Not all bulbs mix well together. Many early spring blooming bulbs (daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, etc.) go through a period of summer dormancy when excessive moisture and fertilizer is not appreciated. Unfortunately, this coincides to exactly when summer blooming bulbs (iris, dahlias, gladioli, etc.) want the most of these items. And many summer flowering bulbs are not winter hardy throughout most of the country and will need to be dug and stored for the winter. This would disturb their earlier blooming cousins if mixed together. Strong stems with bulbs usually comes about from the correct planting depth and not from fertilization. Spring flowering bulbs can certainly be layered but, again I'd be reluctant to intermix the spring bulbs with the summer bulbs. One suggestion is to include some fast growing annuals or even perennials to fill in and provide color (and a disguise for ripening bulb foliage) for the spring bloomers and plant the summer bloomers separately. A general application of a bulb fertilizer or an all-purpose fertilizer just as the foliage is showing (regardless of the bloomtime) will be helpful but not necessarily a requirement.

Yes, A__ has ADHD. He's coming up on 11yo now, and he is MUCH better at coping with his ADHD and his emotions than he was at 8. I credit this to several key causes: 1) He is older and wiser. 2) We have worked on tooshies off with him to provide him with coping techniques. 3) Less time with GM and more time with BM (who has stepped up a lot in the last year - in part due to her fiance. I still disagree with many of her parenting choices, but she's 50-fold improved) Even on days where ADHD isn't getting the better of A__, he still sometimes looks for negative attention. When that happens, we try to remove ALL attention until he is ready to receive positive attention. And we frame it just like that to him: "A__, you seem to be looking for attention right now; but I think you are looking for bad attention. Please come back when you are ready for good attention." "A__, that was not a very nice thing to say. You can go to your room until you are ready to apologize and be nice. Then we will continue with ___what_we_were_doing__." "A__, I realize that you are angry, and that's OK. But until you can deal with your anger in a nice way, I don't want to be around you. When you are ready to talk about what is bothering you, please come back and we can figure this out." Do you think your DH would be able to switch to an approach like that? Unless it is a "major offense," A__ doesn't usually get an additional consequence after we have started fresh. We've found that this is eliciting better behavior from him that when we tried stricter consequences for the same behaviors. For example: A few weeks ago, A__ had a minor mouth-off to me when asked to put on his coat to play outside. He was informed that he could go out when he was ready to apologize for his smart-mouth and wear his coat. Five minutes later he came out of his sulk and said "Ceph, I'm sorry for being rude and I would like to play outside and I will wear my coat." So off he went and all was well. But later that day, when we were headed to the hockey game and discovered he had shoved hunks of cinder blocks under the tires of the car, but shouted that he "didn't give a crap" when we said this was a problem... Well, we still had hockey tickets we had paid for, so we decided he wouldn't get to roam and wander at the game (he loves to roam the arena), no snacks or treats at the game, and straight to bed when we got home. He apologized partway through the game. We accepted his apology, and the next morning, we just started from scratch with a new day.

Don't give up on Electrolux (517's) just because it has the steam feature that you wont use. You don't have to hook up the water supply to the dryer if you'll never use the feature. Even though they are a new line, they seem to be doing very well. I would lean toward Whirlpool over the GE. I also agree with you on all your other points (LG, Samsung & Miele, Asko, Bosch, Speed Queen due to price).

It's really hard to put yourself out there to hear the constructive criticism so props to you. Our master bedroom is very similar to yours with the porch being right there. You'd enjoy access from your bedroom so add a door. Bedroom 4. The person who sleeps/lives there will get to hear every open and close of the garage doors, door slamming, engines starting and turning off, AND the laundry room noises. I'd flip the game room and bedroom 4. Yes, the bedrooms would be right next to each, but if I were the child, I'd rather do that than have to listen to all that racket. I know you are dead set on a Jack n Jill bathroom, but I think the kids will get aggravated with each other. Someone will lock the other one out accidentally or to be a meanie because let's face it, kids will do that! They should have their own bathrooms even if one bathroom is a hallway bath for access from the kitchen or gameroom. Reconfigure that wing and your kids will thank you for it. I still don't get the double island in the kitchen. I would not enjoy cooking on the stove and then walking all the pans and dirty dishes around to get to your main sink and dishwasher. Do a huge rectangle island with your sink and dishwasher and throw up some counter height stools. You'll eat there all the time. The openness to the family room is nice. I love open concept! I understand the idea of a powder room for the gameroom and for guests but it's quite a walk from living room. Have you ever seen bathrooms that have access from a hallway and from a bedroom. I drew something but it's not to scale. Steal a couple of feet from the study and create a little hallway. You'd have to adjust that bathroom layout and figure out the guest closet situation. If it's a guest suite, you could do a regular closet instead of a walk in unless you anticipate having guests who are staying for weeks. That bathroom would be really handy when you are hanging out in your living room, watching TV. Good luck on your build! It was a process for us, but worth it once we moved in.