olliesmom, the manufactured home idea was just a joke.... a way to help him see how anxious I am -- that I would settle for just about anything, even knowing he is a builder. I am running out of angles and don't know what else to do. I really hate to nag him because he is so hard-working and kind -- he just doesn't seem to care about what WE live in. He's johnny on the spot when anyone calls and wants him to run right over and fix something or talk about THEIR house plan ideas. It's getting really old hearing people say "so when are you going to build a house?" People assume that is what builders do, live in nice houses. It's kind of embarrassing, really. He comes from a really frugal upbringing... maybe he feels he doesn't deserve a nice house for us. Kind of like the recent story of the billionare who liked giving all his money away, didn't own a house or a car and wore a $15 watch. He probably didn't have a wife, either!!!!

Please tell me what facts exactly are in question? Maybe I can clear it all up for you or would like the X's number to check it all out yourself? W/ her 'holier-than-thou' attitude these days, I'm confident she'd be honest with you. Years ago, maybe you'd have been buddies. What I see is that most kids spend far more time w/ their mothers than their fathers, in a normal nuclear family. Moms do the running, dads are working. Therefore, the mother is the most influential on their young minds. The mother is the parent with whom the children are more sympathetic. When mom paints the 'poor me' picture, the kids are emotionally taxed. Perhaps if my DH's ex's bf had NOT dumped her after DH moved out she'd have never needed a scapegoat. Perhaps if she watched my DH wallow in self-pity, become a hermit, and be run out of business by all of her antics, she would have some sick sense of satisfaction. She was jealous that the practice didn't fold, jealous that DH moved on. There she was, alone by her own doing, and not about to let her kids know the truth. She knew about my then-fiance - saw me all the time w/ him on weekends. I ran into her and the children on many occasions at the movie theatre. She wasn't even cordial to me THEN, let alone the following year when DH and I started dating. She was angered, or so I heard, that I didn't leave the practice when we were in a delicate position financially. I'm not a job-hopper, esp. at this level, and patients were still coming in despite her harrassment of the staff and attempts to have a number of 'mutual friend' patients stop being treated by DH. I wasn't sure what her aim was there - just hated him as she admitted to the kids (when she told them she had had an affair.) She resented the fact that we began dating and were happy and successful. PERIOD. Anger, bitterness, and the like are just ugly emotions. My Skids did not realize the tennis coach was the man w/ whom their mom was intimate. Sadly, she had always included this man in their outings to the movies, bowling, etc. throughout the marriage to DH. So, when he continued to be a fixture in their lives, until he dumped her and then moved away, it was par for the course. DH worked long hours, tennis coach was over for dinner after tennis lessons, etc. In the summer, she, the coach, and the three kids were a 'family' while DH worked, I guess. I did see them when out w/ my DNs on my day off, but never dreamed she'd be interested in the coach - he was OK from a distance, but up close, rather sloppy in appearance. DH is immaculate. I have one final thing to add about your 'theories.' My best friend from dental school and I once had a discussion when one of our classmates parent's cheated on the other and the marriage ended. She said, "I don't know about you, but I think if my dad ever cheated, I'd never be able to forgive him. But, if my mom did, I think I'd want to hear her reasons and would probably justify what she did!" I agreed. The logic makes no sense, but we BOTH felt that way - we are both very close to our mothers but had/have (her dad passed away since then) wonderful, hard-working fathers. So, I imagine if she and I both felt that way, others do, too. It's just a shame that some women use their closeness to their children to turn those children against people they, themselves, do not like. I have a very difficult g-mother and my skids w/ whom I've had issues, to say the least. My kids LOVE all of them. I can rest at night. I've done my job. None of these are dangerous in any way, just people I do not particularly care for, but I won't let my ill feelings sour my boys' loving and generous nature. I can look myself in the mirror at the end of the day and not be embarrassed. And, it would be VERY easy to sway them into thinking the way I feel deep down inside. Of that, I'm certain. D

I'm still reading through this thread, and very much enjoying it. I personally function better and am more relaxed in a space with most things "put away," but when it comes to actually doing things, visible storage is required for me. I too am an avid cook, and being able to look at a large shelving unit that's open with all of my ingredients helps me greatly, otherwise, like OP's husband, if there's something behind another thing, unless it's commonly accessed, it gets lost. For me, keeping everything in one place (or 2, if both are high-traffic) is a necessity, otherwise things get forgotten I had an old dresser that i used to store uncommonly used items in the laundry room at our old place and threw out so much very old food when we moved. Same thing with medications, they all need to be stored in one easy to access location. My husband will get things out, use them, imagine another use, and then leave them on the coffee table until I pick them up and put them in his hobby room, and it makes me crazy. A landing strip next to the door that's most used is required for us. Keys, wallet, stamps, extra cash, etc all go there (I have a little tray to help keep it contained, if there's more than fits on the tray, that means we need to do some management). But overall, removal of flat surfaces is the key to this for us. I'd like to have a dining table, but when we had one, it became a clutter pile and didn't get used as a table, so we got rid of it. I highly recommend reading up on the clutterbug organizing styles, there's a quiz, might be worth having your husband take (it's very short) which will give you a better idea of what organization style works for him, and how to fuse the 2 together.

We wanted to be able to pay cash for projects so we did one thing at a time and saved up in between. We did sell our previous house bc we needed the money for the new one. We did one thing before moving in: Had all the carpet on stairs and upstairs replaced bc it was so dirty, disgusting and ugly, and with toddlers crawling all around I couldn't bare it. We knew eventually we would want hardwoods upstairs and wood treads on the stairs, new railing, etc, but that had to wait, so we just did the carpet to have a clean environment to move into. House already had hardwood floors across the whole downstairs, and they didn't need refinishing, so nothing was needed there. Next was replacing several of the windows bc they leaked when it would rain sideways. The ones that didn't leak we waited on and eventually all the windows got replaced, in 3 stages across a good 20 years. Added pool/patio within the first 6 months. Within first year, my sister-in-law and I removed ugly wallpaper in kitchen/family and painted ourselves. For the next 14 years all we did was maintenance, repairs and raising a bunch of little humans and pets. First interior remodel was the kitchen a good 14 years later and contractor handled the final step of painting kitchen/family again. Kitchen layout changed, and there had been a DW leak impacting the hardwood floors, so they got patched and the whole downstairs got refinished. Next was master bed/bath, then kids'/guest bathrooms, formals didn't need anything except updated lighting, then all replacement LED can ceiling lights throughout the house including closets; that really helped with the lighting. The bedrooms didn't need much, just updated lighting/fans and paint. I did that myself, except 2 areas that had brown wood paneling I wanted to be white. The prep and dealing with oil paint was too hard for me, so I hired that out. Anytime we painted a space we removed those horrible speakers and patched up the holes and painted. Apparently an intercom system was a "the thing" to have in the 90s! So weird. Just got rid of the last one when I painted my son's room this year. He didn't want me paint his room, so when he left for the Navy it was only a few days til I had yanked that thing out of the wall and patched the hole! Anyway.... Finally, after the downstairs and upstairs were all done, we had to address the connection - the out of code, partially broken and ugly staircase. We always knew that when we tackled the staircase we would also continue the wood onto the landing, into the game room and one office area. So the staircase and upstairs flooring project became 1 large project. The bedrooms got new carpet. Phew! That's our LAST remodeling project and there will be no more remodeling of this house, only maintenance and repairs going forward. I put things like painting, pool replaster, replacing broken appliances, etc in the maintenance and repairs column. So we'll for sure have things come up that have to be addressed, but no more remodeling. I didn't want this house bc it was obvious every space had to be touched; didn't know if I could handle it. But my hubby loved the location being on a lake and near all our family, and good schools. So I made him promise to not give me push back on fixing everything over time. I stopped working half way through the remodeling journey which meant less money, but also meant I had time to teach myself some skills and at least not have to hire out every little thing like installing lights/fans or painting. I love my house now! It's doable in stages, and we never moved out or borrowed money. Hubby traveled for work pretty much full time, so he wasn't as impacted by projects as me and the kids. For your mental health though, be sure to take long breaks between projects, taking the time to decompress and enjoy what you just accomplished before tackling the next one. We never moved any walls bc the flow/layout was already good. That meant it was easier for me to make decisions about one space knowing it didn't impact other spaces structurally. It sounds like you might be planning to move walls which makes it more complicated. I haven't ever done that, but it seems like you would need to know the whole picture form the beginning in terms of the flow and layout that you want, so you don't have to re-do things later or get into a situation where you have an expensive and unexpected consequence. Maybe someone who has dealt with changing the flow/walls could weigh in about who to consult early-on about that, maybe as architect? Good luck! Only took us 23 years!