Kristy tell me about it. the YELLOW ones you gave me, I planted them in fall too and by spring....they had multiplied and bloomed like crazy. I can not believe you had YELLOW ones left with ALL that you gave me lol I love em because they give the empty flowerbeds a green look in the winter on top of their beauty. :-) Maybe one day I will have enough so I can just cut some for the house. Not only when a storm comes and I want to safe the flowers so I can enjoy them a little. Lucy

Oh I love your new pup. I lost my beloved Bichon, Koda last year to cancer, so we rescued a Bichon Mix, Mazzy, from a kennel that is deaf and allergic to every thing. Dog food is a prescription to stop the itch. I've taught him hand commands and he's done very well learning them. It has been a challenge but very rewarding at the same time. :o)

I like the wide trim. I don't like the the gable trim because I like the feeling of this building being tall. I like #6 for a couple reasons but don't know enough to vote. Your facade has a symmetrical feeling to it but with little violations here and there. Am trying to figure out whether it's better to make irregularities more or less prominent. How formal are your interior and your furniture and your neighboring houses? Functionally, how much would you enjoy the split stair at bottom? How likely is it that you will want to go directly to either side of the split stair? Is the major parking and arrive/depart activity only on the right of the front door as we look at it from street--if so should you throw some architectural stuff to the left side to balance out the inevitable auto stuff on the right? (In our new addition we will have a new front step but it's delayed--currently using a makeshift pile of palettes--so we've had a chance to rethink the original plan while we experience the actual walkpaths. We now realize that we walk THREE major directions from the front door so we're going to create essentially a half-hexagon step that will allow us to launch for the driveway/car, the mailbox/street, and the compost/garden/back yard on the run. You've only got one or two.) Your split bottom stairway gives more visual weight to the lower stair and echoes the roof line, which I like. But more importantly I'd urge, if you can afford it, to add more stair and landing space to make entering and leaving more gracious and functional. That up and down trot to the car should seem comfortable, not restrictive. Compare the width of the autos to the width of the passageways of the stairs for some perspective. If you go with #4, for example, I suggest expanding the landing that is halfway up the stairs--broaden it enough to plunk a cooler or such; even wide enough to put a pair of small folding chairs or a built in board seat. At the very least, people should be able to pass one one another on the stairway here like a pullout on a highway. It would also allow you to carry in sofas, etc. more easily. And allows a big pot of geraniums or something at the landing to add to the facade decor. You currently don't have a porch, you have a front stoop a story into the air. How will it feel when two dozen people are using the place? if there were a wider landing at the "porch" cantilevered out away from the building so that it extends out as far as the side of the bay that would also be helpful visually because it would echo the swing to the left on the first landing of #4. Imagine a group of people, including old ones and parents leading little ones, etc. And teens looking for a lurking spot. I don't like those couple steps at the top of the stair being different unless you gain something in functionality at the little landing below them. Does this spot restrict traffic and make the entrance counterintuitive or does it aid the access to the door for people hauling stuff? Stuff is inevitably going to accumulate at the bottom and top of a vacation stairway. I am used to hauling things to and from a small lake cabin. We have all kinds of things piled to go into the place or come out of the place: insect candles and sprays, luggage, coolers, food boxes, shoes, bait and fishing tackle and things hauled from beach, garbage, you get the idea. It all has to be plunked somewhere. Yes, I know you have an elevator and an entrance elsewhere. But this particular stairway leads you out of the house to the outside world and is the front facade of the building as seen from the curb. From the front door and from the car and from the street, it needs to be welcoming and not daunting. It's on the front page of the rental pamphlet.

Bart, mostly we swear a lot as we clean up the wreckage. Ours mainly digs up planting holes. We're preparing them early this year before fall planting, so at least we're not losing the plants themselves. Something that may be helping is covering a hole with something heavy that can't be dug up. We had some unused rebar clematis cages, relatively tall and thin, that we laid on their sides over freshly dug holes, that haven't been touched (we also used one over a new lilac to prevent it being munched on by deer). And I put a big plastic pot over one, pegging it down with a length of rebar, which hasn't been touched. If you could, for example, get some wire fencing, the sort that looks like a grate with holes 2" x 4", and cut a keyhole shape in it, a hole big enough for the plant in the middle, and a line cut through the fencing so that it could be later lifted off the plant without damage. Put the fencing over the plant, then peg it down with rebar pegs. Our badger seems to go for freshly dug and amended earth; once the ground has settled down it doesn't disturb it. So you could remove the protection after a year or so. We also cage some plants in fencing that the deer as well as we are particularly fond of.