You are right, the info on MH Village is limited. It can only offer the info provided by the park owner or manager. For example, the park where I live is listed as age-restricted on MH Village. The actual fact is that they had intended to set aside one area of the park for retirees and have the rest all ages, but it never happened. We live in the section intended to be for retirees, and there are children living acrosss the street. MH Village still thinks it is an age-restricted park. What it does offer is a pretty comprehensive list of the manufactured home parks in your area, whether there are any vacancies, and any homes for sale in the park. And that is enough info to decide whether a phone call or visit is merited.

Interesting thread! We have two children (~4, ~7) and our current house has an open kitchen into the family room. We all love to cook and my husband and I loathe the open concept. Actually, my Mom complains about it too. The kitchen does have a table and my kids can draw while I'm cooking and help out with smaller tasks. But if they, or my husband, choose to watch TV I notice the TV volume starts increasing the further I get into the meal. If my husband decides to do one of his marathon stews and soups weekends, I find myself reaching for the volume on the remote too. I also find that I will get to a point where I want everyone to leave so I can focus and get stuff done. This is when I tell everyone to go outside and play (including my husband) :) We now eat all dinners in the dining room. I'm one of those people who just can't relax and enjoy the meal when I'm staring at the mess we have to clean up, but this came more from my son, not me. One day he just said, "Why don't we eat in here every day?" and now we do. We're finally breaking ground on a new build next month and have been planning our new house and kitchen for a year and a half. In that time the kitchen has become closed off, the pantry was enlarged, and we got rid of a breakfast room, replacing it with a nook. Like LL pointed out, it was redundant to have a large eating space off the kitchen, island with seating, and dining room - especially since we now use the dining room. We also got rid of our upper cabinets because I want to able to see into the backyard and watch the kids run around while I cook, do dishes, or whatever else it is that seems to keep me in our kitchen more than any other room. Shannonaz: the one thing I've noticed while planning our build, and having it take for freaking ever, is we've been watching things change while they grow. We can ask them to watch a TV show when we're trying to get dinner finished and just need some space. They set the table for us so that keeps them occupied too. Two years ago, was a different story. Since they both have an interest in cooking, I also imagine they will become more involved in the actually preparation as they get older. So my point is, while it's hard to imagine your kids a few years from now, it's better to plan for the future abilities bc the toddler years fly by, and way too fast! Lastly, if I could have a "second kitchen" it would be sound proof so I could hear nothing else in the house, would lock from the inside, have a comfy chair, a toaster oven, coffee maker, small fridge with sparkling water, wine, assorted cheeses, and I'd lock myself in there and "cook" with a book once a day! :)

Hi Juno - from what I've learned, it really depends on how big the shelf needs to be and how much weight you'll be putting on it. If its just a few tchotchkes then you should be fine with an "off the shelf" shelf and mounting hardware. There are quite a few places that sell these kinds of shelves, link below. You can also build the shelves yourself with a little elbow grease - google "torsion box shelves" for instructions. That seems to be the popular choice and would give you a lightweight alternative. Also look up "french cleat" for mounting hardware - that also seems to be a popular way to attach them. If you do decide to go with solid wood, that Hafele hardware at the top of the page is for solid shelves and would provide the invisible support you're probably looking for. They have an option for masonry installation and it looks like they come with pretty detailed instructions. We're going to have to DIY the hardware for ours because our shelves will be so deep and long and I want triple assurance the things won't pull off the wall when I load them up. I placed an order yesterday with a local saw mill - they're going to give us ripped and planed boards to glue together ourselves, and then we'll take them back so they can plane them again to the correct thickness and clean up the ends. I'll sand and stain them myself, and then according to ctycdm's instructions above we'll affix them to the walls. Hope this helps! EDIT: Also, FWIW, I calculated the weight of our longest shelf (approx 75"x12"x2") to be 32 lbs. I also found this online which gives you the approx weight of lumber depending on how dry it is... http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/green-kiln-dried-pressure-treated-lumber-weights-d_1860.html Here is a link that might be useful: Prefab shelves This post was edited by Swentastic on Wed, Oct 8, 14 at 13:17

Holy moly you guys!!! What an amazing cornucopia of talent we have here! Maybe that's why we're all renovating our kitchens; it's at least half artistic, as opposed to strictly functional. This is such a great thread because it's a way of recognising that each of us has unique talents, and that we should feel good about that! I notice people seem more at ease talking about their anti-talents and being quite self-deprecating about their talents. It's OK to say out loud that you're good at something! cpartist, I saw your drawings up further on the thread, but missed the fact that you drew them! I thought they were photographs of "real" things. WOW!! You are amazing! The flowers are my favourite. Do you sell your art? Where would I get more info on that? I'm asking 100% totally seriously, not just trying to be polite. Do you take special orders? Do/would you frame your art? mushcreek and cpartist, I'm with you on test taking. Between my ability to retain what I read and my skill at test-taking, I'm the perfect student, and that's good because I've been back to college since 2007, with 2 1/2 years to go to get my PhD (2 1/2 years under my belt from the late 70's). It doesn't mean I'm smarter than others; it just means my natural skills align with what universities use to assess knowledge. If I had to do a car repair or paint a portrait or program a computer, I'd be the dumbest person in the room. I'm glad people are starting to realise there are different kinds of intelligences! mushcreek , I'm also an ace speller and perfect at English grammar, and I know the APA 6 handbook like the back of my hand. But I'm hopeless when it comes to crossword puzzles, sudoku, any type of puzzle. I couldn't put together a 100 piece puzzle on my table if you had a gun to my head. I always score exceptionally poorly (under 30th percentile) in any kind of mechanical perception test, like where you see a set of pullies and wheels and you have to figure out where the chain ends, or where you see a piece of paper with dotted lines on it and you have to figure out how to fold it to make the origami object they show you. I'm terrible at visualising anything 3D, which is why it's weird that I can picture interior designs for a room with perfect clarity. But I can't draw anything, especially not floor plans, which is a big reason I decided against going to college for interior design. I would have to draw, draw floor plans by hand and on the computer. I would flunk out, even if I had the best rooms! Even on these forums, when posters put their floor plan here, it is extremely difficult for me to visualise it. If they post photos of the room, I can see it instantly and know exactly what should be done. :-) Funkycamper, I'm glad you keep reading this thread! It's funny how we see things in others as talents, but see things in ourselves as just natural things that anyone could do. Believe me, your gifts in recalling numbers, finding things geographically, test taking, spelling, and multitasking (which mushcreek also has) are TALENTS!! I know they just seem natural to you, but I guarantee people would give anything to acquire those talents. I recently read an article that said multitasking isn't really a thing, except in rare circumstances. People say, especially in job interviews, that they can multitask, but usually the human brain doesn't operate that way, and people actually end up taking longer when they try to accomplish several things at once, as opposed to doing them one at a time. The article said, and I've read this before, that when people are interrupted by the phone, or in person, that it takes 15 minutes to get focus back on what they were doing. SO... what you and mushcreek have described is a rare gift!!! The article mentioned that there are people, like you, who can truly multitask. So stand up and be counted as having an amazing talent!! :-) I'm not a great multitasker; I am easily distracted--shiny!--but I am great at doing things in my head. I almost always write my papers in my head before I write a single word on my computer, and most of my papers are 20-35 pages long. I've got some good sized chunks of my dissertation in my head right now. I can also do grocery lists, lists of errands, and stuff like that in my head. My DS has the same thing. Before he went to MIT, he got a Bachelor of Music in classical piano performance. I used to see him lying on the sofa with headphones on, eyes closed, and fingers wiggling in the air. If I asked him what he was doing, he'd say practicing piano. He'd have the entire work committed to memory before he ever set fingers to the ivory. Funkycamper, may I ask the origin of your screen name? Also, your geographic memory is awesome, and I'd give anything for that talent! I bought my house in October, and before that stayed there as a houseguest of the owners, one of my best friends and her husband, for the entire month of September. I'm not moving in until June, but have occasion to go out there fairly often. I cannot find my own house without GPS, and sometimes even with it! :-) Whenever someone uses the phrase "jack of all trades, but master of none," it reminds me of an old joke in academia. As you progress through college, you become more and more narrowly focused. Your doctoral dissertation will be on something very specific. So the joke is the more education you get, you know more and more about less and less, until finally you know everything about nothing. Haha! Jillius, I LOVE the idea of "one and a half attention spans!" Brilliant! That would make an excellent study. Keeping your hands busy with physical activity you can do mindlessly with muscle memory that enables you to focus on the lecture, sermon, your spouse's long story about their day, whatever...that's a great concept! I'm a note taker too. My ex and I used to go to a lot of baseball games. I LOVE baseball! But I would get so distracted by everything else that goes on in a stadium that I'd miss important stuff like home runs, lol. I finally found the thing that allowed me to concentrate on the game: filling in the score card you always get with the program. It was a steep learning curve for me to learn all the symbols of official scoring, but it kept me super focused on the game because I couldn't miss one pitch. :-) I also put a headphone jack in one ear and listened to the live radio broadcast! My ex thought I was nuts and my friends thought it was funny, but it worked for me! I've so very much enjoyed this conversation and I hope everyone will join in as we celebrate our talents and empathise with our anti-talents! This is fun!