If you had $4M, would you spend $2M of it building a house?

[rmcelwee]

I would move the gas fireplace a little toward the front door and put another half-wall/peninsula on the left side between the living room and the kitchen to more clearly delineate the two spaces. I'd put bookshelves on the living room side of it and lower cabinets on the kitchen side (you can never have enough kitchen cabinets).

We don't have a fireplace but my current drawing shows a half-wall on the right hand side coming out of the hallway from the garage.

 

[Texas Proud]

LOL... so we are now going to redesign his dream home I love it!!!

BTW, love he cat pic... is he a friendly one?

 

[Music Lover]

We originally had the laundry and bathroom swapped but the builder said the complexity of the drier vent on an interior wall would cause a ton of problems and possibly a fire. You'll have to ask my wife about the other two things. I would agree though.

I suppose the laundry and bathroom can be rotated 90 degrees which allows both outside access for the bathroom and a direct output for the dryer.

 

[Gumby]

We don't have a fireplace but my current drawing shows a half-wall on the right hand side coming out of the hallway from the garage.

Maybe that's a TV that the seating is facing. I just guessed on fireplace. Anyway, I was thinking two half walls, one on each side.

 

[Retire2023]

One way to mitigate the "only 2-bedroom" issue would be to market the clean room as a potential 3rd bedroom. If the need to sell ever arose, a potential buyer could make a couple changes and have a very large main suite.

 

[rmcelwee]

LOL... so we are now going to redesign his dream home I love it!!!

BTW, love he cat pic... is he a friendly one?

Stray cat that is cross-eyed, deaf, and had his face crushed in a car wheel. Best cat I've every owned. We had two female barn cats and he fought with them so we moved them inside but other than that he's a sweetie.

 

[Andre1969]

We originally had the laundry and bathroom swapped but the builder said the complexity of the drier vent on an interior wall would cause a ton of problems and possibly a fire. You'll have to ask my wife about the other two things. I would agree though.

My old condo had the dryer vent in an interior wall. It went up into the attic, and then at a 45 or so degree angle and vented out one of the end gable walls. At one point, the dryer got to the point it wouldn't dry the clothes anymore. It was an old dryer, so I figured its time was up. But after I bought a new dryer and it did the same thing, I figured something was up. I got up into the attic and pulled the duct apart, and found a couple of bird nests in it. Apparently, this problem had been brewing for awhile, and eventually got clogged enough to notice. I cleaned out the duct, and shoved a piece of wire fencing in there, near the outside vent, in the hopes of keeping the birds out in the future. Never had any problems for the four years I was there after that, but now that I'm thinking back on it, I wonder if that wire fencing I put in there caught lint and other debris, and cause problems of its own?

Now that I think back on it, every condo in that community had the dryer hook into an inside wall. There were two models that sat over a row of garages, a three bedroom and a two bedroom. Mine was a 3-bedroom. These styles vented into the attic. The other three styles all had a ground-level kitchen, and IIRC, they all vented out at ground level, somehow. I remember one of my neighbors mentioning that he had a problem with critters getting in through the dryer vent area.

 

[Texas Proud]

Interesting that you brought up a condo... my mom's high rise condo had the dryer vent in an interior wall... I do not know where it went...

 

[DJRR]

Interesting that you brought up a condo... my mom's high rise condo had the dryer vent in an interior wall... I do not know where it went...

Ours goes 35 feet from our laundry to the outside. Think it is at maximum code length for our county. We just have a dryer vent company snake it every 2 years and that seems to work fine. Worst case I guess the sprinkler system will keep the fire down

 

[Koolau]

LOL... so we are now going to redesign his dream home I love it!!!

BTW, love he cat pic... is he a friendly one?

Stray cat that is cross-eyed, deaf, and had his face crushed in a car wheel. Best cat I've every owned. We had two female barn cats and he fought with them so we moved them inside but other than that he's a sweetie.

I love the snaggle tooth look. We had a stray like that once. He was very appreciative of our love and returned it many fold.

Your property should be the perfect place for your domestic and wild animals (love the deer - though you've gotta keep 'em out of your flower garden - ask me how I know.)

 

[RetiredHappy]

You said you won't need to pay for garbage collection. Are you planning on burying your garbage or... ?

 

[rmcelwee]

I love the snaggle tooth look. We had a stray like that once. He was very appreciative of our love and returned it many fold.

Your property should be the perfect place for your domestic and wild animals (love the deer - though you've gotta keep 'em out of your flower garden - ask me how I know.)

I forgot to mention, he's bow legged and breathes funny too. His snaggle tooth makes him slobber when he purrs. Just a complete mess...

 

[rmcelwee]

You said you won't need to pay for garbage collection. Are you planning on burying your garbage or... ?

We burn all the paper/plastic in a barrel. Anything metal or glass goes to the county dump.

 

[Gumby]

We burn all the paper/plastic in a barrel. Anything metal or glass goes to the county dump.

When I was a kid and lived sometimes with my grandmother in Appalachia, everyone burned their trash in a 55 gallon steel drum out back. There was always a pile of ashes and a separate pile of rusty flattened tin cans next to the drum.

 

[RetiredHappy]

We burn all the paper/plastic in a barrel. Anything metal or glass goes to the county dump.

Wouldn't burning of plastic give off noxious fumes?

 

[rmcelwee]

Wouldn't burning of plastic give off noxious fumes?

Yes, of course it does. I w*rked in a chemical plant for 32 years and have huffed enough fumes to drop a bull. Probably dead man walking right now. FWIW, we sent our chemical waste to the concrete plant where they burnt it in a kiln to make concrete. Sometimes we sent it to the fraking place where they pumped it into the ground to get the oil/LPG out (we got a big environmental award for this since we weren't burning it). I try not to stick my head in the drum while it is burning though.

 

[Koolau]

When I was a kid and lived sometimes with my grandmother in Appalachia, everyone burned their trash in a 55 gallon steel drum out back. There was always a pile of ashes and a separate pile of rusty flattened tin cans next to the drum.

We always had a burn-barrel until the city outlawed them (thank goodness.) Some folks had stuff smoldering in those things for days at a time. Between that and burning leaves at the curb, it's a wonder any of us survived.

 

[Letj]

When I was a kid and lived sometimes with my grandmother in Appalachia, everyone burned their trash in a 55 gallon steel drum out back. There was always a pile of ashes and a separate pile of rusty flattened tin cans next to the drum.

I am wondering if a lot of people came down with lung issues. That must have been a lot of smoke all the time.

 

[treeofpain]

Our house is about 25% of our total NW. It would not be a priority of ours, but many people can easily live on your "remaining" $2M, and it sound like you can too. Do what you like.

 

[Koolau]

I am wondering if a lot of people came down with lung issues. That must have been a lot of smoke all the time.

Heh, heh, the smoke from the barrel was less potent than living with two parents who smoked Pall Malls in a house with radiant heat (no forced air with filtration.)

 

[samcat]

How big a place does $2M buy you in LCOL East TN?

I was just going to type "you will definitely have the nicest house in Eastern Tennessee".

 

[Anchors Aweigh1]

Debt free, fairly frugal, and FIRED. We are close to building our dream home and it suddenly hit me that we may be spending half our money on it. I have $1M in cash, $1M in 401K fixed fund, and $2M in S&P based equities (mix of Roth, 401K, and brokerage). We are 57YO with no source of income other than a small pension that only pays for our healthcare. The plan is to spend the $1M in cash to get the house started (dried in) and hopefully sell some stocks or fixed next year to pay for the rest of it. I find it hard to believe that we can't get by on $2M but I figured I would ask around. The house will be extremely energy efficient and on solar power. We are in LCOL east TN.

Read Bill Perkins book “Die with Zero” and then decide.:

 

[MC Rider]

Pretty sure you can't burn your trash here. We pay $31 a month for pickup and their can. If we did not want to pay we could self haul to the dump, and most regular household trash stuff is free to dump. This may change and people were up in arms over the price increasing on going on property tax bills a while back.

 

[Grigori]

For me NO! I can’t speak for you.

For me, a house costing that much has maintenance and insurance costs much higher compared to, say a $500 m house.
It’s not just the 2 mm$. It’s all the much higher associated future costs.

And spending half of my portfolio means I don’t have that for fixed expenses or things I want to do like yoga. I’d rather have the freedom o a pot of money represents.

But each person is different. Perhaps you think a 2 mm$ home will make you really happy. Perhaps it’s a special treasure in the mountains.

 

[mtheulen]

Debt free, fairly frugal, and FIRED. We are close to building our dream home and it suddenly hit me that we may be spending half our money on it. I have $1M in cash, $1M in 401K fixed fund, and $2M in S&P based equities (mix of Roth, 401K, and brokerage). We are 57YO with no source of income other than a small pension that only pays for our healthcare. The plan is to spend the $1M in cash to get the house started (dried in) and hopefully sell some stocks or fixed next year to pay for the rest of it. I find it hard to believe that we can't get by on $2MI but I figured I would ask around. The house will be extremely energy efficient and on solar power. We are in LCOL east TN.