I am very happy to hear about your plans to build in the Philippines for a retirement for you and your husband. I love the Philippines, and I would love to live there the rest of my life, like Carol's brother did, but Carol is afraid to fly, so that would be pretty difficult. I can still dream about it anyway! Thanks for the compliment, Red, and yes, now it is very nice. When we moved this house it was terrible, and I paid very little for it. To be honest with you I have been sorry that I ever bought it, because we lived in a house 28 feet by about 100 feet, the last place we lived before moving here, as one room was built on, and was an extention to the regular 28 by 70, or in this case 100 feet. We loved it, and we got spoiled, and that is what we wanted, but this is what we found, and the price was right, and Carol is happy that it is not any larger than it is, because she doesn't feel well a lot of the time with deteriorating health.
What we had here the first winter was broken and boarded over windows! We had a front door that was only partially attached, so we had to hang a blanket over it, and not use it only when we had to carry anything in or out, and only then when we had to. We had rotten floors, with holes broken through them because of flood damage before we got this place. Both bathrooms were horrible, tubs with pieces broken out of the bottom of them, both toilets in this house were literally falling through the floor! Sinks were trashed, but able to be used, by carrying water. We had no water in the house, only what we carried in buckets and jugs! First Carol's bathroom became beautiful the first year. My bathroom was able to be used part of the time, except when I tore up the room to repair it. Now both bathrooms are beautiful. You know how people live in the Philippines, well, Carol's brother and filipina came from the Philippines, told us that they were too depressed to see our low living conditions, and they would not even stay with us, because Carol's brother told us it depressed him too much to see how we were living. We were living below most people's living standards in the Philippines! We worked on the house a lot, and 3 years later when Carol's brother was in the process of dying from cancer, he did stay with us, and that was very nice. I think he was impressed how much we had improved the place until he no longer was offended by our low living standards. We were still carrying water, but even since he died, we have improved things here a lot, and that feels really good!