I'm doing some second-guessing here, but it seems that you must get stormwater from the back yard to the front. Since the former french drain is non-functional, I'm wondering if you can change it to a slot-covered trough drain that collects water at the critical places and then directs it via underground pipe to an outlet somewhere toward the front yard... ?? Since you won't be hiring a hydraulic engineer, I would lean toward keeping it oversized... thinking about those big storms and the fact that drains tend to collect "stuff" and become clogged. 4" pipe is too small. 6" or a pair of them would be better. (If you can figure a way to keep it above ground, even better.) The exact details of how you constructed it would depend much on how the plan shapes up and what else you're constructing. Being as it's your own yard and your doing it on the cheap, you might even consider constructing a removable slotted grate made of treated wood. It wouldn't last like other materials, but you could get a few years out of it. In regards to planting on the hill, I'd be in favor of getting rid of all grass, thinking it's not fun to maintain, creating instead a solid small flowering tree canopy that would be limbed up with a high ceiling. Below it, a single, solid groundcover. Trees that come to mind would be redbud or saucer magnolia, with a preference for the former. 5 trees in a double staggered row (3 at back, 2 at front would do it.) A super cheap groundcover would be virginia creeper as you can find it everywhere and start your own cuttings. It's pest free and grows about 12" tall. You'd be able to incorporate other plants at edges, once some shade is up and running, and in the sunny areas.

“LONG post. Looking for advice from folks who have lots of experience with medium scale worm breeding and casting production” Most of us here do smaller scale. “I can already tell that much of the advice out there is like the advice on regular composting - easiest case advice that has been reprinted enough times that certain things become 'consensus' thus must be true.” The same thing happens here. Since you are asking questions about things we may not have experience with, expect more of that kind of advice. “the advice out there that says a worm population will double in 90 days is silly - under ideal conditions they could increase 100 fold in that time period.” The WEIGHT of the worm population can double every 90 days. The numbers will more than double, but many of the new worms will be babies. “My assumption is that the fastest way to get a large population going is to master the right conditions and then to have very low density. IE, a pound of worms in one bin is not going to yield the same population in three months as will the same pound of worms spread across 2,4, or 8 bins.” I have no idea how you come to that conclusion. Worms only breed so fast. Separating them from potential partners does not speed up the process. You want to avoid overcrowding the worms, but one pound in the kind of bin you describe is far from overcrowding. “Is there a minimum number you experienced breeders have found to be the minimum effective dose to ensure worms are finding one another and doing the horizontal worm mambo” Two. “or have these suckers been around a few million years because if there are two they will track one another down and ensure the survival of the species?” I don’t know if anyone here has really researched that, but conventional wisdom says that if your population is not dense enough, you will have less breeding. “For Bins, I am building continuous flow through bins using plastic garbage pails since they are cheap and large.” But are not strong enough to hold the weight of the VC, especially if you have cut a hole in the bottom large enough to facilitate harvesting. Bins made the way you describe tend to collapse under the weight of the VC “I figured the cranked spinning bar would likely just dig a groove above the grate and require some hand loosening anyway” That has been my experience. “I was thinking I'd use 'unfinished' hot compost. By unfinished, I mean it has been turned a couple times and there are still identifiable chunks like leaves that are blackened but largely whole.” This would make great bedding. If your hot compost has a balance of C to N, it would also be great food, and would require no additional food. “Am I right that unfinished compost, so long as it doesn't heat up is more or less perfect and would spur breeding since it would represent a mountain of perfect food source and stay pretty constant in terms of temp and moisture level with minimal effort?” Probably. “Food: I will quickly have more worms than I will have food scraps suitable for feeding them,” You are being optimistic. You may be right, but there can be a lot of surprises when you are raising live animals. “One of my favorite composting ingredients is to get coffee grounds in mass quantity from the coffee shops” This is not ideal worm food. Perhaps you would do better to put it in your hot bins and precompost it. “I have read that too many coffee grounds are bad for worms due to acidity.” A lot of people say that. I don’t buy it. “Is there another reason they would be bad?” Besides that worms don’t like to eat them until they have decomposed a bit? “I don't want to make feeding the worms a full time job so if I get sufficient numbers I know a nursery that will sell a truckload of horse stall compost cheap.” That may be the answer to getting them to breed faster as well. “It's a tad warm usually but I'm thinking that spreading an inch on top of the bins and lightly watering it would prevent heating and I've read that there is no better food for feeding compost worms and getting them to breed/mature quickly?” Correct, and correct.

Clumsy, my patuty!! WOW!! Where do you live??? Can I come out and tile your bathroom??? :-) In all seriousness, that's going to be one sweet masterpiece to put together! Before I get to your questions, though I do see one problem. It's going to be tough to run the chair rail through the shower and have any kind of glass enclosure. Not impossible, but tough. You would have to work together with your glass guy to figure out EXACTLY where the glass would go, so you could leave notches in the chair rail. I can guarantee you-- they're not going to notch the glass for you. :-) Now, on to the questions: #1-6) What you have drawn is excellent. With reference to the subway tile, no, the corner pieces do not need to be mitered. What you can do is cut the pieces, but then turn the cut edge into the field, and use the "factory" edge as the bullnose. Now, I said they don't NEED to be mitered. However, if you'd PREFER to miter them, there's no reason why you couldn't. It's not like it's ceramic where you'd have to worry about a sharp edge. As for the chair rail and liner, you're right. Those WOULD have to be mitered. The biggest tip I could give you about mitering the chair rail would be to have a piece of 2x4 handy with a 45 degree mitered end on it. You can place the mitered side of the 2x4 against the wet saw tray table's edge, and that'll give you the correct angle, and the thickness of the 2x4 will give you something to make sure you're standing the chair rail up straight while you cut it. If you decide that you want to miter all the outside corner tiles, the only advice I can give you is leave a little "meat" on the edge. You don't want to take the miter all the way to the face of the tile. If you do, you'll end up with an extremely ragged edge. Leave 1/16" of meat or so on the front edge. The finished miter will still look just as tight, and it'll be 100% stronger. #7) Don't worry about continuing the cuts. Atleast not on the subway tiles. For the most part, the ONLY time you really need to worry about it is when you use a diagonal layout. With running bond (the brick joint pattern), there's no need to continue it. Take each wall individually. Now, the best thing is to center the walls. However, sometimes that gives you small pieces on each end. With a square layout, moving the layout over half a tile, so the tile is centered instead of the grout joint, the problem is solved. With running bond, if you move it over half a tile, it puts you right back where you started!! So how do you move the layout over and still keep it centered? Move it over a QUARTER of a tile (1 1/2"). What this does is it'll give you equal, but alternating cuts. Lay it out on paper and try it-- You'll see what I mean. #8) Yes, that's normal. #9) Ya had to give me a hard one!! :-) You're right-- this CAN be tricky. But you're dead on the right track. You need to figure out your coursing (each course is one tile and one grout joint). Lets say yout tile is exactly 3" high, and you're using a 1/4" grout joint. Going by your drawing, I come up with a height of 51 1/2" high. You show a 6x12 piece on the bottomwith the 1/4" joint, that's 6 1/4". Next is 12 courses of subway tile. That's 39 inches (with 12- 1/4" joints). Then the pencil liner, which, if it were me, would get an 1/8" joint (to match the joint in the 3 rows of mosaics), so that's another 1 1/8", and then I'm assuming the chair rail is 2", plus another 1/8" joint, 2 1/8". Just a side note-- this would be another reason for NOT using the chair rail, unless you have the shelf come out over the top of the chair rail. With the other three sides, you can either cap the edges of the niche pieces, or you can have the niche pieces cap the edges of the wall. But the shelf MUST come over the edge of the wall tile. You want any water running down the face of the tile, rather than going into the grout joint. Alot of times, I'll even use a piece of granite tile, and round it out PAST the face of the tile, so that it doesn't even come doen the face of the tile, but actually gives a drip edge. Okay-- back to your niche. Just for the sake of argument, lets say the height is 51 1/2". You want to take into account the thickness of the cement board, as well as the kerdi (figure 5/8"). I would also, as you surmised, give it extra as a "fudge" factor . That way if you need the play, it's there, and if you don't, you can always fill it in with thinset. If it were up to me, and the chair rail was definitely going to stay, I'd set the framing at 50 1/2". The only question is, are you going to set your levels off the finished floor, or off the subfloor? Personally, I'd set it off the subfloor, but when I actually set the tile, set it over the finished floor, cutting it in. That way, if the floor's out of level at all, you'll never see it. Either way, it's up to you. The point is, I'd set the bottom of the niche framing an inch below what you expect the actual coursing to be. #10) That's the way it LOOKS when it's done. :-) You start with a full course above by nailing a piece of wood, and tiling off of that, and then removing it afterward and cutting in the bottom. As for the Kerdi in the shower, you can patch the holes afterward with Kerdi-Fix. You want to wait as long as possible to tile the shower and bathroom floors. You never want to be working over finished work any more than absolutely necessary. #11) I already addressed this above. #12) Install your wood trim first and tile to it. #13) Diamond hole saw. You can check some of the online tile tool supply sites. if you have a hard time locating them, let me know, and I'll see what I can do to find em for you. #14) this is where we get back to the thing about going from center to 1/4 and 3/4 tiles to get back to center. It works with diagonal layout, too. One other thing to think about, and this would work as a nice design feature, too-- from the chair rail up, turn one row of subway tiles on end, running them lengthwise up the sides of your diagonal tiles as a border. WOW!! This reminds me of Rodney Dangerfields's movie Back To School-- to paraphrase right after he finishes the oral exam and says "I feel like I just gave birth!! To an apprentice!!"

Interesting thread this. I worried that it might be narky, fists banging on the table demanding that people take the advice, but it's in a lower key which I like. 'The funny thing with my scenario, is that I think she got thrown off by what composting actually is - maybe when she saw the flies and maggots on the top of the pile of rotting food and organic matter.' Interesting point, this. These days people don't grow up with their hands in mud making mud pies, having been turfed out of the house to go and play. It's all electronic rot. Sad I reckon. And all that marketing everywhere we are and almost everywhere we go. My father said decades ago how harmful it is to us all. And now, as if it couldn't get any worse, fake grass is springing up. My neighbour had no front garden the other day. Then an attractive retaining wall grew, slowly (by todays standards) and carefully. It looked very nice and they'd taken with it. I went out. When I came back, three trees had sprung up at a height of about six or seven feet high and a bright green 'lawn' lay basking in the sun. Instant garden. I couldn't help but say to my partner, "That isn't gardening..." I wasn't being critical, I just felt perplexed.