Hi Julianna - Of COURSE I'm interested in what you're growing! This "bright shade" situation is most interesting and will require experimenting. I started this thread LESS than a month ago and already I see a difference in the number of hours the back of my balconies get sun. On the same token, the sun spots for the items hanging off the balcony are also lengthening. Right now, due to the containers I used for most of my succulents being bulky, they've been placed to the back of my patio where they get a brightness all day long (bright shade, as you called it) but direct sun is for but an hour plus a day? I have to wait and see how these do moving forward... This is balcony 1 -- the one with full sun up front. I bought a bunch of those white balcony pot hanging thingamagics -- and it's pretty useful. It's smaller than balcony 2, but deeper. What's not shown is that further in to the left, you have two shelves full of plants--where most of the succulents are as well as my infamous gardenia, which Purple has been helping me with, haha. This was taken moments ago and today is a bit stormy and cloudy but it's still bright out there at 3:30 pm. This is balcony 2. It's significantly wider with about 3-4 feet MORE to the left than is shown here; that part is obviously full shade. The remainder is all less full sun than balcony 1 and in the afternoon, it quickly goes into no sun as to the right of this balcony, the building juts out with an overhang to the lobby area below. That seems to block out the sun instantly. Unlike you, my area requires me to bring in virtually nothing as we rarely hit 40* and if a plant's lowest tolerance is 50* (which is basically our entire winter) -- then either I don't get it, or it evolves quickly, haha. Thank God, because my house is full enough with houseplants -- I need outside plants to come in like I need a hole in the head. I was browsing some ferns yesterday! Are they hard to grow? I have a Venus Maidenhair here inside, but I don't believe I've ever had ferns in my yard. In the past when I had homes, I've usually had full sun and have much, much less experience with shade plants. I'm messing with the idea of hostas and I'm definitely getting some coleus and begonias, but on balcony 2 - where most of my shade gardening would be -- you can see that the depth of the balcony is minimal; putting large pots out there means no walking area. This puts a damper in my idea of creating cascading containers w/ spillers, etc. I might have room for... uh, ONE. After all of this, I'm of the mindset to move back to a house, haha. I find myself driving around town and looking at homes to figure out, "Is that yard facing south? No, wait...east?" It's sad, really!! Your post is missing photos. I'd love to see!!!!!!!!!!!! -Grace.

Measure all walls and round up to the nearest quarter foot. (Ex. 3.25x6.5) multiply em' all up and that's your footage. Now, add about 5-8% for cuts, waste, breakage and spares. That's what you buy. Measure your vertical and horizontal "runs" for the bullnose....4"? 6"? 12"? Easy to figure. Finally, how many corners? I'm guessing two....

Thanks arielitas_mom! yes,my plan is to make a nice, big, luxurious tiled shower along the same wall that the corner shower is now. Probably about 39" w x 6 feet long (unless that's TOO long...). I do feel like this is a compromise, since a 3BR/2BA (and lts face it, most people will use it as 2BR/2BA/office) feels like it's step down, as far as the target market, from the 3BR/3BA/office we'd planned when we bought it. But it's good to hear some positive feedback from you folks about the compromise, because it really would stretch us too far to do the addition. Thank you! So what do you all think about the fact that there's no proper dining room? The DR area is really more of a dining "nook" and there's no place to put a really big dining table. ?????

Kiktx, it is not rude to ask that at all. I will probably change my seating orientation around at some point. But the reason I put it that way for now is that wall behind the couch looks really bad as it is still unfinished. That picture I posted above was actually taken before we added the windows. Those were just screens behind the couch! The original house is single wall construction and the only windows were a couple jalousie type in the bathrooms. That's what they call a 'coffee shack' here. Plus, we always hang out on the lanai whenever we want to enjoy the views. Only time we are inside sitting on the couch is after it's dark anyways. :-) Thanks again everyone for all your help. Once I get the sample tiles, I will ask for advice on which looks the best.