Roo – As far as drying things in a microwave, at my salon, they have a bunch of small wet towels rolled up & sitting in a small microwave, to use for your feet & hands, when you get a pedicure or manicure. It feels wonderful!! I think people here like that you can choose to live in a smaller municipality that doesn’t have a high school, so the tax levy is a lot less. The students have a choice of attending one of the neighboring towns, and the town pays a per-student fee for them .. which winds up much less than having the overhead of an entire school. So in areas that were developed for retiree/senior housing, the school taxes are minimal .. and that’s the whole point of it. The larger the area used to calculate school costs & taxes, the more likely that you’re paying for a large student population elsewhere. As someone who never had children, I got tired of paying such high school taxes for the 23 years I lived in north Jersey, while the parents kept thinking of new programs to add .. for which we’d all have to share the cost! We also have that short-term capital gains tax for turning around a house, and a “millionaire’s tax”, that's an extra levy on homes sold for > $1 million. So it often made sense for people to sell just under $1 million – if they were close in price – just to avoid the tax. Mary Poulos – Great list .. I created something like that in Excel for myself .. a “cheat sheet”! MPoulsom is also from South Carolina.

Can I suggest looking into having a quantity surveyor assess your property (and you can claim the cost of having this done). They will provide a depreciation schedule for you which will tell you how much each item will depreciate in value over the maximum number of years you can claim. If an item is at the end of its depreciable life, they will tell you what you are able to replace. Even if you only have tenants for a short while, you are able to claim depreciation for a pro-rata period that your asset is income producing. What all this means for you in terms of design - there may be ways to improve the look of your property in line with what you will want it to look like when you eventually move in, which could gain you a tax benefit. Of course, you have to have the $$ to spend on it in the first place. Oh - and in terms of furniture - do you know about Casey Auctions in Hallam? they are close by and you may pick up some really good bargains. I know we did!

White-tail spider in my track suit pants WHICH I WAS WEARING! I thought it was a lump of lint from the laundry, drew it out, and promptly flung it across the room once I realised... never to be seen again! How it didn't bite me and sat still to be picked up, I don't know - it must have known I wouldn't do it any harm. We lived in lots of country places, too... We were invaded by small black crickets one year, and lady bugs, another year, in your drawers, in your hair, in your pantry, in your undies... everywhere! And then the blue tongue lizard that would go in and out with our dogs via doggie door, and made itself a nest in our laundry... I gave up and left some old towels for it. Had an echidna get up into the wheel well of our car... wild brumbies in our patio... the list goes on. My husband still says that the most unwelcome visitor was his mother... I like her better than he does!

Hello Megan, i have read the comments, and I agree practicality is paramount, also it's a large investment and would be not be ideal to have purchased this with an awkward setting. Particularly entertaining. i think the 1200mm diameter table is a great spot. It loses a dinner plate in depth, meaning it's a seated table not a serving one. So it will work to have a shared centrepiece maybe a glass vase of flowers and the pendant over. It will suit your family, it would be an intimate setting, and ideal to have the luxury of an upholstered chair. Certainly far from a compromise. Being that your dining table is only a hop away from the kitchen, the table itself doesn't need to have a large top for serving setting anyway. Yes, centre it, even though you may be tempted to allow more room in the walkway, don't, by having a visual space equal to walk around will make it feel less intrusive in the space, and you will quickly settle into walking around it to suit. Just position your chairs on the diagonal axis meaning so they back out to the corners of the room, so you can get around them easier, they won't block in the space. Having a glass top, it won't look over scaled, and it will make practical use of every square inch of your homeow. Good luck, I'm keeping myself posted on it.