Great looking house and beautifully kept yard! You're lucky to have excellent pitch (drainage) away from the house's foundation! About the walkway. Another option would be to expand the existing walkway in two directions: - bring the walk up to and abutting the house foundation, and - widen the walkway away from the house, so you get a large landing and a wide walk. I would not make the walk round anywhere. Instead I'd install a mass planting of a well-chosen, low-growing plant to soften the corner. I would connect this new bed with the foundation planting to the right of the front door. The excellent-looking turf would also soften the hard edges of the walk. Pitch it so rain runs away from the house. On this landing you could arrange a number of urns, some tall and slim, some wide and squat, some in between, planted with an interesting variety of seasonal, well-chosen flowers and greens, some trailing down the side of the urns, others growing vertical, some large leaved, some w/huge leaves, some colored, some variegated, etc. I think such an arrangement could be stunning. For the holidays, a few good-sized potted evergreens w/lights could be placed there. Bringing the 'sidewalk' up against your foundation would keep your basement good and dry. You'd need to allow space for seasonal expansion and subtraction between 'sidewalk' and the house foundation, and weatherproof the seam w/flexible material. A mason should know the details. I agree with others who prefer stone set in dry medium, as opposed to using wet cement or mortar. But I hear that a dry bed w/dry mortar-mix on top sets stone solidly in place. I saw it done when the nearby town redid all its sidewalks in beautiful brick. I don't care too much for foundation plantings, because they often trap water adjacent to the foundation, which in turn tend to make for damp, musty-smelling basements. The odors sometimes permeate upstairs into living spaces. I love a dry foundation and good pitch, because they make for a healthy house. Also, foundation plantings often include small (when planted) trees, like white-barked birch, that eventually grow tall and drop leaves into gutters, thereby creating water problems when rain from overflowing gutters slosh against house walls and foundation. Wet basements, musty smells, and worst scenario, mold follow. Ditto from sprinkler systems installed to water foundation plantings. Hope some of the ideas are useful. Good luck with your project. Please post pics during and after, will you?

The more I think about it the more I do not want to deal with an easement, just too many possibilies for issues. The only way we would purchase the property would be if we could also purchase a strip of land from the neighbors. There actually is another easement as well on the other side of the neighbor's property, for a bridle trail. I wonder if it would be possible to utilize that in a potential negotiation, as we don't have an interest using the easement. Between the access easement and the bridle trail easement, the neighbor is quite limited in fencing option I would think. Maybe for a few thousand dollars and relinquishment of the trail easement (if that's possible) the neighbor might be interested. I have no idea how be would price a small stip of land that is already encumbered by an easement. Chipsa: I agree, if we can purchase a portion of their lot for a *reasonable* amount then I would be inclined to do so, but if not then I think we will pass on the property. I don't even know if the neighbors are open to selling. And that's just one issue we still have all the other unknows to contend with- well, septic approval, "wetlands", etc. This land buying business is turning into a real headache. This post was edited by olivesmom on Mon, May 13, 13 at 16:42

Your BF never should have gotten into a relationship until he had worked out the issues he had with his ex-wife. It's not fair to you, him, or his daughter who is emotionally invested in you now. I suggest looking into getting him some kind of counseling. Meanwhile, while it is real easy to place all the blame on the ex-wife, just remember there are two sides to every story. I mean, many many people are emotionally and physically abused and yet they are able to start new relationships and are able to utter the words "I love you" with no problem. So it just seems a little too convenient to blame the ex-wife for all the hurtful things your BF says and does. This post was edited by Amber3902 on Fri, Feb 15, 13 at 18:27

I used several placements in my showroom. In the wine bar below, I placed the Hafele LED tape lights onto the back of the light rail, in a vertical orientation, shining back towards the backsplash. They are the warm color ones, and they also wrap the inside of the faceframe of the corner cabinet to light it's interior. The outlet directly below is the power supply, and the drivers are hidden in the corner cabinet. [Traditional Wine Cellar[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-wine-cellar-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_755~s_2107) by Memphis K&B Designer ProSource Memphis In the Dynasty kitchen below, the counter is darker and more reflectivee and has no light rail. The Hafele LED tape lights are mounted directly to the underside of the cabinet boxes at the front, in a horizontal manner, shining down on the counter. IMHO, this produces the better task lighting, although the greater lumens supplied by the cool white lights may also contribute to that perception. Here, I have 2 different power sources. The right hand section of lighting is powered from a receptacle above the cabinets. You can see the lead from the box to the driver to the right, above the sink area. Thellights on the left hand side are powered from the receptacle behind the blender, but the driver on that side is still mounted on top of the cabinet. [Transitional Kitchen[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/transitional-kitchen-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_709~s_2112) by Memphis K&B Designer ProSource Memphis You can see the lights reflecting off of thepolished Cambria Parys counter here in the corner where the seam is located. I wouldn't call that reflection ''glare'' though. [Transitional Kitchen Countertops[(https://www.houzz.com/products/transitional-kitchen-countertops-prbr1-br~t_439~s_2112) by ProSource Memphis