Thanks Kimmsr, for that dense and concise post. I wish I could be more concise. [g] Very good advice. Even after gardening organically for 30+ years, I appreciate the reminder of growing plants that attract beneficials. You can never have too many. I'd like to encourage the OP that it is a journey and a very rewarding one to go chemical free. When I started gardening I was fascinated to discover that there was a whole ecology in my backyard. And while I make the effort to identify pests when I see them, often I just accept that there will always be more that I don't know than I know. I try to leave the garden to work out the balance itself because they know what they are doing better than I do. I try not to interfere unless the damage is major and even then, I search for a non toxic solution. On the other hand, I do try to see what my role is and work at that. Long ago, I took to heart the often repeated advice, to improve the soil with organic matter. The more I have worked at that the more I have seen my garden evolve in a positive direction. I also pay attention to growing clean and keeping up with the weeds, mulching, taking care of any disease issues quickly and growing varieties that are resistant to disease. I am focused on adding plant material that attracts beneficial insects and when that works out, it makes me very happy to see that. I'm always looking to add more and more. This year, I have more parsley and dill for the small parasitic wasps that take care of a lot of pests. I add alyssum for those small predators. Lots of long blooming perennials around the vegetable garden for the bees. I keep trying to sequence the bloom so there is always something to feed the beneficial insects. I've seen aphids on plants disappear in a week after ladybugs had a feast on them. I still get leaf miners on my columbine, but I cut all the foliage back to the ground after bloom and they grow a fresh batch of pristine, leaf miner free foliage. The leaf miner leaves go in the trash. I still get small amounts of Oriental Beetles which I knock into soapy water to dispose of them. Same with Red Lily Beetles and used the same technique two seasons in a row when I was overrun with earwigs. So it's learning as you go how to manage your garden in a different way. You won't get that in one season, it takes time. I haven't used any chemicals beyond an occasional home made spray made up of 1 drop of soap, garlic & red pepper. And in 30 years I can count on one hand the number of times I've used that. Later today, I'll take a photo of one of my vegetable beds that is looking pretty good at the moment and post it here. Interestingly, I was forced to purchase organic soil for raised beds when we increased the size of the vegetable garden in the spring. I was curious to see how the beds that had the soil from our old vegetable beds grew in comparison to beds with the new soil. There were two large beds of our soil and three large beds of new soil. Every year in our old beds the peppers were wonderful. Full, bushy plants with a very good amount of peppers. This year I planted peppers in the new soil and the peppers are pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. I don't think there's anything wrong with the soil. It is organic soil that had 10% organic compost added to it and other organic amendments. It does seem to have a higher clay content then mine. The water is puddling on the top of the beds when it rains. But I can stand over the beds with the soil from my old beds and spray the hose full force with the nozzle set to shower and the water just drains right down even standing there for 15 minutes. So I am about to pull those peppers. They are not going to produce much if anything and I don't want to have the same problem next year, so I'm going to add more compost and sow a cover crop, let it grow until the end of the season and turn it in come Fall. It won't be perfect next season either, but I'm on the road to improving it and at some point it will be as good as what I had in my old beds. Am I disappointed that I'm not going to have peppers this year? Sure. Peppers are one of our favorite crops. But I know it's a temporary setback and an investment in next season's garden to work it out this way now. I spent a lot of time reading books. First, the book by Ruth Stout on the no work garden. Later, Eliot Coleman's books on organic gardening. I'm sure there are a ton more books to read, but I spent a lot of time on GW in the Organic Gardening forum, many years ago when there were a lot of very dedicated organic gardeners happy to answer questions. I'm happy that I did, it's worked out very well for me. Good luck!

Five, You can definitely make 30" doubles work. My 15-quart dutch oven (aka "goose pot") fits with a little room to spare in my 30" oven. One could put in something flat, like a baking dish or two full of stuffing or casserole, or a tray of hors d'oeurve to heat, or garlic bread, or something. With a whole second oven for whatever else you're making, you're home free! The big adjustment will be that you might have to use two ovens (and the extra electricity) rather than making the most of a super large one. With careful shopping you should be able to make your budget, especially if you're in an area with some competition, as well as outlets, scratch and dent stores, etc. Enlist any bargain hunting friends you might have who are looking for a project. Look for older models under full warranty. When the new models come in, they start discounting the old inventory, even though the units are still perfectly good. A lot of the ones with cosmetic flaws at the scratch and dent outlets have the problem where it can't be seen, or just have a little scratch that looks like one of the kids squinted at it too long. It helps if you can make a list of specific makers/models you're looking for, with a few choices for as many of the pieces as you can. Then go shopping, taking the dutch oven/stock pot and the roasting pan with you! See how they fit. Also see how they fit in the dishwasher. Doing a kitchen in the middle of a whole house build is maddening, because there are so many details. The more you can shop it out now, before the crazy starts, the better. And the fewer surprises there will be (like the dinner plates not fitting in the DW as happened to someone when I first joined GW).

I would want to ask up front: How much back and forth discussion does the process accomodate? For example, one of the sample rooms had drapery panels from Ballard. I would have wanted to source them elsewhere. I wonder whether the process is flexible enough to accomodate things like that, which might have meant a change in color that could have reverberated through other elements in the design. Another thing that would require back-and-forth: If you're like me, once a design is committed to paper you begin to try to place your own items into it, large or small. I wonder how much swapping out and adjusting they allow for, if any. I found it interesting that they used wallpaper in one of the traditional sample rooms. I couldn't quite see why they had used it in that case, but it was interesting anyway. It could have been that they were just trying to consume a big budget; the service seems perfectly capable of doing a room on a low budget. I like that aspect.

"I like the idea about putting the PC in the closet, but I'm wondering if the closet would be big enough (2 bi-fold doors - 4 foot opening and then almost 6.5 feet of space inside and about 3.5 feet deep)." If your closet is 3.5' deep you have plenty of room to put in a computer desk. I am not talking about having you to work inside the closet. Just having the desk and shelves in the closet. Then you open the bifold doors and pull up a chair and pull out the keyboard tray from the desk. You would have lots of breathing room. You wouldn't be *inside* the closet at all. You could keep all the peripherals off to the side in the closet behind the wall that you say you have for storage in the closet. When you are done move the chair back and pull the closet doors closed. All the paperwork mess is hidden. You could build a custom desk and shelving as another option. If you really want to put a TV on the room, why not consider puttting the TV on the wall above the dresser rather than having the mirror. Could this work for you? You have a connecting bathroom with a mirror to use and probably do not need another huge mirror a few steps away in the bedroom. Mirrors in bedrooms are bad Feng Shui anyway, then again, so are having TVs in the bedroom, but if it fits your lifstyle then do it. You could also get a matching modular entertainment center put the TV in it and use the drawers for your socks and sweaters. There is no rule that says you have to use the drawers for media related items.