I have to admit that while I'm great at reading floor plans, site plans confuse me a bit. I know that they matter, so I defer to others on this topic. I do understand the concept of having 12 acres, yet having only one good spot on which to build. I have 40 acres, yet I have one "obvious" spot where the house will be located. Oh, I COULD build in other locations, but it would be more costly (not adjacent to the existing gravel driveway, need to run utilities farther, etc.), but one general area is superior to the others in numerous ways. I don't want to disturb the roughly 50% that's heavily wooded, I don't want to move too close to the little pond in the woods that floods its banks, and I do want to maintain the open field that I rent out to a farmer (this gets me a drastically reduced tax build, and I'm fine with having a corn field behind my house). As for natural light, YES, it matters! Natural light is one of those basics I keep harping upon. Look at some photographs of rooms you like; natural light is most likely the key factor in why these rooms are appealing. To give an example from my current house (though the more examples I give from my sorry old house, the more I wonder why I live here at all), my kitchen /breakfast room /family room faces East. Although I have a covered porch off the back, I get the morning sun in those rooms, and during those morning hours these rooms are at their best. They are MUCH more inviting. The colors are warmer, the room even looks more spacious. By the time we get home from school/work, those prime hours are gone, and although the rooms aren't "dark", they also don't have much life. Colors, window choices, and other things can play into making the most of your natural light, but don't ignore this all-important topic.

Whoa, those Waterstone faucets are amazing!! There might be a little too much going on with that giant sprayer for me, though... But I LOVE the other traditional faucets they have. Their contemporary faucets have discreet pull down spouts. I don't understand why they don't offer something like that on their traditional faucets. And further, i don't understand why all of the other pull-downs have such gigantic heads!? I have seen some of the others you mention. I think my problem is this: some of them (the Kohler and Whitehaus, for example) have a very traditional styling to them, but they don't actually have an antique design. They just have traditional curves... The Waterworks, the Waterstones, and numerous others actually reproduce an antique design. I really like those hook spouts, I realize, and it seems the old faucets were always trim--nothing thick and bulbous... Does that make sense?

Knowing that you shop places like Home Depot or Menards... Have you seen the pendant light kits that turn a single Westinghouse glass replacement light (designed for ceiling fans originally) into a very affordable pendant light? There are conversion kits for bright brass, white, rubbed brass, maybe more. At the store by my house they have a large number of the Westinghouse globes/chimneys in stock and there is a display on the ceiling which shows lots of choices. The kits cost roughly $12 and the glass ranges from about $5 to over $20 per globe. On the internet you can find lots more styles than are in the store. There are old-fashioned ones, typical Victorian items, etc. But there are also many very modern ones. There are lots of gorgeous colored glass ones that fit the current fad. I am absolutely surprised by the number of choices. In the sample website below, don't quit too soon; there are many many choices. You can make the length of the pendant any length you like. I fell in love with a Justice Design Group pendant, but at about $120 each, times FIVE, that amounted to a good chunk of change which I just couldn't justify. The ones I'm going to make are $25 apiece. The Westinghouse kit is just as limited in wattage as the gorgeous Justice Group "Limoges" one I still drool over, so that was not a dealbreaker anyway. Florantha Here is a link that might be useful: One online resource for Westinghouse glass for pendants

What a sweet, beautiful pair of salt and pepper shakers. The site I've included below has links to different Fenton collectors groups. If you spread the word through them that you're looking for Fenton turquiose hobnail opaque milk glass salt and pepper shakers it will increase your chances of finding them. I imagine at least some of these collectors scout out garage sales, flea markets and such and would recognize the S&P set if they happened across them. Hopefully if they found them and knew of your interest, they would buy them and then sell them to you. I found a couple of specific Blenko glass pieces that I was looking for by going this route. Good luck! Here is a link that might be useful: fenton art glass collectors