I very much agree with Quirk: your boyfriend should absolutely be paying you more than he is. Unless you're being kind to him for a good reason-- he's ill, disabled, something like that-- the amount that he's paying you is essentially scamming you. He would undoubtedly be paying quite a lot more if you weren't in his life. Additionally, here are some suggestions to take some of the pressure off of you: 1. Ask your boyfriend to plan to take ALL of the kids someplace all day on Sundays once in awhile. They could go do volunteer projects, go hiking, go to a park to throw balls/shoot hoops as a family, take a train and go sightseeing, visit a museum which charges minimal/no admission, visit relatives, visit nearby colleges (since the older ones are approaching college age and the younger ones are old enough to be taken along), whatever. If you want to do what your boyfriend has planned, go along. Otherwise, stay home and enjoy the peace and quiet. 2. Tell everyone that they are responsible for their own laundry if you have a washer/dryer in your house. By the time I was 15 and my youngest sibling was 10, we were all doing our own laundry: it's not rocket science and my mother had had enough. She even color-coded the sheets and towels so that she didn't have to do more than she wanted. If the kids wear dirty/wrinkly clothes, it's their problem. They'll clean things sooner or later. 3. Decide that you don't care what the kids' rooms look like most of the time, as long as the mess can be shut behind the door. I know that this can be hard to do, because knowing that a mess exists in the house can sometimes drive me crazy even if I can't see it. But if you reduce the number of rooms that you feel absolutely have to be cleaned to your standards, it will hopefully cut down on the stress. Make the kids clean their own rooms when you really want them cleaned, but try to ignore it some of the time, too. Pick your battles. 4. Use some of Pseudo's tips to get them to pitch in for the areas you decide to care about, and also have them each periodically pick recipes to cook for the whole family. Yes, the kids will complain your ears off, but they'll also get the work done and take some of the load off of you. Plus it's a learning experience that will (especially for the boys) help their relationships in the future. I think most women appreciate a guy who will cook and clean at least some of the time. Who puts "a slob" into their must-have dating/marriage criteria? 5. Reduce the amount of time per week you're spending on food prep, especially on Sundays. There are two things that come to mind here. First, I've been reading a lot about crock pot cooking lately, and there are some very, very easy-sounding recipes out there. You sound like someone who could really use a food prep time that lasts no longer than 5-15 min, followed by a long period of no-work cooking time. The crock pot seems to enable that. The second idea is-- if you can afford it and have the space-- look into getting a large second freezer. My mother used to take one day every month or two to make a ton of casseroles to freeze. It was a lot of work that one day, but it made things significantly easier the rest of the time. 6. Encourage the kids to all have friends over on the same day. It will probably be a very loud and untidy day... but if they have friends over, they'll probably be too occupied to bother you. And you can go into your room, shut the door, and read a book/watch a movie or something like that. Similarly, you could encourage the kids to all go to friends' houses on the same day. This also has the advantage of more quiet/less mess. 7. Make sure that you're doing the things you need to do for your own health and well-being. The demands on you sound utterly exhausting, and it wouldn't be surprising if you were feeling generally run down on top of feeling burned out. Take some time to shut out everything else and make sure you're taking care of yourself. I really hope that things get better for you soon.

I think that's an oxymoron. I'm guessing it'll be mostly MCM. It's hot right now and could meld well with 70s decor. As a child of the 70s, I remember brown/gold patterned sofas, Avocado and Harvest Gold in the kitchen, double doors, swag lamps, console TVs and brown paneling being "hot" in my childhood. I hope it's not a Property Brothers project. The network owns the house, right? I wonder if they'll do it as an all-HGTV cast project ... maybe one franchise gets to do the kitchen, while another group works on the living room? I don't understand the hoopla... the inside of the "house", which was all stage set, is what people remember. Whatevs... Yeah, but that interior house never really existed, whereas this house -- even if it's not the weird staircase and the orange kitchen -- does exist and can be used as a money maker. It's cheap enough content for HGTV. What was the house going for? Less than 2 mil? They can create a whole year of specials around it. Oh, you know they ended up paying more than that for it, but it's still a drop in the bucket for them. Yes, they'll make a ton of specials around it. Wait, wait -- I know exactly what's going to happen! This house will be the HGTV Dream House in 2019 or 2020. It'll be a remodel instead of a new build.

Awww I am with the overwhelming majority who thinks your House is absolutely just right. “Out of date” in your neighborhood may be a good thing if “up-to-date” means gray and white everything there as it does here. There is a whooole world of difference between good taste and what most people think is “fresh.” My theory on house color trends is that these days they have been ruined by the fact that there are like 5 colors available in popular sidings like hardie. So all new houses are hardie gray and PVC white. So people with older houses think that is fresh and hip when it is really dreary and all there is. I would really try to stop loving on modern farmhouses because that just isn’t what you have. I would also love to see a really bold and fun door color to show the world you mean business and this is NOT the Brady bunch house. Lime green or orange maybe. IMO your windows are great but I wouldn’t want to see them stand out much from the siding color as in the farmhouses. While I love your brick and the contrast it intentionally provides, contrast that I think is kind of important in a split level (which IMO just never look good treated as craftsman or colonial or anything else), you don’t, so instead of a monochrome layer of paint take the good advice above and stain it to match the siding but still show texture and color variation. cedar garage doors can’t (ever) hurt but I don’t like the cedar elsewhere. Looking forward to seeing results!

I really hate the late 60's early 70's aesthetic, and yet seeing it make me feel oddly comforted and nostalgic. For tacky stuff! We had a studio couch for years in our family room, with a quilted cover, although our was solid orange, with large oversized lamps and paneling. It has some comfort and warmth to it, I will say that. But avocado and orange for the kitchen, frankly I think that was even a reasonable "no" back then. Harvest gold or brown with orange, but green and orange, what acid trip was the person on who dreamed that up. My mom paired orange as an accent with gold, yellow and brown, but our stove and fridge was white. It was sure a highly visual look for the TV show, which I think was part of the reasoning behind the over the top decorating, even for that time . . . But hey, it was the high point for the middle class and they weren't afraid to bring the bling at that time . . . My childhood bedroom was very colorful . . . ahem. I loved the psychedelic prints back then. I was a kid, they were bright and shiny . . .