So I sold some of my sharpening stones (about $600 worth) and am wanting to invest some of that in a hand plane or two. My dad is letting me borrow his Stanley block plane which I am getting on well with. I want to say it's about 7" long so not a tiny plane. I was making shavings last night 0.0015" thick on hard wood.

I don't do much work at all as I'm just getting started and don't want to spend an arm and a leg on a veritas. I could but I'd rather not as I'm not a professional.

I've pondered buying off eBay and "fettling" as you gents say. While kind of appealing I'd rather have brand new. I've gone the buy vintage before with other hobbies before and it's fun but a boat load of work sometimes.

I'm not sure which plane to buy. A #5 jack has been reccomended a lot reading through threads but I have a tiny workshop (will find the measurements, but it's in a one bedroom apartment so I can't bust out a #7 jointer on an 8' board) and don't have room to do large projects.

A #5 may be too large for my needs. While interested in furniture making I don't know where to start. A #4 sounds like it'll be good but not for taking off lots of material like a jack could. If i want to start with some pretty ugly stock and would need a scrub too and then would a #4 be enough to true it up?

I was also looking.at the veritas chisel plane in lieu of a rabbet/router plane.

Trouble is I don't know exactly what I would need...

Suggestions?