If you commute you'll be in the crash pad virtually every night so you need a true crash pad - if you try and hotel it you'll go broke.

Really, unless you're maybe #1 or #2 in base commuting is really difficult. The business model is built around peaks and valleys so the flying varies widely by day of the week and by month. Example of this it's common for nearly everyone to have to work fri. & sun. and almost everyone to be off sat. So you're gonna have 4-5 occurrences per month of one day off. This is not like other airlines where you trade or use the bid sheet or take PTO and work out a 5-on 5-off schedule.

Like everyone says, read the thread, you can come here and have a pretty good QOL if you put yourself in an aircraft/base that gets you senior as fast as possible compared with, say, you come here and bid Airbus IWA or take upgrade as soon as it's available - you'll be junior and getting TDY'd for quite awhile.