I've lived in suburban Orange County, California all my life. I'm only 23 and everything has changed since I was a kid. I remember when Huntington Beach still had swamp land full of trees and big oil rigs on it. Now it's full of million dollar town houses ON the swamp land and a few oil rigs that just sit there. Rarely do you ever see one that's actually moving. I just bought my grandma's house that's in one of the still unincorporated cities that most people who have grown up in the area didn't even know existed. Traffic is awful. During random hours of the day it can take me about 10 to 15 minutes to get to work but around regular commute hours it could take 20 to 45 minutes. You learn quick not to use the freeway unless necessary. There are many nature preserves and playgrounds. And I love the fact that I get the ocean breeze even on hot days and I don't have to actually be at the beach.

moccasinlanding, I have a lot of architect friends & my hubby is a contractor...so I'm all set on the resources - it's more a matter of time I think & finding the right house that's in the right setting. We are considering building my dream home, but again it's a matter of the amount of energy I have doing it. I have certain "requirements" that I just can't seem to find altogether. I don't want to live in a development. I want a small wooded, very private lot. I'm sure it's out there & that I will find it. I would really like to live in our Finger Lakes region of NY, but of course THAT issue is commute time for hubby, especially in the winter. He's 9 yrs younger than me, so he's a lot further away from retirement than I am. I like Sarah Susanka & she has been a breath of fresh air in architecture & her philosophy. But a lot of her houses are still too big. And she has really gotten into the sustainability thing, which is fine, but I just don't see her evolving in the thread of thought that I am. I've found 100's of floorplans on houseplans.com in the 1500-1700 sq ft range that I want...none are as good as mine LOL...but I enjoy looking at floorplans & architecture & houses for sale, etc. and I could see many of those homes integrated in what I have in mind as a "community" for the lack of a better word. It's kind of a hobby extension of my interior design work I guess. With my illness & age, my interest has taken on a new dimension...beyond my own... with affordable & desirable - what I call the "New Desirable" housing for seniors as kitykat has expressed so well. We don't want to live in old people's homes or "retirement communities" as they are now. I'm in this exploration stage since I'm newly semi-retired in the last couple months, & I'm not sure how far I'll take this vision for me & others in the same situation. But I think it will be an interesting journey. And I love hearing that others are thinking like me & kitykat. We may just start a revolution LOL ...or at least an evolution. We'll see... ~Jeana

Lots of good advice above - it's so hard to give much direction without knowing your specific choices. But to answer you original question about costs I can give you an approximate breakdown for my gut job kitchen reno. We had to move the kitchen so I needed new windows, moved plumbing and hvac and venting and needed new flooring. We did not change any structural walls but we did need to put in new headers for the window opening. It's a 100 yr old house so of course new wiring. Moved HVAC and venting for kitchen and bath exhaust $900. Moved plumbing including waterline for fridge, new vent, dishwasher install, undermount sink and faucet install, sink (Swanstone and faucet(kohler) $1700. New drywall $2300 Icynene insulation $1000 New wiring for kitchen including 8 recessed lights, 4 fixture boxes and xenon uc lights and halogen incab lights, inline fan for kitchen and another for a bath, running a chase to the attic and new outdoor and lighting $4700 New oak flooring installed and refinished and leveled floor $1700 QS oak cabinets, blum hardware, $20,000 for 40 linear feet. Install cabinets (all toekicks built onsite) $2200 Cambria countertops $6700 Four new windows (kolbe) to match rest of house $3500 Install windows $2000. Backsplash tile $1000 Reproduced QS oak trim $1000 We did our own tearout and garbage hauling ($100 for dump), some minor framing, plaster repair for walls not demo'd, window removal and exterior trimming, stucco repair to exterior walls, installed interior wood trim (almost done) and soon we will tile the backsplash. We also had to act as our own GC. The kitchen is in two parts - the 9x10 "working" part and the 9x12 eat in, hallway passthru part. The house is in a very nice older, middle class neighborhood in the midwest accessed at $250,000. I know the amount we spent is outside recommendations but the kitchen and appliances were 45 years old, nonstandard in size and the floor plan was so bad the house was most likely unsellable. Hope some of the info gives you better idea about costs

UPDATE (finally) Finally have the soil and hydroseed laid down (1 tank). We only had $5k left in our budget so this is what it got us. The entire project from survey to excavation, soil, and hydroseed cost about $9.5K. I really thought we could have gotten a lot more done for that money but maybe I was just naive and obviously landscaping is not something I'm fluent in. All in all, I'm moderately happy. I really wish we could have pushed the landscaping to the edge of the property but there just wasn't enough money. We still have an entire front yard (about 150 feet out) to do and part of me thinks we may have been better off buying a mini excavator! Here are some photos. Please disregard the unsightliness of my house- we're replacing some of the T1-11 and we also just had to replace our sliding patio door (shattered by a kamikaze rock), so it looks pretty poorly right now lol. Everything that is opened up inside the treeline, beyond the bushes is our property, so you can get an idea of the space we didn't get to utilize. I eventually want to fence our entire backyard in (for the dog), and I worry we're going to run into problems because the perimeter hasn't been cleaned down and is very rocky still. I don't know how on earth they'll get post holes in. The giant pipe is our well. We'll be cutting it down eventually (we're connected to public water). We haven't discussed at length what we're going to do once the grass is established, but we'll either be be putting another deck or more likely a patio behind the house, and cutting wide steps into the bank to go up to the the top of the yard. It remains to be seen how the drainage issue will go. They flattened out the area in the back a bit so I hope there's enough pitch to get it to flow around with the swail of the yard. We don't have any rain in the forecast for the next week, so we'll see. The dirt below on the ground is my driveway. I have no idea what we're going to do with this little hill area on the side of the house but DH really wants to utilize it as his "man area." Grill, firepit, etc. unused property :( Lots of projects going on at once. We're replacing all the doors, so eventually they will match! Siding still has to be painted too of course, and yes, the back roof of the garage too (the front is done and matches the rest of the house).