference. We are doing a playroom in the bonus space above the garage but otherwise our house is just one level - thank you so much for sharing.

I would like to learn welding, stained glass and glass slumping/fusing and mosiacs. Also hypertufa. The things they make on the Garden Junk and hypertufa forums are awesome! I already do crochet, painting, woodworking, and garden junking, as well as gardening itself. I have done crewel, cross stitching, sewing (clothes, stuffed animals and dolls), knitting, cake decorating, Florals, some beading and wire bending. My favorite site for wire and beading is wigjig.com Now I pick and choose.. I found that knitting wasn't for me, cakes were fun but I am slow, got tired of sewing (the last big thing I made was DD's wedding gown)and embroidery/cross stitching was sort of boring to me. I enjoy learning things, but don't always LIKE the craft. Are any of you that way?

Had brighter lights. My pool is tiny and I have two lights, but the pool just seems dim to me at night. It's nothing major, but from inside the pool doesn't stand out like I thought that it would.

My dad was a surgeon and would bring home tools of the trade to demonstrate how they worked. Usually at dinnertime. Interesting, but not relevant, I guess.