I think the gravel bed on the sides of the driveway is for drainage and would not do anything to it----and I say that from experience! The driveway may be slightly sloped to prevent standing water and that gravel is what dissipates the water evenly into the ground.....leave it! The problem with the front garage is that the gable is too high over the garage opening but not high enough to look like there is a second story above the garage. Is there a bonus room above, or just low ceilinged storage? IMO instead of just changing out the door you need to address all that blank area between the sides of the gable roof (where the pitch stops and the eaves are) and the top of the garage opening. I think i would put some windows in above the garage that match your other windows in style and proportion, if not size. Adding a pergola or any other type of overhang on the garage just makes the problem worse. The house in its original state looks better than the mock ups, as emphasizing that area is akin to taking a person with an already large forehead and giving him a low, prominent supraorbital ridge / unibrow. OOPS, for some reason the picture in the post above did not show up when I looked at the thread earlier! Sorry! This post was edited by kswl on Fri, Sep 5, 14 at 11:56

The issue that quickly shows up with using NM for lov voltage wiring is the sometimes very high currents required by low voltage lighting. The wire size is based on current, with voltage playing no part (voltage determine insulation thickness). A 20 watt bulb in 120 V pulls ~0.167 amps. On 12 V a 20 W bulb pulls ~1.667 amps, and the lower voltage puts a premium on voltage drop. Dropping 1 V in a 120 V circuit is less than 0.83%, while in a 12 V circuit it is 8% and will result in noticeable color shifts (red tint) if a lower drop lights is nearby. To control voltage drops wire size may need to be increased evrn further (there are online tools that will compute voltage drop given current, wire size, and conductor length). Wire size directly affects box fill calculations and bending space. Larger conductors are often stranded to make working with them easier. The larger wires also require larger wire nuts, and may not even fit under screw heads on switches. I use small electronic 'transformers' (actually small power supplies) to power low voltage under-cabinet lights and avoid using a single large physical transformer. A 30 W power supply is less than 3 inches long x 2 inches wide and 1.5 inches thick *(most are closer to 1 inch thick). They are available for plug or hard wire connection and can use conventional 120 V dimmers. The 120 V wire can be as small as #14 (15 amp circuit) and is not hard to work with. The small power supplies can be mounted under the cabinets near the back with the lights near the front. The only complaint I have about the power supplies is they need a small strap to hold them in place (the single screw and double face tape fails pretty quickly).

Yes, one cable or pair of wires to 6 lights and one cable to 7 lights, and the lights are in parallel. Each light connects across both of the wires that run past it without interrupting the flow to other lamps. Two terminals on the transformer are used and each terminal has two wires on it, one wire from each cable to each terminal. Using #12 gauge wouldn't hurt, but is probably not necessary. With #14 I calculate a 5.7% voltage drop, and with #12 it is 3.7%. A rule of thumb is to allow 5%. This is at the last of 7 lights spaced 8 feet apart, operating from a 12.0 volt transformer, 7 watt bulbs, using room temperature wire resistance (not the NEC table at 75 deg C). With 5.6% drop, you might be able to tell the last light wasn't quite as bright as the first if they were side by side, but not across the deck. If you put in a full loop of wire there would be scarcely any difference from using the two sections. By comparison, if you ran all 13 lights on one pair of #12 wires unlooped, the drop at the last lamp would be almost a volt and a half, a whopping 12% loss and you would see the difference in brightness.

We are finishing our kitchen which has been rough wired for low-voltage lighting (we are getting the 'Ambiance' under cabinet lighting made by Seagull). We have three places for under cabinet lighting, and our electricians (who did the rough-in) installed just ONE transformer in the basement directly beneath the kitchen. All the undercabinet lights are on the same circuit. I can't help you on the other questions, though - my cabinet maker hasn't marked for the upper cabinets, and I'm not doing plugmold. Good luck!