I highly recommend Annie Sloan chalk paint. We bought a daggy pine kitchen hutch off ebay fairly cheaply, and repainted it with a vintage/off white Annie Sloan colour, looks so much better. The great thing is you only need to wipe the surface down, not give it a full sand. I was skeptical about how well it would stick, but we've moved house twice since and it is still in great condition. The paint is slightly textured so if you want something that is perfect and smooth with no brush strokes it isn't for you. Two coats and a coating of wax and it looks great. Here's a before and after pic, we still hadn't put the handles back on in the after pic. Not cheap paint, but when you consider you don't need a separate primer or to sand it, it pays off. http://www.anniesloan.com/acatalog/Australasia_Stockists.html

Try to relax, Carol, it will all be alright. Once you get your things the way you like them, and layer the rooms with decor and the detritus of family life, the things that are glaring at you now won't be noticeable at all. We tend to be picky on this site because that's part of what we do, but in real life, you and your visitors will only notice that you have a warm and loving home, with laughter, and good food and drink. Just don't overcapitalise, so you have some money left over to afford food and drink! Relax, it's difficult now, but it will pay off.

We have a small inner-city backyard with three chooks. They live in a chicken tractor which we built to sit on top of our raised veggie beds. After a harvest is complete, the chooks clean up, till and fertilise the soil. They get let out to free range, and we throw any garden clippings in there, as well as all the food scraps from our kitchen (we have a toddler so there's no shortage of scraps). I buy pellets for $1.50/kg from our local pet wholesaler and they eat about a kilo per week. The coop is totally vermin/fox proof because it's on raised veggie beds, and it doesn't smell at all. It makes our veggie gardens much more productive, with very little work from us. Plus we get 2-3 eggs every day!

Our house is similar, but we are empty nesters and down sized about 4 years ago, our needs would be a bit different to a growing family, we are currently in the throes of having two smaller rooms made into one area to further open up a previous renovation to give us a bigger open space..we also have an ensuite and a combined laundry / second laundry space. The good thing is that being a brick veneer house the reconfiguring is relatively easy with modern technology and big beams. As above try and have a big open space, we have been out of our home for a month now and still a way to go, add living away from home to your budget or stay with family. I will try and post the plan but here are a couple of journey pics ..the last photo was before trying to show how the two rooms decided the space making the living room very small and a bit dark...the aim of this project is to have space for a bigger gathering than about 4 people before overcrowded. Light is really important, nice big windows essential, the darkness of the living I thought I could live with, but it did get me down, I a, looking forward to having a much lighter space