From the way you describe your home and its setting it sounds like staying and doing the landscape work will give you a great space. It is sometimes difficult to uproot kids in high school and college. Would love to see pics of your yard. Good luck in making this decision.

You don't state anything negative about staying in your place, except perhaps the high taxes. You KNOW you love it and sounds like you would love it even more with the improvements.

The biggest question for me is whether you feel you can afford it. If it isn't a stretch for your finances, I would definitely do the improvements and enjoy them every day. Sometimes I even stretch the budget because I know I would get so much more pleasure from something than I would having the $ in the bank, especially when it comes to home improvements.

Creating an outdoor living space is generally something that improves resale and overall appeal of a home even if you do move -- but I agree, it doesn't sound like you have any reason to. You will still love all those things about your home while kids are in college, when they bring friends home, have families of their own. I saw my parents downsize only to want more room for visitors and up-size again. All of that sounds like an incredible place for the grandkids to come enjoy someday, so why not enjoy it to the max for as long as possible?

Are you plannng to move or stay? Are you willing to spend the money for your enjoyment only vs recouping any of it when you sell?

Bonnie the yard is big and difficult to capture in photos. Thank you for your thoughts.

Oly- the other reason to move would be to move to a smaller place; one with fewer stairs

We can afford it and we would not be taking on debt. We would assume little return.

Mtn I think you have hit the nail on the head. Dh and talked more yesterday. We should prioritize small pieces and do them little by little. We will probably still invest in a master plan design.

Well, what would be a realistic alternative?

I don't know where you live, but really think hard about what you want to do outside. Where I live, our time outside is limited to before "M" hour (mosquito) and never during big mosquito hatch-outs. So not that often. For hanging out in the warmer months, we use our screened in porch. The three things we do outside occasionally are have a campfire, grill, and I have a lounge chair in the front where one of us can sit and watch the other putter in the front yard. At my last house, I did invest in a staged redo of my back yard, and I never regretted it. The hours and hours of pleasure I spent out there added up fast. But we didn't have mosquitoes at the old place so were outside for dinner many, many nights. Plus, I designed a pleasure garden for viewing from an outdoor swing, and we often just sat out there at night and watched the garden. It had lots of white flowers that looked good at night, and lights and a fountain. The reason I am saying all this is if you are going to spend the money, really think about what you are likely to do out there. Maybe you need an expanded outdoor cooking space? If so, I'd be more likely to create an additional screened in area. Also, if you want to sit out more, like around a campfire or something like that, plan your landscaping around the views you want from the seating areas. Finding a good landscape designer is not easy. Mine was pretty bad. I could have done better myself and just taken some ideas to the installation contractors, which is what the designer did anyway.

The proximity to the trails and likely undeveloped land would be enough for me to make it work.

We don't have a large house, but it is less expensive to make improvements than to move.

We have mosquito spraying every three weeks.

Why are you thinking you will move? You love your home, your passion is your garden..I don't understand. I am living in the time between. Three offspring are young adults, unmarried. Some day this house where they were raised will be too small if they, their spouses, their children are all here at once. I have a garden people THINK is my passion, but it was only something to do as the kids played. I would LOVE to make the jump to the lake. "If you build it they will come" is my thinking, but DH loves his workshop so here we will stay.

One reason to move would be to get waterfront. But do we move away from a community we know, warts and all, for one we don’t.

There are some “couple friends” we would probably see less often.

Kayaking right outside the door would be awesome.