Great photo! Honestly, I am so frustrated. The hawk hunting in my yard has scared any 'interesting' birds away. Even the jays (which I personally adore) are avoiding my yard. I have about a thousand ring-neck and mourning doves however....oh, and a dozen or so squirrels. Witholding seed has not worked. The hawk(s) hunt daily in my yard. Everything will be quiet and peaceful -- then-- WHAM!! A flurry of doves into the air flying in all directions...with a large bird of prey in chase. Two or three doves remain statue still on the ground. But, my cardinals, house finches, regular finches --even the parrots - woodpeckers...everyone avoids my yard.

Ann, I agree that the Bluebird is a most beautiful bird! I am always so pleased when I see people taking an interest in Bluebird conservation, and I applaud your efforts to help "Bring Back the Bluebirds". One thing you might be interested in, though -- I have learned a great deal in the past few years about safe housing for Bluebirds, and one thing I've discovered is the danger of placing nestboxes on fenceposts. I saw the most chilling photo of a snake climbing a fencepost to get at the baby birds in the nest -- It was such an alarming photo that I saved it to my own album: As long as you're going to the trouble of being a Bluebird landlord, you might as well make their housing as safe as possible, by mounting the nestbox on a slick metal post with a predator baffle. You might also like to see the little animation that was posted on the Bluebirding forum - a very clever Bluebirder created this on their website. Scroll down to the bottom of the page -- you will have to wait a few moments while the animation loads, but it's worth the wait. Why not visit the Bluebirding forum if you haven't already, and ask for more good ideas to enhance your Bluebird experience? Moq Here is a link that might be useful: Safe Nestbox Mounting Animation

Congrats! Wonderful job at an unbelievable price! This is a very sensible home with quiet style, low maintenance materials, and you will enjoy all the memories for years to come! You did great accomplishing this HUGE goal!

There are obvious changes we would have made with respect to the actual building of the house, if we could go back in time. With all the trouble we had with the first builder, I think if we had a bit more patience, we should have gone with a larger design/build firm that could provide a better architect with more complete plans. We really got lucky with our selection of interior designer, because she pulled us out of the fire and suggested our finishing builder, both who ultimately saved the house and prevented us from being financially ruined. Specific to the functionality of the house, we haven't found anything that's glaringly annoying. We still have to get the banquette designed and installed, but the kitchen island seating if serving wonderfully as our daily eating table. While many modern designs are eschewing a formal dining room, we've found use for it many times for both eating and gaming, so it's not wasted space. I was a bit nervous about the open plan of the two story greatroom, and how the sound would carry through the house. While it's true that sound does make it upstairs, the solid doors on the bedrooms can block it all. Peppa pig in the great room surround sound barely is only a whisper in the master bedroom door at the top of the stair landing. The kitchen island partially blocks the kitchen triangle between the stove and fridge, but I like having a broad surface to stage all the ingredients that's reachable from all three stations. It's a perfect location for staging, prepping, and plating meals, with the pantry close by at the base of the island. While the wrap around porch does lessen the light in the kitchen and first floor rooms, I love having an outdoor space to walk around on and listen to the rain from. We're surrounded by woods on a peninsula of a private lake so every side of the house has a peaceful view that would be criminal to only observe from behind a window. The greatroom, with the wall of windows and lack of porch, is flooded with natural light that feeds into the rotunda, the most inner and darkest room of the house. We're still getting used to the Control4 lighting system, which is both a convenience and a hindrance. In the more complex room, like the greatroom and kitchen, it's great being able to hit one button and have the perfect lighting scene. In hallways, it still takes some thinking as to which button I want to hit to light certain pathways. We have complex spaces so it's nice to light the lower and upper rotunda with the chandelier with one button, but turning off individual elements takes some more thought. Geothermal is working splendidly with comfortable, even heating/cooling throughout the house. I will be looking to install a smarter thermostat. We had a Nest in the old house, and I miss the connectivity and automatic setback/activity monitoring. Hopefully we'll find a way to tie the thermostat into the Control4 so we can use the motion detection from the security as an activity monitor. The hot water loop is currently programmed to always run, so even in the bathroom farthest from the water heater it's only three seconds until you have hot water. As a consequence, it seems like the electric hot water heater is almost always running, but it's a hybrid unit that also takes heat from the ambient air, so I'm not sure if it's functioning as intended. I still have yet to analyze cost difference between wasting water purging cold water in the pipes against more frequent heating maintenance of the hot water in the circuit. We had to have a warranty repair on the Miele dishwasher as the pump stopped functioning, and we're calling out a repair on the Electrolux dryer since it has developed a squeaking and loud rattle but all other appliances have been fantastic. We'll probably want to replace the range hood with something custom that provides a larger catchment area since we can still smoke out the kitchen, even with 1200 cfm. The MUA is functioning, but with very smoky foods, we're finding that we still need to crack open a window to keep the air clean. There's still a ton to do, as we just signed the selling papers on the old house and finally got rid of the Pod. We still have to install a tub and some tile in the master bathroom, finish the first floor powder room, get some new furniture, and work on the extensive landscaping, but we have time.