Alina, you know your soil best, so if you feel better about amending when you plant perennials, then continue to do it. Although I'm sure it happens, not every planting hole is going to act as a water catching basin. We can't possibly know what is going on underground, and besides, most plants can tolerate a brief flooding. If a soil is always wet from natural underground water or whatever, then I'd make raised beds or only plant what can tolerate being in wet soil all time. I live in an area where the soil freezes deeply, I have amended nearly every planting hole, but haven't lost anymore plants over winter than anyone else does. But, I live in an area where we can have several freeze/thaw cycles in one winter, which helps to break up the soil. The other thing that was mentioned is that the plants roots won't leave the amended hole, but I've moved nearly all of my plants and have yet to see one that stayed in the confines of the planting hole, well, except for the azalea that I dug out yesterday, but I had no business trying to grow an azalea in very sweet soil anyway. All of this is purely anecdotal, I have no scientific proof to back up why my plants survive and even thrive, but I do know that whatever we do individually, our gardens seem to thrive despite us. Something that I didn't say in an earlier post, was that I have an area in my yard that I still amend for some perennials. We had a drainage pipe put in a few years ago, which was laid 6 feet down. What came up from the bottom was sticky, smelly pure clay. A lot of my beautiful top soil ended up in the bottom of the trench with a lot of the anaerobic clay on top. To make matters worse, the soil was compressed from the heavy equipment. The anti-till people told me not to till, because I would ruin the soil structure. Never mind that it was already non-existent. I was even told to plant cover crops on the entire area, until the soil was back to normal. The area was about 12 feet deep, and ran from the back corner of the lot to the street. Confused by all the advice, however well-meaning it may have been, I decided to visit one of my favorite nurseries and talk to someone about my situation. That was the best thing I could have done, and maybe it would be helpful for you too. Perhaps take a soil sample with you and ask a horticulturist. The absolute best thing you can do for your garden is to collect as many leaves as you can this fall and either pulverized them with the lawn mower (a bagger attachment makes this easy to move to the garden) or invest in a leaf vac. Put a good three to four inches of pulverized leaves, grass clippings are good too but spread out well, on your soil and by late spring, you will be hard-pressed to find a piece of leaf. I do this every year, even taking leaves from my neighbors, and am happy to say that the soil that was nearly impossible to plant in is coming back nicely.

A Fall Follow-Up of the above. The east side and 'front' of my house. It's funny how we start off with one idea for an area and as time goes by, we realize that idea won't really work so we have to shift gears. Without going into too much detail, that's what has happened here. I had an idea that used quite a few hard-line bed definitions and I was going to have my herb garden here. But the summer sun, even though it was only morning sun, quickly let me know the folly of this idea. Now I'm working on building it up to be a 'natural flower garden'. When done, this should be the closest thing I have to a formal bed, without actually being formal. My daughter's Butterfly Bed is really starting to come along in terms of flower varieties. Unfortunately, it still hasn't been too popular with the butterflies. Bees and wasps like it, but not the butterflies. There must be something about this location that really turns them off. Still, while they don't seem to hang out here, the Monarchs keep laying their eggs on the milkweed and the caterpillars keep eating it down. Another angle on her Butterfly garden. From this angle you can see the unused puddling saucer (which needs cleaning) and the hypertufa face from "Nova aka Susan". In the front of this picture is a 'Yellow Salvia' from Karalynn's party. I still can't find any further information on this plant though. The north side, not much has changed... at all. It's hard to get inspired about a side of the house you don't get to see too often except when pulling up. The north steps. Rotting in place. I think I'm going to have to replace them in the spring. If I had this area properly mulched, you would be able to see the four thin sprigs of Fakahatchee grass that I have placed here. Since Fakahatchee is supposed to do well in either Sun or Shade, I figured it would be a perfect choice for an area that gets full sun in the summer and full shade in the winter. Time will tell. The Northwest bed. Really not much has changed here, just a season's worth of growth and the addition of some pentas plants and one Gold Mound Duranta. Everything else was there in the spring, but was MUCH smaller. I can't wait to see how this looks next fall, assuming that large stand of Blue Firespike survives the winter in this bed. The mandarin, which was showing heavy signs of Citrus Greening now seems perfectly healthy. All I've really done is kept it watered and given it monthly applications of micro-nutrients. Another shot of the Northwest bed, just getting a better look at the Pentas and Duranta. A shot of the "Watering Pool" as I like to call it. It's not really big enough to be a pond and a little too big to be simple birdbath, so it's a pool. In the original post, I had said I had the idea of turning this into a sandy, beachy area. Well, the summer rains changed my mind on this. Half the sand I had surrounding this pool ended up in the pool itself. The other half got pounded down into the soil. Another lesson learned: While running the condensation pipe from my AC did indeed keep this pool filled throughout the summer, it actually kept it constantly overflowing, which the lantana did not appreciate one bit. When I finally removed the pipe and this area started to dry up a little, the Pawpaw I had planted here quickly died off. Apparently being constantly watered like that caused the Pawpaw to not send out its roots and so it was not able to adjust when the water stopped. My seating area in the Northwest corner. Last spring this was a lot of grass and two chairs. Now it's a lot of grass, two chairs and a rather full looking Beautyberry shrub. This Beautyberry was started from seed last Fall/Winter, sprouted in Spring and is now this clump. Since neither it nor any of the others flowered at all, I figured they would need another year before they flower and fruit, but this one actually started flowering at the beginning of November is now starting to form its berries. It's a race against time to see if it can finish ripening off the berries before the real cold hits. You can't see them in this shot, but there are two Florida Privets behind the chairs that are coming along nicely as well as a Pineland Lantana. I probably should get another picture of that bed to showcase those plants. The Southwest bed. It has grown in size a bit since last spring. Since the spring, I have designated this as my 'Shrub Bed'. While not everything in this bed is technically a shrub, I'm not planting anything here that will exceed 10-12 ft tall. Well... I DID have a native Persimmon tree sapling here, but a squirrel took care of that for me. Now that I have all the 'foundation' plants done for this bed, I think next spring/summer will be spent filling in the blank spots with more flowery plants... if I can force myself to do 'flowery'. The Vine Trellis Wall. Another lesson learned. I built this with good intentions and a good bit of ignorance. As I have watched those vines getting thicker and thicker over the summer, I have come to the realization that it won't be long before they rip all that pvc latticework right off the side of the shed. The grape vine died over the summer, but in it's place I have put in two Dutchman's Pipevines. Another project for next spring is to build a more utilitarian, sturdier trellis that sits about 18-24" from the wall of the shed instead of right on it. I also need to do some research on how far back I can cut those passionvines and have them survive, but I will wait until after Winter has done its thing. Below the trellis is a stand of Tropical Salvia (great for hummingbirds and Gulf Frits) and a nice ball of Pineland Lantana that doesn't seem to be a HUGE butterfly draw, but all the butterflies do nectar on it from time to time. A Northwest-facing view of the Shrub bed. In the middle of that tan patch is a small Sparkleberry sapling. Over the past couple of weeks the leaves have slowly gone brown and fallen off. I'm hoping this is just the plant going dormant for the winter and not signs that I will be replacing it next spring. The Blue Firespike really dominate this bed thus far, especially from this angle. I'm told they should start sending up their flower spikes in December or January, if a hard frost doesn't set them back. Added this extra shot of Shrub bed. Here you can get a better look at the Firebush and two blueberry shrubs. The Firebush... well... I will never have a garden without a Firebush. After seeing the constant level of activity around this thing over spring, summer and fall, I can't imagine being without one. Butterflies and hummingbirds just can't get enough of this thing. Especially the Zebra Longwings, they almost exclusively nectar on this bush. On either side of the Firebush are my blueberries. Emerald on the left and Jewel on the right. The Jewel is looking better than the Emerald by a fair sight, but I haven't fertilized them at all, simply letting them get established this year, and I think only recently I have managed to get the PH right. The Emerald's leaves were getting worse and worse with that 'burned ashy' look which I understand to be a result of the PH being too high. As of August, this has not gotten any worse and seems to have stabilized, but the bush also hasn't put out any new growth. I know BR is THE GURU when it comes to these plants, but I'm trying to avoid using chemical fertilizers as much as I can. If I end up having to break down and use Miracid or some other fertilizer, I will, but for now I'm just using pine bark, pine needles, left over coffee grounds and pickle juice with applications of compost. The South bed. This bed is in a state of transition. I have been moving plants out of this bed into other areas where I feel they will be happy (or happier) and getting the area ready for being turned into a Tropical bed. I had to move my tomato plants to the wall here as their old location, while being fine for Spring tomatoes, did not work so well for Autumn. The change in the sun's angle and the amount of shade resulted in some very leggy plants. After moving them to this spot, they have recovered some and started putting out fruit. I think I am going to have find a better spot for them next year, perhaps out along the fence line. And the Tropical Corner. This is where I used to have my tomato plants, but as I said, they didn't like this spot for Autumn growth. And so, starting with four banana pups, this bed is going to be the anchor for my Tropical Garden. I have some Persian Shield cuttings in sunken pots that I will be able to move next year if it gets too sunny for them. And there are also two Wild Coffee plants that will likely be planted here. There is also a Porterweed, but I'm keeping a close eye on it for invasive potential. But these will have to wait until spring to be planted along with Bird of Paradise, Heliconias, Gingers and Crotons. As stated in another post, under all that pine bark is a 3" layer of grass clippings (and weed seeds). I have a layer of newspaper between the grass and the pine bark to smother out/inhibit the weed seeds and this area should compost down nicely by spring. Until then I'm not about to dig into it and release those weeds! New additions: These first two are a new bed that I built for the very SW corner of the yard. Currently I have three plantings of Fackahatchee Grass, a Simpson Stopper, native Plumbago (Longtail Skippers love this one), Beautyberry and a Gold Mound Duranta. There's also a bit of Tropical Salvia thrown in to provide some nectar for the butterflies. There are also some plantings of perrenial Blanketflower and Coreopsis that I'm hoping have had enough time to establish to survive the winter and be ready to bloom in spring. As you might be able to see, this bed is currently topped with grass clippings. Over the course of the winter, I will be topping this entire bed with sand and compost and then watering it down into the mulch. Around March I will then paper and mulch the bed once more before spreading Wildflower seeds. My hope is that next year this bed will be covered almost non-stop with pollinator attracting flowers. This is the section along my lanai that I have been having a heck of a time trying to figure out what I want to do with. I finally broke down and figured I would move my herb garden here. It's decent spot where the herbs should get enough sun in the mornings and evenings to be happy, but should be out of the baking, high-noon sun of summer. It could probably stand a bit more soil amendments though. There is also some Blue Firespike here that will help with the transition into the Tropical Bed. So far, aside from the Blue Firespike, I have Lemon Balm, Pineapple Sage, Sweet Basil, Parsley, Rosemary and Thyme. Last but not least, this is the corner of the yard that I really wanted to do something with, but really didn't want to have to deal with it. So I went xeric here. While most of my beds will hopefully get down to very little care once established, this bed should be absolutely no care. I believe everything here is fairly drought resistant and yet won't rot during our summer downpours. So far it's just African Iris, Muhly Grass, Portulaca and bulbine (yellow and orange varieties). This post was edited by Leekle2ManE on Wed, Nov 20, 13 at 20:32

There are several things you could do. Adding the door to the rear of the DR is not a bad idea, and it shouldn't look strange. We have 3 windows and a door in our LR. If you have the space, you could put 1 foot transom windows over each of the windows and the door -- thus "tying" them together. In the LR, if you put a ventless gas FP in (no carrying in wood from the frigid outdoors), you could put a TV nook over the FP. Ours is 14" deep by 55" wide. In that way, you don't take up floorspace with a big-screen TV or TV stand. You can also hide all of your components elsewhere (just make sure you have all the wires run during construction). Depending on your ceiling height, you could put bookcases on either side of the FP with transom windows above for natural light, and, of course, storage in the bookcases. You might consider a closet of some sort in the den/office. That way, if you ever sell, you have a 4 bedroom home. And, if you need to move your bedroom downstairs in the future, you have a place for clothes. Could you move the half bath to the mudroom area since you are expanding it? Perhaps close to the kitchen with another door to hide the "mess" in the mudroom? Consider spray foam insulation as well. It is more expensive, but our research when we were building showed that it would pay for itself if you live in the house at least five years. Our latest electric bill in our new house (3100 sq ft, 3 air conditioners) was $109. I agree with "opening up the stairs" with spindles instead of solid walls. It will feel more open and you might find that moving furniture and such up and down is easier. I also like the idea of moving the master closet into the bonus area in front of the master bath and putting the laundry room where the master closet is now. You could then enter the laundry room from the hallway (for your kids) and from the master closet (for your convenience). It would probably require a door from your bathroom to the closet, but that's easy. You also end up with a second solid wall in the bedroom for furniture placement. Our master closet is connected to our bathroom. Since I have to get up earlier than my wife, it's good because I'm not running from the closet to the bathroom and switching lights on and off. You might also add a small, say 2'x3' window to the WC in your master bath, just to cut down on the feeling of claustrophobia. In the end, though, it's your house and you have to make it work for you! Good luck with your project!

Cpartist- This is just a quick idea....I know you said you wanted a slider in the kitchen, but I really wanted to play around with the banquette idea! Disregard, if you don't like.... The buffet is behind the sofa, being used as both buffet and sofa table. The big front window has a window seat with shelves/cabinets on both sides. They could be low or high...maybe with a few plants on top! The back patio is wonderful. Any chance of extending the covered portion out towards the pool just a few feet? I know you have those roofing/square footage constraints, but it might be nice to have a little more shade. It's a great plan! I know you're going to love it :) Oh, that's supposed to be columns with vines (blooming) and maybe small plant area around it. Just enough for a little color!