Considering a friend for a 'roommate'?

[flannagain]

My SO and I own a 4 bedroom/2 bath home on a horse farm. My SO is in the Army NG and came home from a deployment to find his employer let him go, so now he is finishing his BA full time and going to Officer Candidate School. I work fulltime. We both run the horse farm.

My SO and I don't need that much space, obviously money is tight. My friend is single and keeping up a household just for herself.

We were considering letting my best friend move into the ‘master suite’ side of the house after adding a wall with a door to make an ‘in-law’ unit and a sink to her kitchenette (we’ve looked into zoning / permits - she is in the construction industry).

It just seems like it might be a great opportunity for all involved to get ahead over the next 3 years.

She moved in with me the winter my SO was deployed because her rental home needed some renos, so we have lived together before for a few months. She has also kept her horse at our farm for the past X number of years (as a paying boarder). As of now she literally lives a mile down the road and spends most of her time at my house.

FWIW, we are all in our mid 30’s-40.

We’ve outlined a logical reason for doing this (to ease some of the financial and physical burdens on all three of us) and from that, we’ve outlined a financial agreement (rent/bills/utilities) and physical responsibilities (yard work, trash, etc) that we could all live with.

We have also discussed keeping issues separate (the horse and farm are separate business from the house / tenant business), and that this situation would be 'business', not friendship. We also have an exit time frame of 2.5 to 3.5 years (when the SO finishes school / OCS we’ll be selling our place and moving depending on where he gets a job).

We all have similar life styles (not loud, not party people, quiet, outdoorsey, we all have horses and dogs etc). We’ve all known each over for over 7 years so have a feeling of each other’s general level of financial responsibility and ABILITY (to keep the lights and water turned on, to fix things when the break, to pay things on time etc).

We even created lists of “what is the possible worst and what we would do if…” and each of us a personal list of "what are the immediate positives we'll get, and what long term goals do we hope to achieve by the end of this?". For me & the SO it is financial help and some help with yard work. For my friend, she currently lives in a very old energy inefficient house so and has to do all her own yard work, and other rental neighbors (that have been iffy in the past).

Of course my friend and I are worried about ruining our friendship. My other half is worried about living between the two of us if it ruins our friendship. I think our biggest issue is we all have dogs (my SO and I have two, and my friend has 3) - and how we'll handle the idea of keeping our two packs separate, but we live on 12 acres with a barn so I believe we could be creative.

I guess I’m just looking for input on pros and cons.