great thoughts, folks, thank you!! rob, the "sunroom" space is now going to be the only LR and DR in the house, so I definitely want it to read as interior space. If it was still going to be a sunroom, and there was a formal DR and LR elsewhere, the in/out materials connection would be a good idea... but I think I want to be really "interior" space. I'll post some exterior pics in a sec, but remember we haven't started the exterior yet! That's the late summer/fall project ;) bmorepanic- good point about code. Hmmmm. I just showed this to our code enforcement officer yesterday and he didn't raise an eyebrow. But maybe I should point it out to him and double check? Actually, I originally had that wall drawn as solid, like you have it, about 18" just to cover the end of a piece of furniture. But then my architect stepmom suggested this as a way to keep the open feeling. smilingjudy- after I had it drawn as a solid wall (like bmorepanic's), I also drew it as a column morphing out of the wall, just as you describe. Stepmom architect still changed it. And I definitely don't want to fill in the area between the two columns, even though it makes more sense architecturally. The impetus for this whole thing was to make the house feel more OPEN and be able to see the view out that big bank of windows..... It's a small, low, closed-in house otherwise and that's a feature (the windows and big huge yard beyond) we definitely want to take advantage of. Right now, just the window and door mullions in that space constrict the view and open feeling, and we're REALLY trying to make it as open as possible. (The original renovation plan was to keep the kitchen in the corner where the mudroom is drawn, which would have left that entire wall open. Now, while I LOVE the kitchen in this space, it does close it up more with the counter and backsplash... so I don;t want to close it any more.)

Your link doesn't seem to go to the specific page you want to show.

Another tip on Google Reader, once you are in reader, on the bottom left side of your screen there is the option to "manage subscriptions" When you click on that you can make folders to sort blogs if, like me, you have way too many to ever read at once. Example, I'm a writer so I have folders for poets, children's authors, general writing and process. Then I have a folder for decoration and one for tech. This helps me not have to wade through hundreds of blog posts when I only want to look at the latest in a certain category. You can also "tag" a post after you read it with certain keywords. So you can tag a post "French Country" or "green walls" or whatever to link various posts together.

Ok, ok, I’ve opened up this can of worms, & received some fairly negative feedback on our plans which has us doubting ourselves. As you can imagine, we’re getting ready to invest a good chunk of change into this and want it to be a well designed plan and is a joy to come home to, not a disappointment. So, now what? Is it possible to hire an architect just for a consult? If so, and we did revise the plans, who would do the blueprints? How do you find a good architect? Can this be done remotely? So many questions. @Holly, I would love to hear how you managed some of these issues, but I don’t see how to pm you.