First, let me say that understanding how water behaves in soils and the impact too much or too little water has on your ability to keep plants healthy is a primary requirement for proficiency, so I heartily recommend you gain a good understanding of the concept explained in this thread (click me). An appropriate soil is one you can water to beyond the point of saturation, so you're flushing the soil of accumulating salts when you water, w/o having to worry your soil will remain saturated long enough that it imposes limitations by inhibiting root function or compromising root health. There are lots of ways to combine ingredients, but essentially the concept centers on particle size and the individual particles ability to hold water internally. Air in the rhizosphere (root zone) is as important as water, so the higher the quality of your soils, the easier it is to maintain plants in good health - all other factors being equal. I use this as the basis for all my bonsai plantings: It's equal parts (by volume) of screened fir or pine bark, screened Turface, and screened crushed granite or cherrystone (quartzite). You should water on an 'as needed' basis, not on a schedule. Buy a 1/4 0r 5/16" wooden dowel rod, cut it in half, and sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener. Insert it into your soil to check for moisture content. Water only when it first comes out clean, dry, and not cold on the inside of your wrist. Over-watering and poor soils are both limiting; together, they are deadly, so learn to avoid over-watering. "Should I gather additional materials to substitute sunlight??" I'm unsure what you mean. There is no substitute for sunlight, but some high quality light sources can come close. I use Dyna-Gro's Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 for almost everything I grow, including my trees. I use it because I've conceptualized the ultimate goal for fertilizing plants in containers and that fertilizer offers the best chance I've found to realize the goal. Simply put, our focus in supplying supplemental nutrition to our plants should be on ensuring all the nutrients plants normally assimilate from the soil are A) IN the soil and available for uptake at all times, B) in the soil in a favorable ratio - that is to say in a ratio that closely mimics the ratio at which the plant actually uses the nutrient, C) at a concentration high enough to ensure no nutritional deficiencies, yet still low enough to ensure the plant's ability to take up water, and the nutrients dissolved in that water won't be impeded (by a high concentration of solubles in the soil solution). Most fertilizers ensure this goal is unreachable. The FP 9-3-6 puts it within grasping distance; grasping distance because I tend to believe there are so many variables associated with "the perfect nutrient supplementation program" that it's doubtful anything would be perfect for any length of time. There is only one degree of 'dead', so removing wouldn't cause any physiological issues, and it doesn't appear the plant's appearance would suffer if the dead trunk was removed, so do as you choose about that point. You asked about supplemental reading. The info in the second link is probably the most important concept a container gardener can gain an understanding of, but please consider the first link as a primer and read that first. Once you get a good understanding of how to produce productive soils, half the battle is won. IOW - it's very important. But again, do read the first link offered first. A basic overview of growing in containers. This one contains info that will help you maintain healthy root systems, which are critically important (prerequisite, actually) to a healthy plant. This one is a discussion About Fertilizing Plants in Containers. Al

The place to start would be with your overall objectives and goals. What do you expect to accomplish by making changes to what's there now? What do you hope to gain? Laws about cutting down trees are a little more sophisticated than your statement about them would suggest. Usually, not every tree is protected and also, it has something to do with size. And likely, it would not preclude you from performing maintenance on trees, which could possibly involve a lot of cutting. In a given thread on the forum, it's best to focus on one area -- like the front yard -- and forego discussion of other projects. If you try to lump everything in your yard into a single thread, it can be overwhelming and the discussion can be confusing. Wherever you want to focus on, it's good to show a set of photographs that spans the entire scene. In order to do that, you would stand in line with the center of that scene, about 25' away from it, and start photographic it at the far left end, pivoting to the right, taking slightly overlapping shots as you go until the farthest right picture has been captured ... and then post those pictures. For the front of a house, this is usually 4 or 5 pictures. (When taking them, you cannot change locations between any of the pictures. And don't post a computer generated panorama made of them.)

After looking more closely at your photos, the problem you are going to run into are things like window and door trim. I can't tell if there is trim on the window in the yellow nook. Assuming there is, anything you put on top of the tile could end up too deep for the trim. Assuming there isn't and it is tiled to the window, you would have to figure out a way to trim out the window to hide the tile, then do your beadboard. I understand this is your first home and that you don't want to rip things out but, you don't want to make it worse than it is by kinda sorta fixing it. I would test removing the tile. If it comes off pretty cleanly, then I would remove all and skim coat to fix the walls. If not, I would remove both tile and plaster and drywall. It will be labor intensive, but better to do it right the first time and improve the home, than to do something that will only make it worse and possibly decrease the value.

As the guide said juniper needs to be outside to go through a period of cold dormancy. Inside it is hard to achieve that. Is there a cold spot right next to a window with no direct sunlight and no heater next to the window? You can try keeping the plant in a box with one side open towards the window and keeping the box right against the window. The idea will be to let the cold outside keeps the box inside cool. Hopefully it will create a small micro-climate of cooler conditions there. Juniper like to be dry and so water only when it feels dry. Use a chopstick and poke in the soil to get a feel for how dry it is. No need to fertilize now since it will not be growing. Around April it should start showing signs of growing again. That will be the time to repot, prune, pinch and shape. For soil read this forum post to get started. It talks about soil mixes for containers. Bonsai is no different. You want to make or buy some version of the "gritty mix". Look at bonsaijack.com or dallasbonsai.com for premixed soils. In the mean time read up on juniper care and styling on the internet. There is no hurry. There are a lot of good videos on youtube. I just do not have links handy.