Amy My DH coached with Tressel for a short time. We left college ball because of the hours and the moving around. I am not a "mover". Plus it's hard with a herd of horses in tow let alone a vet practice. He coaches high school and it gives us just enough football but not too much. It is sometimes hard for him as most of his contemporaries have "big time" college jobs but they have also moved around the country many times while we have contentedly stayed put. We both realize we would have never been able to build "this" house. Maybe some house- and maybe just as nice but different - our new home with it's acreage will not be very marketable when we are finished. If we had built and known there was always a chance to be moving we would have built a different house/different setting. Our colors- our woodwork is all white except in our library which will be stained but not sure of the stain at this point. My MIL is going to be living with us and the library end of the house is "her" area. She picked the color for her walls and bathroom - SW Icelandic. The rest of the house Clutter room/mud room/powder room are SW practical biege. The floor will be tiled with a slate tile. I have extensive cabinets in my clutter room- white laminate and the counter top is black "Chemtop" like you had in high school chemistry lab. Kitchen/hearth room is SW Inviting Ivory. Flooring is the hickory. My cabinets are two tone- frost glaze birch with Mystic Black Zodiaq countertops. Farm house sink. My peninsula is going to be very dark Oak with Lunar Pearl zodiaq counter. The dark Oak will also be used for a book shelf area in the hearth room and a cabinet in our master bath. Our foyer and all three floors of the staircase is SW vanillin. More Hickory on the floors- and the staircase with white balusters and risers. Still working on the newell posts ( all TEN of them!) Our living room is SW Seasalt- hickory again stone fireplace ( as is the hearth room firplace). Dining room is two tones of blue and think they are called SW WIndy Blue and SW Bracing Blue. More hickory on the floor. Our bedroom etc is all done in SW Agreeable Gray which is actually a brown based gray- carpet is "Mink" colored and tile is slate looking again. River rock on our shower floor. DD room SW Demure. Her carpet is beige/gray with big pink/mauve cabbage roses all over it! I have always wanted carpet like that! DS's room is SW Upward with a grayish blue very low nap ( sp) carpet. Important he can run cars/tractors easily - he's a 3 yo gearhead!! LOL I haven't decided the basement playroom yet... it will be the last thing so it might be just something cheap! LOL I am Irish too...... I cry everytime I hear the National Anthem... LOL Kel Love to see that horse border! I am trying to avoid any wall paper but love to see anything horsey... PD

My granddog, Bo. A MinPin from a rescue center in NYC. But he didn't tolerate young children so my kids flew him from Tokyo to San Francisco and took him to his forever home up in the mountains. He is happy here. But we all miss him.

Ha, ha! I want this thread to keep going and going! I let The House tell me what it wants, but it's a little confused, I think. In some parts, it looks a little bit like a castle . . .as in, the dungeon portion of it (with some wall-to-wall carpeting that needs desperately to be ripped up, but at least it keeps the prisoners happy for now, ugly as it is). The kitchen is a traditional, remodeled-within-the-last-10-years look. Some parts of the house look a little Arts and Craftsish. One of the bathrooms is a nod to Art Deco, via the 80s. Since the dungeon (living room) is the area I most want to fix, I thought for a long time what to do with it. Nothing airy will do. I visited the Milwaukee Museum, where they have "model cottages" from Europe. (I keep meaning to take pics and show them here-- I will the next time I go.) A light went on . . .yes! Folk! I have dark wood trim (check), dark wood floors (in most of the house, but hiding under the ugly carpeting in the LR), so it would work. But, I am broadening the idea a bit, to folk-on-the-elegant-side, trying to bring in whatever works (not just European) I like, but connected via the color red. Here are my key words as I think: cozy (#1, always), Art Nouveau (because I love that style), Chinoiserie, brass/bronze, folk, handmade, handcrafted, embroidered, RED, collected, etc. When it comes down to it, though, it is really a collection of things I can afford from Ikea, Craigslist, Etsy, and Ebay. (And I still have a long way to go to make my vision come to life.)

First, I wanted to thank everyone for their support. Its been a rough week, not only emotionally but also physically because I caught a nasty virus. While I am still (understandably) nervous and will remain that way until everything is in writing, my parents have said we are going with the original plan with only a small change. The deed restrictions state that each property can only be a single family residence and if we build a separate building, aka the mother in laws quarters, we could potentially be violating these restrictions and anyone who lives in our area could potentially sue. To avoid this, the plan has changed and the mother in laws quarters will actually be attached to the main house. I/we didn't actually want to be this close but if it allows us to accomplish our goals then it is a small price to pay. My parents also spoke with my brother and told him that my husband and I were just going to buy a new house and, according to them, he teared up and said he didn't want that. I'm not sure if he didn't want it because it meant he might have to help take care of them when they are older (something he has flat out said he won't do) or because he actually realized he was being a selfish pr*ck and his actions were going to cause a lot of grief for everyone else. Regardless, he has told my parents that he also doesn't like their hair-brained idea of taking on a new mortgage in retirement. So that's where I sit right now. Not much progress on the house but we did get the final coat of paint on the exterior and get tile laid in the breezeway. To answer Christine's question of why we do what we do, my response would be because I inherently do not trust others. I told my husband years ago, when we were poor college kids, that even if I won the lottery and could afford to pay someone else to do all the work, I would STILL want to do it myself. This way, I know it is done right and if it isn't, I only have myself to blame. I will also admit to being raised by my dad, the classic handyman, that if you don't know how to do something, you practice until you get it right. To pay others to do it is a "waste of money". In hindsight, my parents lived practically paycheck to paycheck and doing everything yourself was a necessity but still, its my inherent nature. If I don't know how to fix my car, drain, electrical, etc. I don't hire a pro, I research and fix it (or build it) myself. So that's why I do what I do. I'm a perfectionist control freak.