Commercial mowers? Seriously? In my opinion, no homeowner should ever consider going commercial. There really is little to no point in doing so. I use an HRC-216 from Honda when I help my father-in-law with his landscape business, and while it is a great machine, it is way more than I would ever need for ~52 times a year. Also, when something does go wrong, they are very expensive to fix. My advice for the OP is to sharpen the blade on the reel he has now and get it working well. Maybe add a weedeater, probably electric, so you don't have to store gas. If the reel has a hard time with your type of grass then go with a cheap mulching mower, gas or electric. When you find yourself with a larger lawn, then consider a premium residential mower like a Super Recycler or Honda. What you want to look for at that point is a decent engine and non-rusting deck. Also, if you do not need self-propelled, don't get it. It adds to the cost and complexity of the mower and is one more thing that can break. Looking at your lawn, a large self-propelled commercial would almost be more of a hassle to use than something smaller and more nimble like the reel mower you have or a 19"ish electric. Also, the money you save could be put towards more landscaping. There are plenty of plants and such that are drought resistant. That would do far more to beautify your lawn than a mower.

I wish I would have found this site earlier. The Wayside Gardens web site is awsome and they have some plants that I can't find at my local nursery or big box stores, however they are a bit pricey. I placed an order (April 2006), received it timely, excellent packaging, There after is where the problem starts! Two of the three plants arrived with the bottom half (and I do mean the whole bottom half) of the plants were covered with some type of leaf blight. The leaves were totally covered in brown spots with dark circles. The tops of the plants were a washed out green covered in some kind of brown fuzz. I called them immediately, and was told it was just some type of fungus plants get due to stress when they are shipped. That all I would have to do is buy some fungicide spray and they will be okay after a week or two. I disagreed with them as the damage was so extensive. They said they try to run very tight quality control, these must have slipped by and they would ship out replacements immediately. In the meantime I ordered some additional bulbs and a couple of more plants using a 15% off coupon they sent. The website said they gave free upgrade shipping, however when I entered the code for the 15% off coupon, the site then added back the additional charge for upgrading the shipping which just happened to cancel out the 15% off. The site would not let me delete or cancel the upgrade . I called again and was promised by the customer rep that he would remove the additional charge and submit the order for processing. The next day I received the replacement plants for the first order. Guess what...... They were in the exact same condition as the plants they were sent to replace. I called again. A different customer gave me the explanation I got the first time and said they could give me an in store credit. I responded that that wouldn't work, but I had another order they could credit. She pulled the order up to apply the credit and surprise, surprise...the first rep did NOT credit the account for the extra shipping charges. I was upset about it all evening and called the next day to cancel the order and get my money back. The third rep once again explained that the horticulturist (???) said the problem was due to wet conditions in the warehouse and shouldn't affect the plants other than they didn't look pretty, I should just spray them. I insisted on cancelling the order, he then said he would try but since it was already into processing he couldn't guarantee the cancellation!! Save your money...... buy somewhere that doesn't play games with their customers.

sanveann-I am not trying to upset the apple cart but I am in MI also and I am attaching a couple of post snips that I found helpful in trying to orient rooms to capture as much sunlight as possible for solar gain as well as brighter spaces. If the image is too hard to read and you want to look at it further the link is: http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/build/msg0820382523166.html and it's about half way down. Because we don't get all that much sunlight during certain long cold and gray seasons I thought this might interest you too. The link is something else another poster shared on maximizing light and comfort in spaces. I hope it's helpful to you. Here is a link that might be useful: Room Orientation for Sunlight

update met with the student who could help with the heavy stuff in my alottment, he was in time, in a nice and reassuring way average, friendly, interested, dug in an impressive speed and after like 2-3h I asked when he could come next week... the woman I share an office with asked about him (mentioned my plans before at a coffee break), and sounded enviouse because her DH refuses to hire help and promises to "do all that stuff", since 2 years she is waiting for a small paved path to be re-built... men, at least, some of them...;-) (my DH gave me a hand when I asked and moved some stone slabs to another corner, almost threw his back out, and I promised myself then not to ask him again for really heavy lifting, yep, it`s been a while since we were twenty-something....) It is amazing, the whole weekend I was in an extremly good mood and noticed then what a load had been lifted off my shoulders- I am calmly optimistic now that this season all those "extra projects" and nasty corners will be cleared, I even allow myself to fantasize about a batch of Eremurus which I considered for the edited perennial border since, ahm, 2 years... do you know those penny-drop-moments' WHY haven`t I done that last season? apart from that I`m determined to streamline the garden for low maintenance, no foufou-plants, paved paths and some paved lawn edging, and with the aditional help, I hope to get all the slow but persistant weeds like creeping buttercup before they flower... have a nice week everyone, bye, Lin and here a pic for all the snow dwellers or frost ridden among you - the Darwin hybrid tulips popped open on the weekend