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The inadequate space for the kitchen and breakfast area is only a symptom of a larger problem with the floorplan. I'm sure you're aware of this, but every jog in your foundation wall adds $$ to the cost of the build. The cheapest home to build is a big old square box, like a Colonial. One estimate is that every corner you add above 4 adds 10K to the build. You've got 23 corners, and many of them do not actually do anything or add anything to the home. That's almost 200K in overdone complexity right there. I'd focus on eliminating the corners and simplifying some of the angles. Simplify things. Locate like with like. Powder room backing up to a beverage sink will use the same plumbing chase as would the bathroom located above it. Consolidate the garages. Not only would that be a PIA to actually use, but it will be cheaper to have one garage than two. Focus on getting windows and daylight into the living space, not the storage space like a garage or closet. Think about the everyday spaces that you will use, like the kitchen, dinette and family room, and make sure those use the majority of the home's square footage. Bedrooms with proper closets do not need to be large to hold a bed. Your music room needs to be large enough to hold a piano (and get one into it through the doors!) but how much larger than the piano does it need to be to be able to give lessons. The same with the den. Why do you even need a den if you have the sunroom right there? How do you envision using that space? Guest room, perhaps? Without a full bath downstairs? How do you plan to age in place in this home without a full bath downstairs? An elevator? A stair lift? You don't have the space needed to be able to do an elevator and the stairs aren't a straight shot to be able to do a stair lift. For a "forever" home, this isn't laid out like one, and for a home large in square footage, the most used space lives pretty small.

I noticed my Limona grew 2 perfectly straight and tall scapes in a not-too-sunny window and those of Rapido, getting the same amount of light, have grown somewhat bent. Should I infer from this that some hybrids are more likely ( or maybe are even known) to grow "straighter" scapes than the others? Lena

No nasty popup this morning! A pleasant surprise when I came to read! I've been growing my tomatoes in the exact same spot for ten years now! I only have one place for a veggie garden, and it's on the east side of a two-story house! I picked the sunniest part of the available space for the tomatoes and eggplants--my most important crops! The tomatoes go in the area which is just past the back/northeast corner of the house, so, while most of the veggie garden only gets sun until midday when it moves too far past the house, the tomatoes get sun for all of the morning, and then again after it moves "past" the house at some point in the afternoon--and pretty much until it sets. Tomatoes need SUN, and I'd much rather take my chances of them getting some disease than I would of them not getting enough sun and failing that way! In all the years I've been growing them there, I've never yet had an Epic Fail! Each year one or two plants have some kind of a problem, and when I see something going wrong I keep and "problem leaves" cut off of those plants! I, long ago, stopped trying to figure out just exactly WHAT the problem is! As I've said around here many times by now, if you ask 10 different people "what's wrong" with a tomato plant, you're gonna get 10 different answers! I haven't yet removed an entire plant when "something goes wrong," tho I usually get very few tomatoes from one of those plants! Oh! And when I notice something is "going wrong," with just about anything, it immediately gets a "Palmolive dish washing soap bath!" That's my cure all for just about anything--tho it seems to help less with tomatoes than with most other things! [I keep a 2-gallon pressure sprayer filled with my Cure All!] For earwigs, which can decimate an entire rhubarb plant in less than 24 hours, and which is right next to my tomatoes, I use Bug-B-Gon--no, I'm not organic, and for slugs I use slug bait, whichever is the cheapest. I put too much into my plants, both veggies and perennials to let some little bugs destroy them--and bugs can carry diseases! After I plant them (mine still aren't in the ground--I'm, in the HEAT, trying desperately to get the soil turned over right now!) I mulch them with a THICK layer of leaves from the previous fall, that have been laying out there all winter in the bags insulating the soil so the worms can be Doing Their Thing all winter! The leaves are far and away the best mulch I've found! They hold the water like having layers of sponges laying on top of the soil, and my watering has been cut back substantially since I started using them. In fall they get dug into the soil if I have time, or they get eaten by the worms--under the leaf bags--if I don't have time! In the beginning I used grass clipping as a mulch, but I never had enough and they weren't very effective. I NEVER put tomato plants--even little bits--on my compost pile. Partly because of the possibility of disease, and partly because I don't have a HOT compost pile and the seeds, usually from cherry tomatoes, wind up coming up ALL over my yard! And I do tend to cut off the lower leaves that are in contact with the mulch. Not sure why I do that--just like things looking as good as possible, and a bunch of yellow ratty leaves on the bottom don't look good! So if you're looking for testimony that tomatoes can be grown, pretty much successfully, in the same spot every year, here is that testimony! Gotta go! Have some Potter's Clay I need to be turning over! My tomatoes are asking for water twice a day now in their little 3" pots, and pretty soon they're gonna be screaming bloody murder at me every time I walk by them! Try it and see what happens! You can always change it down the road if it's not workin' for ya! Skybird P.S. Don't ya just LOVE spellcheck, Digit! Sometimes it has me totally cracking up! TOTALLY! EDITED TO ADD: This is their home! [Just noticed, this is when I was still using the grass clippings!] https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Cw1NBnPiOxC6jnPDeHXRmS6_rfsMNJ4Ltqzjr_Nq_pc?feat=directlink https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/QqJl2BfmWwhTZsiVqbjG7i6_rfsMNJ4Ltqzjr_Nq_pc?feat=directlink https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/vFZDkIzz0uAqYRK5KFOXgC6_rfsMNJ4Ltqzjr_Nq_pc?feat=directlink