Hey Lou! It's so funny you should just mention crossing the inferno strip! I just started playing in the inferno strip with some step stones like a couple hours ago deciding how I want it to look :). It's not really a huge deal to have a path. I'm on a tiny cul-de-sac with 4 other houses. Also, I always park both cars in the garage so everyone uses the driveway. I wouldn't put any plants with thorns or spikes that aren't set way back or potted. I have cactus in pots around baby trees to protect them from dogs. (No dogs will go the cactus btw.) Thorny roses would grab folk's clothes near a sidewalk. Those Maples sure aren't in any big ole hurry. I remember how pretty your maples were not too long ago. I'll bet they'll be spectacular one day. Maple leaves are great mulch for acid plants. The guy next door has a good sized Japanese garden with a water feature and it all in the front yard. I'll ask to take a picture of his gorgeous maple( a curvy Shantung that weeps a bit?). It also has a 8ft palm, a dwarf Pomegranate, and a lot of evergreen flowers and ground covers. It's really neat. He has privets 3/4 the way down for a hedge. You can see them in the last picture over to the left. Those privet are at least 10 ft from his house and lead to his back gate. If you squinsh your eyes really hard you can see his fig tree in front of them. It's small now but not for long! His inferno strip has a brick/step stone path and this very sad, half dead dwarf yaupon in it. Grass looks so crummy here it detracts from his garden. He's thinking about taking out the sod too. A few other houses in and around on other streets are getting in the act with a sidewalk garden. One house has Lirope(sp?) looks pretty nice. Another house has CMs that will look really good when they are bigger. The only other one I can remember has heavy mulch with amaryllis. You KNOW they recommend Trident Maples as sidewalk trees in Fort Worth right? LOL!

THAT is a really nice picture of your home. ...what telephone poles? I'm too busy looking at that great setting! And I'm somewhat reluctant to leave feedback sometimes. I try to offer advice gently, much more than I would on GW. Some agents/sellers just don't want to hear it. They'll call and go on and on cajoling you about how your buyer was "wrong" (about how they feel?) and/or justifying it and/or explaining why that incurable defect shouldn't bother your buyer, you get the idea. Example: when I was buying, an agent/seller (her own home) kept calling me every day to come back and see her home after I told her that we were no longer considering ANY homes on that particular canal because of its open exposure to the west, and she just kept calling and telling me about the other sailboat owners on that canal and they were fine with it and she's got their phone numbers if I want to talk to them about it, etc etc. Lady, I don't care what other people do, I AM NOT PUTTING MY BOAT IN THAT CANAL.. And this is when there were probably 30 homes in the similar inventory (now maybe 3, no selection at all for buyers) so I wasn't exactly desperate. Thank you for accepting feedback graciously. It's not as common as you would hope. And hat's off to you for homeschooling - not my cup of tea but I have many, many successful homeschooling friends, some religious, some not, many miliitary, some boat-schooled, all multiple children (can't think of any with less than 3 kids, up to 6) All 4-year college-bound or in studies now (except one that I know of). Here homeschoolers can even participate on HS sports teams in their zoned schools so they can earn those all-important varsity letters. I consider homeschooling pretty mainstream myself.

I am not sure flipping the media room would work for us. I like to steal space from the living room for when I need a bigger dining room. That makes sense. I have a formal living /dining combo in my current house, and I do the same thing: If I need to put in both table leaves and make the table 100"+, I turn it sideways so it extends into the living room -- works great, and then when that big meal's over, I turn it around to the short side again. But I don't see how it's going to work in this particular layout. Here's your plan -- the dark blue represents a normal-sized table, and the smaller blue against the wall is a buffet (I'm assuming average sizes here). But if you extend your table towards the kitchen, you'll block the passage to the media room, which you've said is very important. And if you extend the table either towards the living room OR the entryway, the table has to be moved away from the center of the room. Good concept ... execution needs work. We want the master bath on the backside of the house and with a gable ... As far as the closet, I want it to have bathroom access and laundry room access. My last house had bedrooms upstairs and laundry downstairs. All of that makes good sense -- but it doesn't have anything to do with the oversized bathroom with all that cold, empty space in the middle. The closet-laundry connection is one of the best things about the house. I'd love a front porch, but I don't think I can get away with it in this neighborhood. All the houses are a European style, Does your neighborhood restrict styles? If not, do what you want. Front porches aren't style pariahs. DH likes the garage at the back, since it's not as likely to broken in. I'm not sure that's a realistic concern. With a garage at the back, people have more privacy in which to do their dastardly deeds, and with such a small lot, I'm not sure a longer driveway is in your best interests. Most times when I use the dining room for a dinner or get together, I am using the living room. So I guess I kind of see them together. Nothing negative about that goal, but I don't think these two rooms on your plan particularly work together. I wonder about something like a Living - Dining - Kitchen combination, which is quite popular these days -- I'm not recommending this plan; just pointing out the configuration of the Living - Dining - Kitchen: Note that this one-long room concept would give you tremendous flexibility. You could bring in folding tables and have TWO very large dining areas, when it suits you. A speaker could stand on the fireplace end ... or at the kitchen island ... and people could hear /watch the speaker from both the living room sofa AND the dining tables. On the other hand, if you want to seat a lot of people around the fireplace, you could scoot the table back and bring in chairs to supplement your sofa. Very flexible, this long room configuration. I think if I were trying to meet the goals you've projected, I'd do something like this:A flexible, combined Kitchen-Dining-Living room in the middle of the house (could be flipped so the living was at the back and the kitchen at the front) ... then a large media room attached to the side ... imagine sliding doors or large windows at the front and the back of the media room -- you'd have great cross breezes through this oft-used room ... and the garage could attach to the far side ... leaving the bedrooms on the far end to "balance" it out. The stairs can be moved but they have to stay on that side of the house. That is this side that is steeper. Yes, geography will determine where some things need to be, but do consider where you'll "land" when you reach the bottom of those stairs. You want to be in the middle of your basement -- not in the back corner, forced to turn around and walk the other direction. Here's a visual: Look where you'd enter the basement -- if you (or a future owner) ever wanted to make this into a room, it'd be unappealing, and look at the round-about walk you'd have to take to reach the majority of the basement. All you need to do is enter the stairs from the other way OR go with a switchback stair, and you could "arrive" in the basement in a more comfortable location. We had one similar to that picture and over time they become structurally unsound. No, they don't. Not if they're built right in the first place. We bought our house from a relative, so I remember when our covered porch was added -- it was the year I graduated from high school. 1984. We've repainted the pillars and the ceiling, but that's the only maintenance it's needed -- and that includes Hurricane Hugo having come through this area shortly afterward. Anything that's built poorly can become structurally unsound, but there's nothing inherently unsound about covered porches (or carports, for that matter, since they're essentially the same thing). As far as the bathrooms, I originally only wanted 2, everyone else was pushing me for 3. I have only added one thing for resale value, most everything are things I wanted in the house. I wanted 4 bedrooms, everyone here was stating that I did not need 4 bedrooms. You explained that you need a master, an office, and a bedroom for your son. I don't see why a guest room (or your son's room) couldn't in to the basement, giving them greater privacy and reducing the overly large roof problem. I know I am really lacking in counterspace, but I know will only use the space facing out. That's one reason I have such a big pantry to offset the small kitchen. That's my plan too: You can absolutely have too much counterspace -- and, if you do, it becomes clutter space. Pantry storage is cheaper, and yours is placed conveniently just off the kitchen. I do think you need drawers in your prep area, but I wouldn't be concerned about this counterspace.

Great job! The pics emphasize the space and views, the house looks clean and livable. The text is much improved, too -- emphasis on size, quality construction and potential uses. Your sellers are lucky to have you as their agent. Fingers crossed your buyer shows up soon.