WE like 4 foot square boxes here in St. Louis. They do a good job!!! Mine is chock fullof strawberries right now. Sweet peas are 2 foot high and quit in St. Louis in mid June. Too hot for them. These I plant March 1st. Yoy may want to pass on them this year. Pepper plants will ake up a sq. foot each. A tomato plant that is trimmed of all of the sucker and trained to a single stalk will consume the same amount of space. Most onions are 90 day crops and finish up in early July here. Green onions from sets would work well going in this late or buy plants. Kinda late for onion seed. Carrots may still work. Planted celery one year in a bed like that. Man that was lot of celery. You could grow pole beans vertical. Up a small trellis or a stake with wire leads going to the ground. And the same with cucs. Both of these could be lead to a stake out side of the box to increase production space. You will have to teach the rabbits that its your food not theirs. If unable to do so than a chicken wire wrap will make them hunt the neighbors sweet peas :) Bytheway I live in Overland you? Feel free to e mail me. CrAzY LaRrY

Thank you Kendra! And that nest continues to have additions. It's pretty tall now, I think they just have to line it. By the way, some how, at my 2nd site, I had to AGAIN trap another HOSP, used my drawstring bag, and somehow I managed to let it escape! I was so angry! Wasn't careful enough. Hope the %^&t4d doesn't come back!!

I think the distinction between semi-custom home and truly custom construction is significant. I've done both plus lots of renovations. In our custom build, we had a fabulous GC. The way he liked to do business was to spend countless hours up front getting into excruciating detail about building products. Once we had cost out our desires, it became apparent that this house was going to cost a whole lot more than we had anticipated. We owned the land. The unknown costs lay in porches and basements. We all agreed that we needed another plan. (We were using William E. Poole plans) I went home and quickly found another plan that would work with a few modifications. It had smaller porches and we ditched the basement in favor of a FROG. It was a smarter build thanks to my GC. We owned the land and had more than 60% of the construction cost in cash. The bank loved us. Low risk. They only got involved when we were close to finishing up. I think we had one construction draw and a final inspection. Our GC suggested that we mutually determine his fee up front. It was a flat amount. This way, he was assured that he would be paid and make his profit. We paid him in monthly installments. The last payment would be withheld until we had release of liens from all of the subcontractors and the GC. Any costs would merely be passed through his accounts. There were no mark up on materials and services. They were entirely at his cost. I was given a copy of all of the receipts. He would present a months worth of bills and receipts at a time. There was one or two items that he needed the money a little faster. I think the framing material was an example. It was a pretty big bill as I recollect. In the areas where a guestimate was required in the budget, he would tend to overestimate. This way the surprises were pleasant. The hard work was done up front. We used those surprises to finish out the FROG. I ended up sourcing the appliances, the plumbing fixtures and the decorative electrical fixtures. He was a little leery about that, but I had everything ordered and stored in my garage ahead of time. I would take them over the day before they were needed and have them on site. The appliance dealer kept my appliances in storage until I was ready. The only plumbing fixture that I had the plumber order was two real cast iron tubs. I didn't want to be responsible for transport or installation of those. The GC had such a great time working with us, he and his brother, decided to do all of the interior finish carpentry themselves. They were used to working on projects that were 50% bigger than our home. We fit right into their schedule. It had been a long time since they had gotten to work together, they wanted to do it. They did a beautiful job. They built my mantle and an arched pocket door from a picture I provided them. They did a beautiful job. Semi-custom building, now that is an exercise in frustration. I'll never do that again. The answers in semi-custom building always seem to be no.

The "bring the attic inside" picture does not accurately depict an attic room over a GARAGE. I do not know how many of you have Swiss bank accounts, but where I come from, an additional 330 sq ft of R30 in the ceiling + another 300sq ft to make up the difference in the amount of wall insulation vs floor insulation is costly. Not to mention the continual cost to condition the extra space. Nor does it take care of eliminating the lateral bracing required by the engineer on that wall. It WILL be a significant up charge. All I am saying is that there is a lot more to building in cabinets in an energy efficient home than just cutting some holes in the drywall and slapping in some boxes. I doubt a contractor that boasts energy efficiency is going to allow that to be ignored in the attic room, which is notoriously hard to keep air conditioned properly anyway. They are not going to want to argue about WHICH weak link is making the electric meter spin out of control down the road. You need to weigh the cost differences with the benefit.