Overadvertised and underfunded

I did it! The room I was talking about painting, I got the two "furniture-goes-against" walls completely done and the "cathedral-peak" walls done as high as I could safely reach - so, not over the fireplace, and not over the snack bar. But tomorrow I can start moving furniture back out of the hall and dining room! (I'm taking my time putting all the books back. That's going to be a huge task.)

Now I've just got the lawyer-foyer, and that I'm hiring out along with the two peaks in the sunroom.

I need my nighttime meds, a heating pad, and my current book. And chocolate.

My mattress was a year old when it was given to my by my parents. My back was acting up, I couldn't sleep comfortably on my futon any more, and mom had a wild idea about putting a twin size bed in the guest room to give guests...well, more room. (That lasted less than nine months, and they got another queen-size bed.) I've used said mattress and box spring for nearly two decades. They've had a good life. So I did some homework, went to the local mattress store, tried out my first and second choice, and made the purchase. It was delivered this morning, so I get a brand new bed for day-after-solstice. I put a new set of sheets on the bed, and I learned that Merry LOVES flannel sheets. LOVES-loves-LOVES. Sprawl, wriggle wriggle writhe squirm squirm wriggle. I ran to get my camera and capture his adorable joy on film...

...and he decided that it was the absolute perfect time for him to clean his butthole. Thanks, Merry. Way to kill the vibe. I am not sharing this with the family.

I am planning to move out of the metro area, buy acreage, build a net-zero house, and grow several types of vegetables. I want to do this for several reasons:

• I prefer to interact with my neighbors as infrequently as possible, but I still want to be able to enjoy the outdoor spaces of my home.
• I enjoy nurturing plants...to an extent. If I can't eat it, I don't want to put the work into it.
• I like being able to try different spices, and think it would be very cool to be able to share the "excess" spices with others.
• I know that I do not have the stamina to care for farm animals, even animals as seemingly low-maintenance as ducks/chickens/pigeons.
• Caring for animals is EXPENSIVE. I have five delightsome cats, and their food and medical bills are not cheap. And I do not want to become the kind of microfarmer who has ducks or chickens that don't lay enough eggs to be profitable, or have health issues and so aren't both consistent and safe egg-providers.
• I want a house that will be liveable as I get older and become less mobile. That means a one-story house...and since more people now want single-floor homes, they cost more than multistory homes, even multistory homes with more square footage. An "age-in-place" home can also include power outlets higher up the walls, wider doors and hallways (to more easily accomodate walkers and wheelchairs), toilets with grab-bars, and showers with grab-bars and a bench. Yes, it's possible to retrofit an existing house to have the shower-with-bench and the grab-bars without breaking the bank. It costs a lot more money, though, to rebuild an entire house with wider doorways and hallways.
• I want a house that recycles my grey water (flushing the toilets and/or watering the plants) and gets most of its energy from solar (particularly a battery or two that can run the essentials during a 15-24 hour outage), but is also hooked to the electrical grid so that I can have enough power even in the winter. It is possible to add solar panels to the roof of an existing house...but if the roof doesn't face the right direction or is partially shaded, the output isn't as much as it could be.
• I also need to have high-speed internet. That means broadband. I don't want to use DSL (that's so 1990s) or be stuck relying on satellite internet (because fuck Elon.) I can take care of this by doing my research before I even go to walk a property.

I can buy land and build custom, or I can hunt around for a rambler with just the right orientation that's available, buy it ($500K and upward), and then spend another $100K+ retrofitting it. I'd rather just go with Option A.

Ideally, I'd get 15-20 acres and have several tiny homes for friends and friends-of-friends to live in for 5-10 years and contribute toward annual property taxes while they save up money for a downpayment on a house of their own - or land of their own, whichever. (Saving a downpayment is difficult even on a tech-industry salary, and saving a downpayment while also paying other bills is nigh-on impossible.) I know I'd have to do a lot of research on that first, though: what legal restrictions are in place for such a thing? What kind of contracts would I need people to sign (because while I would not be charging monthly rent, this would be a tenant-landlord situation. I need to be able to hold tenants to a maximum term, and if someone's a disruptive asshole I have to have remedies to evict them. They also need to know that I'm not going to suddenly evict them on a whim, or suddenly start charging them a whole lot more rent than they initially agreed to pay. And other bits.)

(I don't want to be a vacation-home hostess. Too much work, too much bother, too many strangers traipsing about my property.)

I don't know how long this will take, but if there's a big ol' housing crash in the next year my dreams may go up in smoke - or may be delayed until the economy recovers, which might take 5-10 years. My home has appreciated an insane amount since I bought it, and selling it at its current estimated value would give me enough money to buy at least 5 acres of land, build a custom net-zero home, and have a very small mortgage - even with the recent rate hikes. But that's not a step that I can take without more research and planning...like, how to find architects who are familiar with building net-zero homes that still comply with local permitting regulations. It isn't impossible. It's just...a lot.

This is going to be the ultimate project manager job.

Too bad I don't like being a project manager, because this would be a HELL of a resume-item.