Our house was a new build in 2007. It was a spec home so we didn't get to pick colors. Colors when we bought it- SW 7036 Accessible Beige on Walls and ceilings throughout Trim-SW 7008 Alabaster Dining room-SW San Antonio Sage Powder Room-SW Rookwood Blue-Green Trim and Wainscotting in Bonus Room-SW Tavern Taupe Hated all of the colors but loved the house. We have redone about 50% of the interior so far using BM Aura matte, but with some SW colors matched in Aura. Dining room is now BM Aura Pomegranate with ceiling in SW Alabaster Powder Room walls/ceiling are Valspar Belle Grove Light Amber (fell in love with this color and it was a one gallon job so I used Valspar paint-it came out pretty good but this is a low traffic room with wainscotting 4 feet up the walls so the walls won't get any hand contact) Kitchen is BM Aura Matte in BM472 Aganthus Green-ceiling remains undecided (still Accessible Beige) Great Room including coffer inserts is BM Aura Matte in BM473 Weekend Getaway Bonus room became a playroom for my 4 year old-walls in SW 6715 Lime Granita-all of the trim was converted to Alabaster from Tavern Taupe. I used Aura Semi-Gloss to get the right coverage. 4 Year old's bedroom is SW 6849 Partytime with 6848 Panache Pink on the ceiling 4 year old's bathroom is SW 6716 Dancing Green with Alabaster on the ceiling Master Bedroom and bath will be SW 7621 Silvermist with Silvermist on the bathroom ceiling and an undetermined lighter shade in the bedroom's tray ceiling ( I sampled a 25% mix of Silvermist but it screamed "It's A BOY!") I'm working on this room now. Still to come is the foyer/stairwell/upper hallway, a bedroom we use as a home office, and the entire finished basement which has a playroom/theater, bedroom, and full bath. I may hire out the foyer and stairwell as opposed to renting scaffolding but I'll be doing the rest myself.

qdognj - I admit that it's a staggering amount of money and that the upkeep is substantial. My sensibilities wouldn't allow me to do it because I'm of the same mind as you. It would be so much easier to book a vacation, a nice vacation, anywhere in the world for those annual costs and still have change in the bank. I wouldn't have to worry about hurricaines, rising insurance or taxes, etc. But it's still no different from buying way more house than one needs - they can afford it and it gives them pleasure. Now, if they are using their vacation home as an investment, if it's being done at the expense of other important financial goals, or they just can't afford it, then that's a whole different ball game.

Before I launch of into the ether, LavenderLass..... Your husband is doing OK now, and y'all are over and out of perils and pitfalls that befell y'all? This is gonna be a fairly long ramble, 'cause I’m really good at such things, and I sorta kinda in a way wanna brag about it all anyway..... We started on our new place at the end of this past June. Well, if you count the well and septic as starting, it was the first week of June We have a nice 1888 sq ft house on a couple of acres surrounded by a couple of acres of county owned "Storm water run off ROW" right down town here in the middle of the big city, Well, OK, with the "finished basement" I reckon it's really more like 3456 sq ft, but around here nobody counts a finished basement as part of the house. It's kind of just expected. We have always had a place way out in the sticks since we first got together 33 years ago. We had a really nice almost 2.5 miles off the road down a private ROW in the middle of an Appalachian foothills hollow out of the way almost 40 acres that we bought when the kids started middle school and we decided I was keeping the "new" job and that we would move closer to the real world than our 105 acres in the middle nowhere Tennessee was. Then a moron in a great big hurry passed a school bus on a curve and there I was. To make a real long story short enough to bear, everybody but me thought that being a "Neurological disaster area" that far off the road with no neighbors and cell phone service only if you're in the right spot is totally unreasonable. My wife said she would be OK with me finding a place just as country just half as close to home (which would have been 13.75 miles) and half as far off the road with a neighbor or two...... Which of course no one thought I would ever be able to do. So, I asked everyone everywhere that I came across and looked and looked and drove down every un-named pig path around and at last found a very nice 17.3 acres located almost right where three counties meet right in the very middle of the NC Piedmont. Unbelievably rural for considering its' being just 7.5 miles from the square in the booming metropolis of Mocksville, NC. and pretty much equi-distant to Salisbury, Lexington, Statesville, and Wake Forest University/Baptist Medical Centerin Winston-Salem. And it's just 47 miles to the terminal entrance at Piedmont-Triad International Airport in Greensboro, NC. and 67 miles to the terminal entrance at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, NC too. C was at first in shock that I actually found such a place and was a tough sell on me getting us this, but she finally realized that I was never going to shut up about it said if I could swing the deal that she would sign her name on the dotted line right next to mine. Everybody concerned, the people selling it, the real estate agent, the neighbors, the county folks, the people down the road, everybody, said we were never going to get it at what I was willing to pay. Everybody, except me of course, had little enough faith in my unfathomable charm and and bull dog (though many call it bull something else) tenacity to think that I would ever be able to talk us into making such a deal. But, I DID! And so C just like she said she would ended up signing her pretty little signature right next to mine and it's since Dec 2013, it's ours..... Very private at a little over 1.3 miles off the pavement across three cattle grates through pasture and woods down an excellent shared private drive with one neighbor 500 - 600 feet distant on each side of the home-site. A school teacher couple with no kids on one side, and a retired serviceman and wife on the other, and an absolutely palatial estate behind across the river. Due to the location on an oxbow of the river, and being in a three county "Designated Agricultural District", that's all the neighbors there will be. And the "Designated Agricultural Area" is bigger than this whole one town one high school county of maybe 40,000 is, and near as I can tell has a population density of 32 per square mile, which for east of the Appalachians, especially in the Ga/SC/NC/Va Piedmont, means it's virtually empty. Sort of a pie shaped property with almost 2100' on the S Yadkin River. From a +75' bluff above the river down to several hundred feet of actual real sandy beach right down along and with two great big and deep swimming holes including one with a great big rock sticking up right in the middle for an excellent diving platform into its' 12 - 13 foot deep hole, with 300' fronting the "drive", +3000' along the longest side of the property with +1200' along the "opposite" side. And the river is from beginning to end one of the very few NC state "Protected Watershed"s and there willnever be any kind of development adjacent to it, no industrial plants, no sewer plants no nothing except woods and farmland. C had serious doubts about the rational of buying this place, but, the chances that anybody could now talk her into selling bit and buying something else, are substantially less than zero..... Approx. 5.5 acres of very nice and healthy pasture/field - with close to 12 acres in large mature hardwood's from level river-front floodplain to gently sloping to fairly steep hillside. And several acres of those hardwoods down in the flood plain that will one day make another several acres of beautiful shaded summertime pasture too. We have us a new permitted and tested and approved 282' well with static water at 60', and a new permitted and tested and approved septic system installed. We bought a really odd 14 X 68 half of a double wide with an odd 2 separate pitches roof that we stripped out from end to end and is now in the process of being completely and totally ever so slowly redone by ME formerly 2 bed/2 bath - now being turned into a luxurious 960 sq ft 1 bath, 1 bedroom with a small alcove, an entrance-hallway/laundry/closet, a 9'6" X 13' "spare" room (for ME!), and a large sewing room and walk in closet. VERY rustic in the outside appearance as the neighbors are like minded and none of us are concerned with what the drive by traffic that will never be, nor are any of us about impressing the county tax folks or anybody else except for the Great Blue Herons, Beavers, Bald Eagles, Deer, Turkey, Fox, Bobcats. Rabbits, Raccoons, Skunks, Possums, Wood Ducks, and according to one local lunatic, Bigfoot too, that are all in abundance here. A wonderful retirement place for us, our now grown and hopefully permanently gone kids, our 5 dogs, horses, cattle, goats, and chickens, and our peace of mind too..... You could look and look, but it's it's absolutely no exaggeration to say that no one will ever find another "almost like being in the mountains" place like this anywhere in all of the Ga/SC/NC/Va Piedmont. OK. The youngest of the great big Great Pyrenees wanting to go out and play in the snow, I am done with my brag..... As next week is the first time this season since early November that we'll see temperatures hit 60F, work is about to once again, begin in earnest. And regular reports of perils and "progress" and pic's too are soon to follow.

Chelwa, I really like the idea of the one wall galley. DH and I both like to cook and wanted plenty of counterspace, but I think we could still have that with the galley plan. You're right that it avoids the corner cabinet issues, it would also allow the stove to vent directly to the outside, and it would give us better use of the wall space if we go with the loft/ladder option. I'm going to work on that before going to the kitchen forum. Great idea, thank you. Still_waters, we have a similar laundry/mudroom setup now where we walk past the washer/ dryer and I'm fine with it but I do understand the issue - if the floor isn't clean you have to be careful taking your laundry out of the machines! For the back porch, we're in the south so keeping the back porch screened from insects is really needed, especially in a cove (mosquito heaven). I love sitting in the sun, in the winter with a cup of coffee, and will definitely find places for that. Door size: We actually have 28" doors on the bathrooms in the house we're in now, and it's the house we plan to age in! My fault entirely, it's a custom house and I was not thinking about aging in place at the time. For the lake house, as cpartist says from what I've read a wheelchair can access a 32" door if it is a straight approach (36" if you need to turn to enter). A straight approach could be done in the master bath in the lake house, and someone with a walker can access either bath.