Our traditions when I was a child were fairly simple and mostly revolved around gathering family (grandparents, aunts, uncles cousins and honorary family) at a table for the meal and not a lot of other fanfare. Foods were specific to the holiday and pretty consistent over the years although my mom did love to try new things. Unfortunately the response more often than not, was to stick with the tried and true - kids can be so mean!! We didn't make big productions out of many of the holidays that are big events now. Halloween involved carving a pumpkin for/with each child then shoo-ing us out the door to trick or treat in whatever homemade costumes we came up with from the dress-up closet. My parents would never decorate our house and it never felt like anything was missing in our lives. Fourth of July was our village parade (with our decorated bikes) and speeches, then that night the fireworks. Memorial Day was more somber but also a village event. Being Jewish, I loved being invited to decorate trees with friends, but we had 8 nights of Hanukkah and the last night was the big family event with games, the traditional meal and presents. But other than the menorah and candles, no decorations. Passover was a huge production (I understand now how much work it entails), the High Holidays meant new outfits for temple, eating, fasting, lots of family in and out for the various services. My DH is not Jewish and came from a whole different set of (religious) traditions. Oddly, he didn't like many of them, even as a child and stopped participating as an adult. Of course, I get the blame for that! We forged new traditions with our sons, celebrating Hanumas or Christmakah. We topped our tree with a Jewish star for many years, until I realized no one else cared about the tree but me and when I stopped buying one they all said 'what took you so long?!' Last year we went to Washington for Thanksgiving. Our older son lives there in a tiny apartment in a national park. Tiny as in you can sit on the foot of the bed and open the refrigerator! Our younger son came from his college in CO, and the 5 of us (including DS1's girlfriend) stood shoulder to shoulder preparing the big meal. Nothing traditional, no turkey no stuffing no mashed potatoes - we had oysters, Dungeness crab, roast brisket..... and Mexican flan for dessert. Close quarters, limited equipment, borrowed dishes, no fancy table settings or decor but we laughed and felt so TOGETHER - it was probably the best Thanksgiving we've ever had! I love traditions but have come to appreciate the wonder of shaking things up now and then. In the end, though, it's all about the people I share the events with and have found simplifying things allows me to enjoy them much more.

Per your request, here's my 1.5 story houseplan. If you'd like to see the "original" online, here's the link: http://www.familyhomeplans.com/plan_details.cfm?PlanNumber=41000. Our floorplans have many similarities: Same basic rooms, though yours is a more open floor plan and all your rooms are larger. I absolutely love yours -- especially that porch area, which is beyond perfect -- but I'm still sold on mine. My my square footage is smaller (1694 sf + 192 for the two rooms we're adding = 1886 sf). You'll note that my rooms are smaller than yours overall. Taking away one bathroom upstairs cuts out some square footage. Also, I don't have the large entryway and the spacious garage-entry hallway space. All this adds up to less square footage. I'd also point out that mine will be less expensive to build because my roofline is much simpler. And my overall shape is simpler. I have kicked around the idea of adding 2-4 foot width to the kitchen/dining room; look at the roofline and you'll see that for this house it'd be easy to add width, but adding depth would change the upstairs and the roof, which would get expensive. To give some specific details about my plan: We are building a retirement house, so our focus isn't the same as yours. Our oldest is already out of the house, and our youngest will be gone in a few years. So this is a "the two of us" and occasional guests house. We are definitely building with an eye towards "aging in place". I drew an arrow to show that we're flip-flopping the kitchen and dining room. I am certain of this choice for several reasons: - When walking in the front door, I want the sight-line to be across the dining room table and towards windows or glass doors. I do not want people at the front door to have a view into my kitchen /my sinkful of dishes. - I imagine my sofa and love seat forming an "L" in the living room, and I want the wall space to place a big-screen TV in the living room -- right in the space that is now the door to the dining room. - Garage - Pantry - Kitchen is a sensible flow for our "everyday entrance". Walking through the dining room isn't quite as natural, in my opinion. - I like the idea of the pantry and the kitchen being side-by-side. I suppose we could walk through the dining room to get to the pantry, but why am I building my own house if not to have things just as I want them? - On the negative side, this means our plumbing has to run a little farther, and that means a little more cost. - Also on the negative side, by moving the kitchen to the corner space, I am losing those wonderful windows that're all over the downstairs. We're adding on an 8x12 pantry, which will also serve as a pass-through between the garage and the kitchen. The kitchen is small, and my cookware collection is large. I also can my own vegetables, so I need the storage space. Pantry shelves are much less expensive than kitchen cabinets. We'll also have a 4' workspace in the middle of the pantry. This'll be for setting down groceries to be sorted, for measuring our a cup of flour, for setting a crock pot out of the way of the kitchen, for setting dessert out of the way during a dinner party. And we're adding on an 8x12 office (with a large bay window in which a small round table will sit -- this'll give us a space to leave a craft project out overnight, without interferring with the dining room table). This will have built-in shelves for books, crafts, collections of various sorts. And we'll have a built-in computer desk. I didn't draw in doors on my floorplan, but we'll have a door between the kitchen and the living room on the faaar left, and the office door'll be right there. These doors could change. Note that we have no attic space. Thus, we're doing a 3-car garage. 2 car spots, plus space for tools, floor-to-ceiling shelves for holiday decorations, camping gear, etc. Though I am the exact opposite of a packrat. This area will also house a couple exercise machines. Note that I added an exterior door to the laundry room. We are going to eliminate the wall (currently marked pantry) between the laundry and the half-bath. Living in the South, we're building a pool and a large covered outdoor dining area, so this door will be very functional. People can come straight into a room where it's okay to be "drippy", and we'll have hooks on the wall for towels. And this'll allow guests to come straight in to a rest room without walking through any other rooms. I am not entirely settled on this long, narrow laundry-and-bath combination, but I haven't figured out anything better. If I flip-flop the bathroom /laundry room, guests don't have access to the half-bath from inside the house. I do not like the layout of the master bath, but I don't seem to be able to do any better. I want a large shower (with seat), a tub, a five-foot vanity with single sink and a toilet. I want a door into the laundry room. I want nice sight-lines as I enter the bathroom. I am a little concerned about too many doors in the master bath /closet area. I'm thinking we want just an open space from the bedroom to the closet area . . . then bi-fold doors (with mirrors would be practical) on the closet . . . and a real door leading in to the bathroom. I'm concerned about getting too many doors in one spot. Oh, and we are going to replace the smaller closet with drawers /put a mirror above. This will replace the dresser. We will have NO clothing storage in the bedroom. I love that the closet acts as something of a light/noise barrier between the bedroom and bathroom. Upstairs, I am making some changes in the right-hand bedroom. As I said, we are concerned about aging-in-place, and I want the upstairs to be appropriate for one of my adult children /grandchildren (or a paid caregiver) for the future. I'm thinking of eliminating the existing closet (to allow a door straight into the bathroom) and making the "bonus space" (which is too small for any other use) into a large closet for that bedroom. I also want to double the windows in both upstairs bedrooms. Since your boys are still young, I'm sure that my upstairs plans do not mirror yours in the least. So, that's my house plan. I am very open to anyone's thoughts on my 1.5 story house. Thanks so much.

Thanks, Autumn 4! We have a large covered porch right now, and although I love it, I can't say it gets much use. I think if it didn't open onto such a ho-hum yard, we'd use it more. I'm a bit up in the air about a covered porch for our new house. On the one hand, it would require a change in our roofline, and that ups the cost. And the downside of our current covered porch is that we get less light in our kitchen /dining area than I'd like -- so that makes me think that the answer'll be no. However, we are planning a pool and nice patio out back. We're in the South, so such a spot would get plenty of use. I'm leaning right now towards a covered area NOT connected to the house, but located 10-15 feet back -- to be closer to the pool. This would have a nice, substantial roof, a built-in cooking area, a fire place and an eating area. Then, when we have large groups, we could add more tables outside the covered area. If I had to pick right this minute, the desire for a light-flooded kitchen/dining area would trump the convenience of attached. In the end? I'm not sure. Which direction will our house face? That's a good question -- one to which I've turned my attention numerous times, and I haven't decided yet. We have a little over 40 acres, so our options are not limited: If I do the easiest thing and place the house near the main road /facing the main road, the front will face East. So that'd give us sun in the bedroom /living room /study in the morning . . . and hot western afternoon sun on the patio. IF we do this easiest thing, I'd probably flip the whole plan so that the garage would be to the North and the side of the bedroom side of the house would face South. This easiest thing would also cost less because we'd need less driveway. Finally, the large trees are laid out in such a way that this would mean less clearing. Honestly, I think this is the way we'll go -- too many things seem to conspire to make this the easiest, best choice. The only thing holding me back from saying, "Yes, this for certain" is that hot, harsh afternoon western sun. Or, I could do a little in-road onto the property and could face the front of the house either South or North. I see value in facing it North. That'd mean that the kitchen/dining area and the patio/pool area would have the Southern exposure. If I do that, when you turn off the main road, you'd approach the garage, which would give a little privacy from the main road -- but with this relatively large piece of land, that isn't something we need badly. Also, this would cost more because we'd have to bring the driveway and the utilities farther onto the land. And I don't think this option is as attractive as having the house simply face the main road -- regardless of how far off the road we may choose to build. The whole piece of land is fairly well flat, and any number of sites would do for the house. We're set to pick "the house spot" the first weekend in November, so I guess we'll be making up our minds about the house's orientation then. I'm excited for that day to arrive and to walk the land with an expert and hear his opinion.

John, I diligently rescheduled everything so I could suit everyone else's time requirements. My son in law, Kevin, is a police officer and had to work on Thanksgiving. My daughter, Amanda, is a CNA at a nursing home and had to work the midnight shift the night before. Since she has a seizure disorder and her triggers are stress and fatigue, her being allowed to sleep is tantamount. Plus Bud got his tonsils out last week Wednesday and we wanted to give him a couple of extra days to heal up so he didn't miss the meal altogether. So we just had dinner a few hours ago, with everyone being able to attend and we got an "extra" in the form of Dave and Amanda's nephew Tommy. Not a problem, there's always enough food here for at least a couple of extras. The only problem was seating, so I put everyone around the table to eat together but the food stayed on the counter and everyone filled their plate buffet style. It worked.... I do have one burner that works really well, but with my new double ovens I try to do as many things in there as I can. The real issue is that the cooktop is on a homemade (and extremely ugly) "island". We're planning to rip that out this winter. For some reason that cooktop is situated on the end of the island, but perpendicular to the work surface, which is also several inches lower than the end that holds the cooktop. So, it's kind of like a "t" with a step down, and it gives me no work surface at all other than about 4 inches on each side of the cooktop. It's extremely inconvenient. I'm not living with it for 10 years, since we just bought this place last year. This year we tear that out, or I'm hiring someone! Annie