Make life easier?? - forget it! As far as the new Word, I hate it. I've used Word for years and the new format takes me forever to remember where the common tools are. My office computer has Word 03 which I have no problem with. My home machine is 07 and I get so upset each time I have to use it. I still haven't found 'insert'. Nothing is where it was. What is annoying is trying to type up a letter quickly on 07, and spending more time trying to find the tools than it took to type the letter. Working with both versions each day drives me crazy. I use Notepad and when I go to save, it always saves as a txt. I do as Minnie and paste it to a Word document if I need to send it. I rarely do. I just use Notepad for a quick paste of something from the internet like a recipe. Jane

Well, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Yes, I had eliminated the need for a password. When I went in to do as you wrote, cboy, I was first faced with the choice of 3 hard drives; then, multiple choices for opening in Safe Mode, but not Administrator Account. I chose one. The computer opened, but the mouse wouldn't work. I turned off the power and started again. This time, I wasn't quick enough and the Login page came up. The mouse wasn't working. Rather than reach for the power switch, I kept entering Enter, and the computer opened into Windows normally. Yes, I had disabled the need to supply a password. I just needed to hit Enter twice. Amazing the things one once knew, but forgot. I rebooted, and everthing is working normally. (A deep, bemused sigh) Thanks for your help, Steve.

Opps, I missed out a piece of the issue. We would like to have the ceiling of the entire hallway space and great room be joined together cohesively, so that it doesn't feel like a hallway travesing the space as much as it is all one space. For that reason we want to remove the arch altogether, along with the wing walls and have it look morel like the photo I posted above.

I have no plans to leave a section un-insulated. I'm only contemplating 1) bringing the XPS from the floor up to the top of the foundation blocks (basically just slightly lower than the bottom of the mudsill) and leaving it for a can of SPF after all the rest of the construction is done and just before the drywall goes up or 2) running a bead of foam in that gap before hanging the foam boards and bringing the XPS all the way up to the horizontal fire blocking attached to the bottom of the existing joists. I intend to make it continuously insulated regardless. I suppose it's all about if you have your blocking in place when put the foam up or not and a decisions based on logistics, not as much performance. Are you saying there's no appreciable difference between moisture performance between 1 and 2 inches? I plan to have mechanical dehumidification as the floor surface (especially in the unfinished section) will probably have a good amount of latent moisture coming through during heavy rain events simply based on the water table and ground water in the areas around the home.