Oh my goodness BorS, that looks so nice! I'm good of mind to go tear out my center bed and put in a pond. I'm NOT kidding!!!....LOL....I'll break the news to my husband tomorrow .........yes, tomorrow. (he keeps asking me if we are *DONE* with the GH) I've been thinking about a pond, and your pic made something go click in my head LOL. I like the conservatory theme too! My entire house is shaded (very shaded) by huge Live oak and Hickory trees, so my GH is "the room" where I can grow all of the plants I always wanted to grow in the house - but couldn't. Your shelves look so nice, and give it a real "plant room" feel. I'd love to see pics again when you are done with the pond. Thanks for posting these. Pat

No worries Ian. We are going ahead with the permits and such assuming that this is the final design BUT we will continue to work on the design and not get into building till we are totally satisfied with the design. We do have to deal with the permits now because of some deadlines with DEP permissions. I will look forward to your ideas if you are able to find time. Renovator8 - I had studied the sites suggested by you. This design indeed doesn't adhere to significant number of solar design principles. What we have so far is the fact that the front of the house is wide, south facing, enough overhang to prevent summer sun from hitting the windows, but, let in the winter sun. I talked to the Architect about concrete floors but didn't get a clear response as to its feasibility due to crawl space. I have to bring it up again. So, it definitely lacks a major component, i.e. storage of solar heat. We still should be able to use the sun's heat during the day. I will continue looking for more ideas/more aspects of solar heating to incorporate in the design. I was hoping to retain some high deciduous trees near the front of the house, so that they don't shade the house in winter but provide shade in summer. Due to solar panels, I don't think I will be able to do it. BTW, Ian - Garage can not be detached from the house due to condition imposed by the township at the time of subdivision.

Not that it will be easy, but these are the steps I'd follow, for both of you: 1) Go through every single thing (music stuff and military stuff). Sort out the absolute necessities, the I'd like to keep it if we have room things and the things that can easily go. No duplicates, unless it's something that needs replacing regularly, i.e. it makes sense to keep extra guitar strings around, but it makes much less sense to have three electric bass guitars that all pretty much sound alike. Sell/donate/toss whatever you can. 2) Then sort everything, like with like. All the guitars together. All the cables together. All the amps together. All the military stuff sorted the same way. Look at the amount of space each category takes up. See how much room you are devoting to all this stuff. Yes, it is your livelihood, for both of you. But I think you need to both take a good, long look at it all, so that you can determine if it is possible to live in a small one bedroom condo and continue to keep all of it. 3) Do another round of decision-making and see if there is anything else that can be let go. At the same time, look at all your other possessions, clothing, furniture, pots and pans, books, computers, etc., to see what can be discarded. By getting rid of other stuff, you make more room for the important things, the music and military gear. 4) Figure out a workable storage solution. In your case, it most likely should be one that you can pack up and move, if you are in the military. Ikea has a lot of good systems. I think the Pax wardrobe system, which can be customized with shelves and drawers would be a good bet. Yes, it will cost money. But if these things that you are storing are necessary to your careers, you should treat them with respect and store them properly. And imagine life when you can open a door and see neatly labeled shelves and drawers and just reach in and pull out exactly what you need, without having to move duffle bags and stub your toes on an amp and have fifteen tangled audio cables fall on your head. The Pax system has the advantage that you can close the doors and not have to look at all the stuff when you aren't using it. Explore other options, like hanging guitars on the walls or building a rack for some of the amps so that they can stack (and then use the sides of the rack to store more cables and such), or stacking, labeled bins for your military things. Think upwards for storage. If you get a shelving unit, get the tallest one you can, to make the most use of vertical space. Install a shelf running all the way around the room, a foot or so below the ceiling. You can store all sort of things in boxes or baskets up there. If your boyfriend is in a band, is there anyone else in the band with more storage space who could store some of the stuff? You could also maximize the existing storage space in the condo to give you more room. For example, if you have a decent sized bedroom closet, you could have a closet system custom made to suit your needs and then get rid of your dressers, freeing up floor space for more music equipment. Or re-do the kitchen storage to accommodate both food/utensil/kitchen equipment storage and storage for music or military gear. Depends on how much money is available for this sort of thing and how long you plan to live there. A more expensive option is off-site storage. There are climate-controlled self-storage units. You would have to weigh the extra cost with the increased cost of a two-bedroom unit to see which is the better deal.

I have this fantasy of installing a bookcase / shelves next to a doorway or opening, but placing them 3" or 4" away from the wall. And then slide big flat things BEHIND the shelves (that's why "next to a door," so there's room to slide them out). And maybe install ledges on the back side of those shelves to hold those flat things up off the ground, or maybe make it possible to store one of them higher up (double-deck). What made me think of that was this item from your list: 2 folding tables (when guests come over) Set some deep shelves (as deep as the folding chairs are wide) by the door to the house (if there is one, or any other door) far enough out from the wall to fit those tables, and then install one ledge low down on the back side of the shelves so you can slide one table in to rest on it, and another ledge above it to set the 2nd table on. You could install those big utility hooks I linked to above, or a 7" ladder hook, on the end of that bookcase to hang the 6 folding chairs on, some low and some high. I don't know how many folding chairs would fit in the 7" depth, but it would be one way to keep them from falling over, etc. And they'd be close by the door and easy to use. Not sure if all 6 would fit; you'd probably need 3 hooks, and I don't know how easy it would be to maneuver chairs off the top hook (Most are 38" high--so if you put the lowest set of hooks so the support is about 39 inches above the floor (not to lift so much as to keep them from falling over) and the next set 39" above that, then thelegs of the top set of chairs would be 78"/6.5' from the floor, so most people would be reaching over their head to get them--not so smart from a safety point of view, probably. If there are stairs, you could reach them more easily, maybe. Or experiment with hanging them upside down from the cross-brace, and that might let you control them better when taking them off. EDITED TO ADD: I just looked it up, and most steel folding chairs are 2" thick when folded, so 3 would fit on each hook. Here's a 7" ladder hook. Not so good for bikes because it doesn't have much of a front "lip" the way the one above does. But probably easier to get the chairs off it. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-5-16-in-x-7-3-4-in-Screw-In-Ladder-Hook-01219/202305568