ah, I see

Kelly's yellow dress was from last May. There were taped portions on the show today, but I missed the first 15 minutes so didn't realize it till somebody mentioned the date. At least something makes sense to me.

So, you can't face having to cook all that much? Add a day or two a week. How else do you spend that could be changed? Clothes? Quit buying them. Or add a jacket or vest to change things up some. Just wear them for an extra season and see that you won't die. Quit taking expensive vacations. Tour locally, less days, cheaper venues. If people don't have to cut living expenses, they don't have to do anything at all. Stay home on vacations and repaint the kitchen. We seem to waste a lot of time and money from not thinking and believing we have to have more, that we're entitled to more, like 8 bathrooms.

I think what I do with several of the other bathrooms, assuming that all bedrooms have one each, with 3 or 4 other bathrooms somewhere (no floor plans were available) is to try to figure out how to make the bedrooms bigger. Especially for kids' rooms, have a play/craft type area, toy storage, make a bigger closet if the on there is small. For older people, a desk, sitting area might be nice. It really depends on the number and ages of people living in the house. But if kids can't share a bathroom, there's a problem somewhere.

But I'd be planning a house for one. Me. And the dogs and cats and whatever happened to be around. I'd need a lot of cleanable surfaces. A big great room/kitchen area is where I'd mostly live. With a tv, pc or mac, a refectory table and couch, accidedntal tables somewhere. I'd probably do things for resale like a formal livingroom and dinning room, but don't see using them. 4 bedrooms, the standard master w/bath, all 4 with walk-in closets and none smaller than 12 by 12.

With an upstairs, I'd put a laundry up, near the bedrooms where the clothes are. Probably a full bath downstaris near the kitchen for dog washing reasons mostly. Washable floors, please. Ever live with dogs?

There's been a house tour on Hooked on Houses this past week that I found very interesting. One of the houses, a Tudor style had some features I'd look for. Dark panneling and dark wood staircase. One had some windows that bugged me a lot and I'd look to avoid. They look like a series of checkerboards, 9 over 9 pannels on 3 sets of windows plus french doors all in a row. Just too busy. The last house has curtains I like. Most window treatments look absurd and overly formal to me, the plain, simple full length/cafe style suits me better. But those houses are really too big for me and a few pets. There is some planning involved for resale value, but it doesn't have to be out of the ordinary. It just needs to be livable to an ordinary number and sort of persons.

The Tudor house, I think it was, had a really bad kitchen. Almost no work space, butlers pantry for storage, but I'd want adequate (meaning lots) of work area. It's surrounded by sitting areas, but looks really small and useless for cooking.