To do the sun/shade studies I propose here two things need to happen. The site plan needs to be rotated to true north and a set of shade templates must be constructed. The site plan rotation makes it possible to use the same templates for all projects in the same general area. The templates work well over about a 30 mile radius, which can probablly cover the work area of most designers. To do sun calcs one needs the Lat/Long location of the area. This can be found at ... www.topozone.com Below is a screenshot of me looking for Shawn's project at Campbell, CA. Note on the left I have set the "Corrdinate Format" to "D/M/S". Then at the top of the map the Lat/Long will be shown as degrees, minutes, seconds. At the lower right True north is shown with the difference for magnetic north and grid north. A lot of mapping will use a grid north and I suspect Google maps may well be shown to the UTM grid which is a 0.636 error from true north at Canpbell, not something to worry about for sun studies. We don't have the sun observation described above to pin down the rotation needed, but looking at Google Maps of his house I was able to determine that the roof edge is near azmuth 215 degrees. Azmuth is direction of a line in degrees or rotation from North. Think of it as the hand on a clock where 0 is at the 12 position of the clock and as the hand swings clockwise, 360 degrees is the full circle. 90 degrees is East, 180 is South, 270 is West. Sun calcs are easily done at the following web site ... http://www.srrb.noaa.gov/highlights/sunrise/azel.html Below is a screen shot of a sun calc for Shawn's project. Above I have set the "City" box to "Enter Lat Long", and the values I got from topozone are entered. The time offset box is set to 8 (7 for Mountain, 6 for Central, 5 for Eastern time) and set Daylight Savings Time to "yes". A date and time was entered, and then the calc button is clicked to get the results. By changing the time by trial and error I look for an azmuth of 215 degrees, the roof edge direction I got from google maps. The time comes out to be 1.49PM. Though Shawn missed the sun observation last Saturday, he guessed it was near 2PM. It looks like rotating his plan so that the roof is at az 215 is what we need. Next I need to complete the templates for this area.

Yardviser said: "Since pls8xx's comments follow mine and reference "altering photos" and "photoshop" before beginning all the cautionary tales, I must reiterate, and I thought I made it clear, my photo images are concepts and are not masquerading as plans." I thought it clear from the entirety of my post that I was not referring to your images in any way , form, or fashion. My criticism was directed at the plan view drawing provided by the OP. There are few if any members of this forum that have posted more photo edited graphics than I have. I know of no better way to add clarity to text. The original plan view drawing was nothing but pure fantasy. That was apparent to me only after the second set of photos were posted. Looking at the "plan" one would think the project would provide a generous sized patio with a fire pit. The reality of today is something else. In the drawing above the back deck area appears to be almost as wide as the side deck. It's not. At most it is only 5' wide. The drawing gives no geometry to control the location of the two walls. Nor is there any proposed elevations given for the walls or finished grading. It's no wonder that the wall as built does not meet the needs of the site or serve to provide an area for the generous patio of the original concept. 'missingtheobvious' is on the right track. Study the photos. Unless suggestions are compatible with the reality of the site they are of little value. The following graphics and scaled drawing are what I get from the photos. Above I have superimposed the reality of construction over the fantasy concept. Note the restricted area available for the patio. Yardviser said: "Don't let the patio approach the retaining wall so closely that the grade differential becomes too great. That would cause erosion and maintenance problems." Right! With a grade difference between back door and top of wall of about 2 feet, even a 10 wide patio will require a short wall along the outer edge of the patio. Whether a 10' wide patio with deck supports through the middle is satisfactory to the homeowner is up to him. But it falls way short of the anticipated benefit of the original concept. Construction of an elevated wood deck is complicated by the high grade at the back door and the support footers for the existing deck above. A combination of on-grade patio past the deck footers and a wood deck extending to the wall might be a possibility.

Just a update. I came up to Tahoe for a few days to see my daughter. She got two days off work, after working 12 hours/day for thirteen days straight. Her summer is going great. The kitchen is running smoothly. She's been learning how to manage her kitchen staff, 10 people including two assistant supervisors and a bunch of junior cooks. Lots of training, teaching, correcting, encouraging, and now doing job reviews and planning staffing for next summer. She's also been writing up recipes and procedures, filling out employee evaluations, and other administrative stuff. Along the way they've had to deal with equipment breaking down, water shortages, a small forest fire that closed the road and interrupted food delivery for awhile, and other interesting aspects of cooking in the high mountains. The camper feedback on the food has been very good. People have told me the meals have been the best they've ever had in years of coming to camp. She's been asked for her recipes several times. (As an aside, I think they need to change their policies for accommodating special dietary requests. This being a Berkeley camp, families are always requesting that their meals for the week be gluten free, dairy free, meat free, nut free, kosher, vegan, soy free, low fat, low carb, without certain spices, no raw vegetables, no garlic or onions, no peppers, no tomatoes, and on and on - the list of idiosyncratic restrictions seems endless. Right now the camp kitchen accommodates every request, which means they have to improvise a special variant or two of the meal, for one or more individual campers, almost every day. I told her they need to develop a standard list of alternative dishes using food that they will stock all the time and offer those and only those, instead of trying to create bespoke versions of every meal served during the week. For example, they should always be able to accommodate vegetarians or gluten intolerants or lactose intolerant, but I don't think a camper should be able to present any arbitrary list of restrictions and always expect to be accommodated. This isn't a restaurant, it is a summer camp.) On her first day off, we drove to Reno and found a restaurant supply store, and I bought a bunch of little stuff they need. Things like more aprons and oven mitts, egg slicers, thermometers, etc. My daughter was like a kid in a candy store. The camp kitchen needs a lot of other equipment, but my "helpful dad" budget does not extend to a commercial mixer (the kids are making dough by hand because they only have one Kitchen-Aid for 140 people), a Robot Coupe (they chop everything by hand, no food processor), a commercial rice maker, etc. The kitchen does get improved a little every year. Maybe next summer they will actually have their new ovens installed. Can you imagine feeding 140 people a day with just one large flat top, four burners, one small oven, and one charbroiler? At the former camp in Yosemite that burned in the big forest fire of 2013, the kitchen was well equipped. At this camp in Tahoe, the kitchen is nowhere as good. I've been vagabonding while I'm here. The first night I put my sleeping bag on the couch on the deck of the tent cabin that my daughter shares with some other girls. That was comfortable enough but I am a bit appalled at how messy four teenaged girls can be. The next night my daughter and I slept on the beach at Lake Tahoe, outside a friend's house. We watched the local bear splashing through the water about 70 feet away, then fell asleep to a fantastic lightning storm on the other side of the lake. Pictures below. Tonight I'm borrowing that friend's tent cabin, so I'm slightly less on guard about the local bear. He has never threatened anyone, in the five years that he's been living in this grove by the lake, and I've been within 40 feet of him a few times, but you still have to make sure you don't have food in your car or in your sleeping bag. Well, that's it for now. It might rain tonight, so I'm glad my sleeping bag isn't on the beach.

Just want to wish you the best of luck finding a good contractor and handyman. I've known of people importing their constructions crew from Sacramento and paying for lodging for length of the build due to frustration with poor work ethic Tahoe contractors. 25 year South Tahoe resident here. Been through several major renovations on original house and added several new rooms and a 2nd story to same house. All night mare experiences. I have yet to find a half way decent contractor and forget about a dependable handyman. I've been on the look out all these years...not been successful yet. We had to build up since our coverage had exceeded the 30% coverage allowance. Not able to pay the heavy fines in order to exceed coverage and also not able to buy other empty parcels to then give to the conservancy to stick into their "not-buildable" stock pile, up we went instead of out. We still had fines to pay but we settled on an agreeable amount in exchange for removing our deck to make our 30% coverage numbers crunch better. If the laws are still the same with TRPA, if there is a will and a well funded bank account, there is a way you could add onto to your cabin by building out, instead of up, but it will likely cost you. Sounds like building out is more feasible vs up. If you find a good contractor or handyman, please send me the name and #. : )