Good luck to you, Judy! Starting small is a good way to start until you can see what amount of traffic your market has. I plan to make some orange sweet rolls for Saturday, put them in small sandwich bags, display them in a napkin lined basket and hope they sell out immediately! LOL! I'm probably not going to go with the name Bungalow Breads, the main reason being that I may not stay in this house. For right now I'm not posting a name on my sign, just introducing myself by my name when people ask. I will want to perfect my Parker House roll recipe. People in the South love Parker House rolls! It's the roll of choice for every holiday and special occasion meal. But I don't know how many cooks still make them. Teresa

Owning is not always a better deal than renting, especially in the short term. In the long term rents tend to increase while fixed rate mortgages stay the same (payment may change for taxes and insurance, but principal and interest are fixed). No one rents houses for less than the carrying cost, though on a house rented for many years the mortgage payment may be many years old. I often just break even the first few years of ownership in a rental house (before depreciation), but as rents slowly increase my fixed mortgage means the house starts having a positive cash flow, and when the mortgage is aid off becomes very positive. They need to investigate the costs of renting very carefully and then compare it and ownership after taxes. Renters who think they are not paying property taxes, mortgages, etc. are only fooling themselves. It is built into the rent. Even the cost of my insurance policy on the rental gets rolled in. It is less than a full up policy since it does not cover contents, but the renter should still be covering their possessions anyway. My policy will pay me for repairing the house. The renter's policy will pay them for the contents.

I'd find someon who'll take a shorter listing. Several years back we signed with a hotshot - a real legend in our area apparently. Well, turned out he didn't really "do" small houses and had a team member take over. It was a month before our house was advertised anywhere, including even getting feature sheets printed. He had us sign for six months and didn't even return our calls. Being the witch that I am, I called the real estate board here and they told me who to call in his agency and exactly what to say to get out of the contract. Suddenly this guy was at my door. Wow. After much arguing and listening to him say, "Well, I know I didn't return your calls, but I didn't realize they were important..." (AS IF?!?!?!?) we finally got him to let us out of the contract. Mostly we let him know that the person in charge of his office was on side with us. He went to his car and called the gentleman and came back with a much better attitude. He then balked at putting our cancellation in writing and then the whole thing started up again. I didn't back down, but my husband was ready to give in. We finally got the cancellation in writing AND added a clause that we would not be pursued for any commissions after the fact at all. (We had had an open house and couldn't get any info on whether or not anyone came, I think the answer was no as it wasn't listed anywhere, and I didn't want them to come back and claim something when another realtor found a buyer later.) Three weeks after all of that was finally over we had an offer through our new realtor and sure enough, the first gentleman came back and tried to claim that he was "sure" the offer was from someone who had attended the open house (which he didn't even do himself). He tried to put forth the idea that our document was not valid. (Remember, he assured us it didn't even need to be written and yet look what happened.) Remember, he wouldn't even confirm that anyone came to our open house when we were still his clients, and then suddenly he was quite sure this prospect was his?!? Again, it took a call to the head of his agency to get him to leave us alone. Apparently the "great legend" in these parts didn't like not getting his way. We've worked with four different agents (four different moves) and the others were all great. I know most agents are above board and do the right things, but just to protect yourself I think it's a great idea to get everything in writing and insist on terms that you can live with. If that means someone won't take you, it's not the end of the world, someone else will. Our "hotshot" sold a lot of properties and really put on the charm when he was trying to get our business, but honestly did a complete turnaround after. I'm glad I at least pushed for written documents through the whole thing. And I'll never sign for a long term again. (I'd also suggest looking at a reasonable escape clause regardless of the term.) Assuming you're above board and honest I see no reason why you shouldn't have a way to get out of a bad situation. You change doctors, dentists, etc if you are unhappy. Go for three months and resign later if necessary (and you're still happy.) But that's just my humble opinion...

THANK YOU Ladies for your input... truly it has helped make the decision to do bronze since the furniture will be dark brown wicker, and a few dark chairs. Natal thank you for sharing your beautiful porch picture... I do like the bronze fan. Also, another good point that Caminnc mentioned was the white getting so dirty... and out there, there is plenty of dirt. I am hoping once we get the fans put up, the dirt daubers won't have any little cracks to go into.. I do like the blue ceilings. Jeannie I will look at the vaxel line; I've never seen fans with a stone look incorporated into the main part... I bet they are pretty! Jane, thank you for your compliment of the house not being a cookie cutter. We spent a couple years in the planning and now are on month 15 of the construction. Hopefully, by Christmas, we'll be in. The house sits in the middle of the farm, so very peaceful out there. Hoping it will be perfect for us empty nesters as we wind down. Thank you ALL again for your help! This forum has been an invaluable resource during this whole process! ~karen~