In any case---Hi  I'm one of the Boomer moms that is looking to consolidate my living space with that of my daughter and her family.  I'm property poor with 3/4 ac in a popular suburban part of a mid sized northwest city.  As about 1/4 of my property is now considered wetland and thus no longer open to development (though it was just 8 years ago),dividing and selling my property would not leave me with enough money to buy a smaller home.  Thus I now rattle around in a 75 year old 2500 sq foot house with many negative issues, the least of which is a basement that floods every winter since the frog pond across the street was paved over and developed 20 years ago.

Sadly, the house is not worth the major remodel it would take to hold my daughters family and myself- around me a subdivision of 3500-4500 sq ft McMansions have been built and old and up and down the street old homely houses such as mine are being torn down almost monthly to site 2-3 large houses on new miniscule lots.

The truly practical thing to do is knock this place into the basement <G> and rebuild.  Daughter and SIL both like the idea of keeping the wetland and gardening area I have cultivated for the past 30 years and I an quite amiable to co-living with them.  We are all eco-as possible recycle everything folk who reuse-recycle-make do and are looking for housing that incorporates passive solar etc.

Although daughter and I are close, I do want my own duplex-type space with some shared things such as laundry room.  A 2nd master bedroom wouldn't do it for us.

I can live easily in 1000 sq ft on one level-that gives me space for a sewing/craft room, master bedroom, bath, galley kitchen and living room. There is a slope to my property and a daylight basement would site perfectly, allowing me to have stair access to the main house but still have my own entrance.  I know that there is much that can be done to cure the drainage issue when starting over so I am not afraid of being flooded out. Daughter wants 2500sq ft hopefully on one level but thats not totally a must have. We do have the space for a large footprint.  3 bedrooms 2 1/2 baths and an office, media room over the garage would be nice.2 cars +work bay garage. 

 We aren't well off folk-the upwards from half a million dollar + McMansions are way outa our price range. Are we dreaming?  Is it possible to bring in something like this for under $300,000?  The good news is that by the time I clear out 30+ years of collecting stuff (another 3 years I believe) and am ready to knock this place down,it will be totally paid for thus we will have at least $250,000 in equity on the land-most likely more depending on some land use issues that the state is waffling about...there is a measure that will allow we grandfathered landowners to develop as we were able to when we bought the property. Daughters family will also have good equity in there present home.  

Housing style is open though I think a farmhouse/ranch would fit the bill.  We have looked at selling both places and finding a house already built but there just aren't any that fit our needs.  

I've considered building townhouses on the property with one for myself from the (hopefully) profits but the zoning issues, finding a builder that won't rip Granny off, etc etc is more than I want to take on-I want to enjoy retirement!

Any ideas-I know I'm not the only one in this position-from reading this forum I've seen that!  There must be something for us to do besides sell everything and move to Costa Rica!

Plantcrone