I can safely say I will never bring a gift that has anything to do with cooking. I wish everyone would restrict their gift donations to gardening items. Books on gardening are good items, garden tools, garden hats, gloves, aprons, clogs, lotions, trugs, soaps, seed containers, garden accoutrements such as a garden totem would be nice. Food items are acceptable, but they should be substantial, for example a pie or a pan of brownies would be great, one or two slices of pie or brownies would not. Normally we save food items just for sharing though, so consider whether you would want to get a pie as a door prize. ( I think I would, but if I had a choice I might go for the garden tools first.) Anyway, use your imagination when selecting a door prize to bring and before you bring some old, dated, tattered item that you haven't been able to sell at your last three garage sales, remember that it will likely be the last item left on the table after everyone has chosen the "good stuff" and you may actually overhear the comment, "what a cheesy door prize" from the picker-upper. Personally, I like to bring something that everyone says, "Ooh, I want that!" IMHO-Cheryl

I love going to garage sales. Here's my take on it. Some people have garage sales where they are selling about $15 total worth of stuff. My sister who comes with me sometimes always marvels at these sales. She can't fathom why anyone would sit in their garage all day for that bit of money. My answer is, well, because they enjoy it! There are people who really don't have a lot to do and enjoy sitting there, striking up conversations with customers, etc. For them, a low $ garage sale isn't so much about the $, it's about the activity itself. The $$ are just a bonus. So... in your case, I'd say donate. I love going TO garage sales, but in my life I've had only about two of them, both times selling large items (furniture and such), thus making it worth my while. You kind of have to use dd50's logic. Estimate how much you will make vs how many hours you'll be sitting there and come up with an amount per hour. Then figure if your time is worth that or not. If not, skip it and donate.

There are two different things, a toaster oven and a countertop oven. I have a toaster oven that lives in a drawer. We use it for toasting thick homemade bread and similar that won't work in a proper toaster. Sometimes, on a toast kick, it'll stay out for awhile, but there isn't a good place for it to live on the counter. Sometimes, it doesn't seem worth taking it out for toast so toast is skipped, but it's very light and taking it in and out isn't a problem. Just one more thing to do. It does have settings for oven-ish stuff, but I have proper ovens, and even for small things, I find it better to use a good oven that isn't going to throw much heat into the kitchen vs. a small meh one that spews waste heat. True countertop ovens have more insulation, bigger cavities, etc., though some aren't rated to toast any better than a built in oven. They're ovens that can toast, like any built in oven. They're fine ovens. Some people use them more than their built ins because they take less time to heat, etc. They're heavier than toaster sized ovens, but not impossible. It'll probably get more use if it's put on a counter. I don't know what the code is, but I think if you fireproofed the cavity (with tile, for instance), and had plenty of airspace margin for the heat to get out, you might even be able to use it in your niche. The question is whether that's really a good position for an oven. If you're used to undercounter ovens or range ovens, it might seem fine for you, even with the controls down by your knees. If you expect to use it daily on the counter, hauling it up and down could be a real drag. If you expect to use it once in awhile when you have company and need a tad more oven space, however, it would be fine. It would even be fine if it lived in the garage most of the time and you brought it in for the same purpose. Another possibility would be to use the microwave niche for cookbooks, pitchers or something else bulky and not unattractive, and put the toaster oven on the counter. :)

Really the main goal is space. I have a 2yr old that is taking over the house and we want to have another child so our 3rd bedroom which is now a guestroom/office needs to go, and the living space above the garage if where I plan to move it to. Treating it as a rental property is just a bonus option if I want to go down that route in the future, more likely a place for a teenager or aging relative. I've run out of space in my home and I don't want to deal with a home addition right now due to 1. even more cost but more importantly 2. both me and my wife are currently working from home full time. 175k just seems like an awful lot for this structure but at the same time I am basically building a tiny house on my property. I will enjoy it and use it, I'm just a numbers guy and don't want like 100k of this to be a total sunk cost if I reappraise the house afterwards.