Punch! does look interesting. I checked their website and will probably purchase soon. I've been using a draw program for about ten years now called Canvas. It's worked very well for me but the company was sold and it looks like it may not be supported for much longer. It has a paint component as well, but I've been using PhotoShop for imaging for almost as long, so I've never used Canvas for that. The originator of Canvas, a company called Deneba also created an application called DenebaCad, which I purchased but never learned. I've long considered biting the bullet for the cost in dollars and learning curve for the highly rated VectorWorks (originally called MiniCad). It seems like Punch! may be worth checking out as the price is quite reasonable for what it says it can do. Did you ever acquire Punch!, chillin already?

I don't think there is a 'best' result from the use of only hand work or only computer work. I have worked through both, and find that a merger of the two methods serves both my time schedule and the product. I prefer hand rendering, with a combination of AD markers, water color, and chalk pastel. But I like the precision of hard geometry to show as precision lines with reference to soft, hand-drawn elements that speak of living things. For that to show clearly, I like to use AutoCad for drafting lines, print that on mylar (nice for graphite, and fun to blend on), then print the final on vellum for rendering. The markers blend nicely on the vellum, and don't bleed. Vellum also allows for backcolor that comes through softly as a background to rendered elements. All that is to say that hand drawing-rendering and computer drafting really work together if I treat them as a hybrid single method, not distinguishing one from the other but blending the two. Because the color is hand rendered, I tend to think about the subtle properties of my plant choices while rendering them--visualizing the plant, its flowering characteristics and true mature size, its shadow at the time of day I am intending to represent, and its resolution with respect to the far background. These things are properties I can focus on because hand rendering does take longer and gives more time to reflect on the choices and their interaction with each other. I even find myself mentally wandering through the space I'm creating while finishing the drawings of them.

For ordinary storage of recipes, use MS Word and store as document files, same as letters. But, if you are seeking a way to enter a base recipe, and then resize the quantity, try a spread sheet such as Excel. Enter the ingredient in the first column; enter the base amount in the 2nd column; and then set up several more columns that are muntiples of base. If it bugs you to see so many columns of data, especially columns that you are not using in a particular session, use the 'hide/unhide' feature. In Excel, move the mouse pointer to the column header and click to highlight. You can highlight a set of columns by holding the mouse button down and sliding the pointer across columns. With the columns selected, go to 'format' and in the drop down menu, select 'hide column'. The column(s) will stay hidden until 'unhidened'. To unhide, hold down the mouse button and sweep across where the missing columns would be, and then in the 'format' drop down menu, select 'unhide'. The hidden columns will not print. Making use of a spread sheet and its features can eliminate the need for special software. The multipliers for the columns don't have to be intergers (1, 2, ...), these can be anything you desire for example, 1.5; 2.25; 10.6; etc.

I used the BH&G Home Designer Pro. Originally started with just the Home Designer, but got a LOT more functionality with the Pro. It has all types of furniture, cabinets, etc you can essentially drag and drop. You can do design and then switch to elevations or 3D. Lots more functions I can't even begin to list here. We even did detail stuff like put in the Latitude, longitude and time of year to figure out sun angles and how deep our overhangs needed to be. It was pricey, but SO worth it. No access to architects here, so we essentially did our own design. It still shocks me when we visit the build site that the finished product actually looks like the design! Learning curve is a bit much for a non-designer, but if you are used to CAD programs, I suspect you won't have any problems. House should be finished in June.