We are in our second owned house and working on making it our home. We waffle back and forth on whether this is a forever house or a house until we are empty nesters or we may head to NC when dh retires. Our first house felt like home for me once we painted the interior. Dh loved it within the first steps inside. We sold it and were moving to an older home on a quieter spot with larger property, until the deal fell through. We had 2 weeks to find something or get a rental. Since our older son was going to kindergarten the following year, we decided to buy something we were not in love with, but had potential. We are at the 4 year mark and its potential is about to be realized when we break ground on the reno/extension on 11/29. I miss our first house and wonder if it was a huge mistake to have moved. Once this house gets done our way, I sure hope I feel more connected to it because it is costing way more than was estimated (by a family member/contractor) at almost double the expense. The hassle of dealing with the town for permits and a variance is enough to make one scream, many times. I am excited for our plans for it and will have a nice (modest) house, done our way, in a very good neighborhood when all is done. I'd like our sons to feel like they are home and not living in a place that is perpetually in limbo. I will finally be able to unpack our decorative items, hang pictures and put our colors on the walls. Since everything seems tied into something else, there was very little we could do before the big reno that would not get undone or ruined by the process. I am very ready to feather out nest ;) Not living with all the materials in boxes stored around the house & garage will be a big relief on its own.

The house we'll build next year will be our last house. I did look to buy instead of build but we really just want what we want--and don't want to compromise as much as we'd have to if we buy and remodel. Completely agree ... we also looked for something existing that we might update a bit, but found that the non-negotiable items on our list just couldn't be found in an existing home. So glad we built. We've been in the house for almost 3 months now and we're really happy with how it turned out and how it works for us. There are always some bumps in the road, but knowing our budget and what our priorities were (plus a really good contractor) helped to make this build a fairly smooth process. Hope things go well for you. It seems the consensus here is previous experience does make a big difference.

That is really a beautiful daybed, good eye! Will be interested to see the final results. I have a similar project going, last month I found a lovely antique daybed for a song on CL. I also ordered the same cushion as you did which fit exactly, but it just wasn't right for me. I also looked at custom, but too $$. Maybe somebody can benefit from the solution I came up with. Shopped for foam online and found a 3" latex foam mattress topper not too expensive. As a full-size is 54", exactly half will perfectly fit the daybed, so I'll cut it exactly in half and have a 6" thick cushion. Not sure how I'll cover it as I'm not a sewer, but with friends I think I can craft something pretty cute.

If you tear into it. The entire house must be brought up to code. At the moment you are "grandfathered" in. Back in the day people did not have so many items that used electricity. So 4 or 5 fuses to supply an entire house was nothing unusual to see. When you replace a fuse box with a breaker box. The wires that are present at the time are the only ones placed on breakers. Back in the day people did not have so many items that used electricity. So 4 or 5 fuses to supply an entire house was nothing unusual to see. When you replace a fuse box with a breaker box. The wires that are present at the time are the only ones placed on breakers. I am rehabbing a 24 unit apartment complex. The units have two up stairs bed room with a bath. Down stairs is the living room and kitchen. The breaker boxes were put in when the complex was built in 1986. The breaker boxes only use six 120 volt breakers (one for each room and one for the refrigerator. Then three 240 volt breakers (stove, Heat and AC). So you are talking using only 9 spaces in a breaker box that has 24 spaces.