I saw a crow swoop down and grab a fledgling robin right out from under the nose (beak) of a parent. Didn't even know they did that until then. I've had a murder of crows around my property about a week now, raising cain. When I hear them, I bring my kittens in. Prolly not going to happen, but it makes me nervous.

Billy Rae, they grow wherever they can, LOL. I started collecting plants seriously when I lived in Los Angeles between the years of 1985 and 1992. I was able to bring a few here to Florida when we moved here in the summer of 1992. The house we moved into initially and lived in for 11 years was a 1920's Historic Home that had a 240 sq ft sunroom, what is called here a "Florida Room". Almost every house built between 1890-1930's has a Florida Room, which is basically a large screened porch where people would sleep in summer because it was cooler there and there was no air conditioning. The people who we bought the house from had glassed in the screen portions with 8x8 plate glass windows and it was climate controlled. The room had a tiled floor with a drain in the floor and an indoor hose spigot so in the old days they would just wash the sand that blew through the screen out via the floor drain. Of course I immediately started collecting plants once here, LOL and ammassed a huge collection very quickly of orchids, bromeliads, heliconias, and many others that could not stay outdoors in winter and had to be drug into the house and into the Florida Room. We outgrew that house, and in 2002 we moved out to the "country" to a 5 acre property and I was able to build this greenhouse. The Florida Room we have here is very small and gets poor light, but I do keep some houseplants in there year round. Everything else that would have had to be a houseplant, or and "in and out" plant, became a greenhouse plant. I didn't want the artificiality of benches and shelves, the plants that I had did not lend themselves to that anyway, I had 30+ gallon tubs of 15-16 ft tall heliconias and ultratropical gingers that needed to be planted. SO I decided to use the greenhouse in the style of a botanical garden tropical conservatory. It is in its 6th year and I tinker with it constantly. I have collected shells, driftwood, rocks, and all sorts of stuff to use to make it look like a natural setting. I have planted everything I can, mounted as many of the orchids and bromeliads as I can, and tried to minimize the use of containers, but there are still a lot of containers, especially hanging ones, because floorspace is, well, gone now. I can only plant new stuff if I remove other stuff. So I Have had to be creative. I wanted water in there so I have a 20 ft stream and a pond, and am building a drop fall/fountain that goes into a stone basin now. Here are a couple more photos...a prime example of why I can't keep some of this stuff in my house (and its not hardy here)...this is a rare palm called a Salacca magnifica. It is heavily armed...the undersides of the leaves have large rigid spines. Its what is called an "entire leaf" palm...there is basicaly no trunk. The leaves at present time are approaching 10 ft in length, at maturity a single leaf can be 20 ft tall/long. I have only had this palm for a little over 2 years, it is very fast growing. It would be way too dangerous in the house, and I would not be able to move it. So I had to plant it! This is another example...this is a photo from last year about this time when the Jade Vine was in bloom. This is a very highly sought after rare Tropical liana, Strongylodon macrobotrys. Tons of people want this vine, and are willing to spend $50-100 for a plant, thinking that they will be able to keep it in a pot on a trellis and bring it in the house in the winter. But in reality, that can't be done. This vine is a tropical creeper, its name in Phillipines where it comes from is Emerald Creeper. It will engulf everything in its path (I have to prune mine constantly) and won;t bloom until it gets a big woody trunk (usually 3 years after planting). I got mine as a trade when I still lived at the old house, and would never have been able to see it bloom like this as a houseplant: I don't look at my greenhouse as separate from my house. My original dream was to build this kind of place ONTO the house, where you would just open a door and step from the house into the greenhouse, and they would be continuous. We tried to figure out a way to do that when we moved here, but the renovation would have cost over $100,000. It just wasn't doable. So, I consider this my "second Florida Room". I just have to walk a few steps down the driveway, not out a door, LOL.

Whoa, if you get a degree in industrial arts you get to acquire carpentry textbooks along the way?!? Sweet! Kim, I've always enjoyed/appreciated your contributions; given the wisdom of trial and error that was behind them, I see why they stood out. My mom got us a couple of the Reader's Digest fixit books (have to run downstairs, one of them might be the very one you have); I like the way they are encyclopedic and detailed. I know Jane Powell but not the Small Houses books (do you mean The Not So Big stuff by Susanka, or the Small House anthologies from Fine Homebuilding?) Thanks for mentioning books; I think I might start a reference book thread for this forum. Hey Casey, THANKS for taking the bait. And you are NOT a bloody genius, you are an old house DEITY for crying out loud! Would you please start your own show on youtube? Or maybe just a house tour? Even Petch house has youtube videos. Or, do you already have a project blog and everyone knows about it but me? Actually for someone with a degree in historic preservation, I am impressed with how low-key your posts come across; they read more like an old friend who's "been there" and wants to pass along lessons learned along the way, it's really very nice and encouraging. But if you ever want to browbeat me feel free; I would take it as a compliment. To be honest if I post about something I'm thinking of doing to my house, and you don't opine, I figure one of two things is going on: 1) you're not on the forum; or 2) you're politely disapproving. Most of the time I assume it's 2 because you seem to be pretty consistent around here. But I just want to say, and I hope I speak for many, that I love love love your posts, especially when I'm searching on a problem I'm trying to solve and something from you pops up! (PS I finally got around to using that general finishes gel varnish you recommended and it was fantastic, thank you; I will post photos to the woodworking forum sometime before the next census.) Oh, and I love the way you "aged" the color tones in the new pine beadboard in your kitchen; reminds me of the pine in my grandmother's kitchen. When I was really little I used to look at the gleaming pores and think it was the closest wood could get to 24K gold.

Thanks, everyone. We've already started working on the dining area issue. It was nearly unanimous here that it would be a big issue, as we suspected. Our feedback is very good on the inside of the house- these pictures eliminate the scope I guess and IRL the rooms are actually larger than what you find in many new builds nowadays. All of the bedrooms are 12x14 or 10x14. So not tiny by my standards anyways, although a larger master is certainly desirable. One of the most common negative feedback remarks we've gotten is something we can't do anything about- the location. Although we are on the outskirts of our community, we have a commercial building on the south side of our fence, and our neighbor behind us has a huge ugly shop (that's the big metallic thing). We should have planted a green screen back there when we first bought, but didn't know it would be such a distraction for future buyers. This would be a starter home- it was for us! But nice schools, nice backyard, TONS of storage (basement, standing height attic over garage, oversized brand new garage). Anyway, thank you for lending me your eyes. We are staging a dining set to the right of the couch, but behind where the camera shows. There's a piano there now, which we are going to move out. We're going to borrow a small dining set from some friends just to show the possibilities. Plus, we're going to leave the bistro table in the kitchen which would then show two seating areas for dining. Packed up more stuff already, and hubby's looking for different stand for t.v. Thanks, all!