This is a great thread - although it seems to have strayed a little bit from the original question - there are still many interesting ideas and opinions being given. Personally, I don't deer hunt because I don't particulary like venison. In Wisconsin, where I live, the fall deer hunting season is about as close to being a religion as it is to being a sport. Rifle season typically runs from the Saturday before Thanksgiving to the Sunday following the holiday. Schools close the entire week because they realize that a good many (most?) of the students and a good many teachers have other ideas for that week and there is really no benefit to keeping the schools open at that time. I own 56 acres and I allow my neighbors to hunt on my land. I KNOW that my neighbors are safe hunters and that they are respectful of my property. Also, if they happen to shoot an animal on their own land, and not kill it immediately, I certainly want them to have the oportunity to track the wounded animal if it happens to lead them on to my property. Knowing that there is the potential for hunters to be on the "wooded back 40" anytime during the season means that I don't go into the woods without wearing orange. While I don't have a particular worry about our dogs or horses, I do keep them close to the house (dogs) or in smaller pasture (horses) during the rifle season. Ultimately, my family does not change our basic lifestyle to any great degree during hunting season. Although I understand your initial hesitation, fifidanon, I also think that you did the right thing by overcoming your concern and living your life. As other folks have already suggested, the car ride to the mall is MUCH more of a risk than is the potential stray bullet. As for deer roadkill, it is also legal here to recover a deer that has been hit by a car. Seems to me like a much better option than letting it lay on the side of the road to rot. Last year I hit two deer with my truck - in almost the same location - about 5 days apart. The first deer survived the impact, but it had a broken back and was in obvious pain, so I drove to a neighbor's house and brought him to the wounded deer where he finished it. We loaded it up and took it back to his house so he could butcher the carcass. The second deer was hit right on the head (I almost missed that one) and was killed outright. Again, I loaded it up in the truck and took it to the same neighbor so the meat could be used - rather than leaving it to rot and to be wasted. BTW, that particular neighbor works as a seasonal DNR warden so he took care of the "official" report on both accidents. Anyway, although we may see deer-as-roadkill-food differently, I certainly echo labmomma's sentiments when I say that the story of the deer that she hit being allowed to die a slow death - in pain - as being preferable to a quick bullet putting it out of its misery - because the cops were concerned that people would see them shoot it (!?!?!?!) was disturbing at several levels. Sad.

With today’s houses being built from 10’ to 12’. The 8 ‘ ceilings look ridiculous in our opinion. My House in Florida has a 8’ ceiling and we hate it even though the house is nice and in a great area. Ceiling fans are too low. We’re always screaming “watch it” when someone lifts our baby in the air. All the fixtures look too low over the dining room area. Someone really tall comes over you can really see how small the house looks. Even the tall cabinet trend makes putting our appliances under them impossible. Our vitamix and Mixer just hangs out in the middle of nowhere, bcause they don’t fit under the cabinets. I personally think houses should be sold in cubic ft not square feet. It’s really not fair to have yesterday’s news gonin the same category as a new modern house with 12’ ceilings. Of course not till we sell our place. :) We just got a new metal roof and wish we didn’t to Raise our roof first. Probably cost a fortune so we’re probably going to have to live with it. I suppose if you don’t entertain or care about those things then anyone can live in an 8’ ceiling house. Knowing what I do now I look right over those houses now.

I guess it depends on what one's used to Standard 8' ceilings here were a challenge to me in our new house, because it was the lowest ceiling heigh I ever had. I'm not from the US and other countries I lived in had a different standard that was higher ceiling(maybe due to metric system lol). Growing up in the older part of a very old big city-ceilings were even higher. But I loved the house a lot and was willing to work with whatever it had. And it had 8' ceiling everywhere but the entry(which by the way was altered by the previous owners to become higher) and the living room. 7 in the dining but during remodel we were able to raise them up a foot. My way of handling the thing was: a) a thought of crown moulding-previous owners put it in their master bath(tiny supermodest space really)-but I swear to you it looked at least a foor higher than the adjusting bedroom. this thought never became reality though because expenses grew and had to give up on some things. crown moldings were the first to go. lol b) skylights. previous owners had installed several and they drastically change perception of height and space..for the better. so we installed another one when we had our addition built. It also helped to break rectangularity of the room..we also didn't put a door between it and a master bath but left arch opening between them (the toilet got its own small room of course). Otherwise we'd be left with extremely boring room that's too long, too dark, and doesn't inspire any desire to stay there. Giving it more depth and light helped tremendously c) and very important as I agonized over it. Painting the celings the same color-or the color that would look like the same color(which was, in our case either 50% or 66% percent of the initial formula), as the walls. The lines blend, you don't have this feeling the ceiling is about to fall on you. I'm 5.4 so not tall at all..but I can be sensitive to spaces, and sometimes weirdly sensitive. Part of my physique. Lol. d) ditching some common rules. I did install central fixtures where it made sense, and pendants, and sconces..and it took attention away from the lower ceiling, because now you had something interesting to look at instead of calculating ceiling height I have table lamps and floor lamps too, so layers of lighting. I read so much about it all and was in that state of don't do this and don't do that..until I became very tired of it and just took from all this reading whatever I deemed helpful and disregarded everything else. Freedom! now your ceilings are lower, and your kitchen sounds challenging. Regarding kitchen-Kitchen forum is (justly so) considered the best in the matters of planning and advice on everything kitchen, so post your plan there and I believe you'll get many helpful thoughtful answers, regarding layout, workability, etcetera They are very sensitive to specific needs of specific person/family in a specific kitchen, and your plan with dimensions and if possible photos of the space will be very helpful to them to suggest things specific to your kitchen tailored to your needs/wants/budget etc. If you ask very general question it's great when you just want to have an interesting discussion. But if you're willing to get specific advice, and often very good one, I highly advise Kitchens forum. Just copy-paste your question there, and add even a basic rough plan with dimensions. And several pics to show different walls and how kitchen connects to other rooms in the house. I remember myself daring to ask on some site that had this option "Ask a designer" a general question "What do I do with low ceiling" and I got a very kind but very standard answer to paint everything white. It's okay, one can paint everything white of course; especially works well with high ceilings, architectural moldings, and in Paris lol), but didn't provide me with any insight. Sorry for the long post!

As cp says - you are now going to have to be on him like white on rice. Line up an independent inspector NOW, and pay him / her to visit your home and list code violations, substandard workmanship and a hi / med / low priority fix list on a VERY REGULAR SCHEDULE - and you then have to stay on the contractor. He's shown his colors to blatantly violate the structural integrity of your new home for a couple of days and some $ - that tells you a lot. Buckle up.