Rain? Here in Georgia????????????? Are you sure it wasn't a mirage?!?! I think we had a grand total to 1.5" of rain for the entire month of August and first week in September here in NW burbs of ATL. Scott, of course you do realize that you are in BIG trouble for coming up all the way this way and not even thinking about dropping by to say hey! :-)

I agree with you that it would have made more sense to have the bathroom with the bathtub be the one attached to the girl's room. Luckily, the boy's bath was shared with the craft room, so it would be easy enough to switch the decor and gender assignment among the three bedrooms. While I enjoy Sarah's designs very much, I disagree with her approach to bathrooms in general. She almost always puts in free-standing tubs which aren't really practical. You need somewhere besides a chair or tub side table to put soaps and shampoo, etc. Also, she often promotes having a family share one bathroom. While that's fine if you absolutely have no room for a separate master bathroom, it's not ideal to me. This post was edited by Fun2BHere on Tue, Jan 7, 14 at 17:53

Ah, a baby. I can't advise you, but I can tell you our story. We bought our old house when our first child was 1 and a half. The ensuing year we had the inestimable luxury of living elsewhere rent-free while we did substantial work on the main floor - removed plaster and lath (sorry purists, but it was crumbling), new kitchen, plumbing, and electrical throughout, floor refinishing. To the point of having the house functional and basically presentable. Cosmetics and finishing, I assumed, would be picked away at after we moved in, over the next few years. My husband appeared to assume the opposite. His usual hobbies having languished for a year (anything with wheels), he applied himself to them with renewed vigour, all the more so when child #2 was born after we were in the house. Meanwhile, half-wallpapered walls, doors without moulding and missing baseboards (all in the basement waiting to be stripped) mocked me as your hold in the wall mocks you. I fixated on getting the work done, he resisted, and it was something we fought about far too often over the years. Yes, this is the story of a marriage and a family as much as it is of a house. We HAVE done a lot (kids are 21 and 17). New porches front and back, lots of painting inside and out, much of the woodwork, and small projects too numerous to mention. Lots of landscaping too. Wired the upstairs. And maintenance - a real headache when to have to already re-do some things when many things are not yet done the first time! Pragmatic stuff. New sewer cleanout in yard. Fixed basement flooding problem. New roof. Some new windows. But the house is not yet done. With the privilege of hindsight, I think the following. Even if we had applied ourselves harmoniously and earnestly to the house, it would probably not be finished, and even if it were, we would have made our lives complicated in other ways (there were issues). And the kids would have suffered if less attention had been available for them. As it was, the house always took a back seat to what the family needed - our issues have been largely tamed and the kids are fine. And this is how it should be. But I never understood that. I woke up every morning with "finish the house" at the top of my to-do list, and ended every day frustrated that we had not gotten to it. OK, that's an overstatement, but the point is, I let it eat away at me for what were the best years of our lives as a family and it would have been much healthier for me to just say "it doesn't matter today - we'll do it when we can." I will say that even if I had changed my expectations, we could have managed things better. One regret I do have is that the house got kind of cramped at one point, and we probably should have moved. But the house was "half done" and it never felt ready to put on the market (and I don't mean it only had a hole in one wall. I mean rooms half painted, no baseboards, etc). So we felt "stuck" and now the window of opportunity (one child moved out, prices vs. future earning power ratio not so good) have sort of passed, and the logic of moving is gone - until we downsize rather than upsize. On the other hand, if we had not started big projects, such as removing all the woodwork for stripping, we never would have gotten them done either. I hope there is something in this that will help you harmoniously navigate your situation! Karin L

illy, It is easy to overlook some things when we want to be with someone. Your boyfriend was not ready and is still not ready to make a promise to you. Life is too precious to make a serious decision and then "hope" life will turn out good. You are already unhappy. No, No, No Walk away and don't look back. Best to you.