sorry, I didn't process the part of your post that said you had an 85W CFL on it, and a south window. But I believe light is important not just to maintain the health of a catt, but to grow on that new shoot, *and* to grow new roots. So keep the light good. I do put my catts (even phals) directly *in* a south window with no damage, but if your apartment is up high that might be too much, and the CFL light certainly is a good addition. I give re-rooting catts indoors the same light as the rooted ones (indoor light can't even approximate "high" outdoor light). re moisture meter readings: you say the lady repotted your catt. If it's in bark, new bark tends to be hard to wet, which is why people sometimes soak it before using. Water when dry advice about catts refers to: water thoroughly, letting water run thru for several minutes, then don't water again until the medium is dry. Or soak for 15' when you do water for the first month or so. Be careful not to walk off and forget to take it out of the water, as I often do. That is obviously no good. The white hard roots that you mention were too dry. The green tips they now have are the growing tips and a good sign of their health. To repeat: you will get new roots on your catt when the new growth grows out, and usually as it matures. They grow out of and cluster at the bottom of the new growth. To hurry that up, you can paint the new growth with a gel cloning solution. Or, just be patient. In the meantime, if you want the old roots you have left to branch or grow, water with a dilute liquid rooting hormone solution. Or use superthrive. About the fogger--if it is causing damage to other things, I wouldn't use it. About your dehydrated pbs: sometimes the deyhdrated pbs re-hydrate as new roots grow. But they don't always. As the new shoot develops, the plant starts to look a lot better as the new growth dominates what you see. But often the old ugly stuff stays ugly. The state of that new growth will tell you how the plant is doing-- if it grows out, and when mature (it is mature when the dry covering starts to split) is taller and fatter than the old pbs, it's in great shape. I have a Dialc Mizoguchi that came with a dehydrated pb that never re-hydrated, and is still on the plant, looking as puny and miserable as it ever did. But the new pb was very big and fat, and the plant bloomed with 5 flowers this spring. Watering is a judgment call. If you are successfully growing lavender indoors, your judgment is pretty good, and you have really good light. I never could do it :).

Thank you to all who took the time to read my long, novel-like chronicle of symptoms and suspicions. Already working on the cutworm collars...and I had called the exterminator even before I wrote my diatribe. He layed traps. Only one mouse thus far. Oh...and I did start on my own personal comost pile earlier in the summer. But these pictures I put up were of garden #1, during the summer. I bought two cubic yards of the best compost our local landscaping/nursery man carried. I was lucky that my husband just happened to take me to pick it up because I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how much I had purchased. I about died when I went outside from paying for compost in the office to see a large tractor dumping the last scoop full of it into the now overloaded bed of my bewildered husbands big Silverado truck! (see picture...which is only half of what I bought. The first half was put out front!) Honestly, I thought it would be a few bags similar to what I had purchased at Home Depot! Talk about a newbie! At any rate, all of that has been tilled into the garden now before I even planted for the cold crops. I already have sprouted brussel sprout seedlings waiting to be planted again. It is not due to stop raining here until Sunday; if the ground is not too soden, I will plant them and the others that are ready then, place collars on anything that remains, and then put chicken wire tops on everything until they outgrow them. Now, after all this sage advice, I guess it could have been birds after all. Blue Jays? Now those I WOULD see every morning, along with smaller sparrow-type birds, in their busy little worlds, pecking away in my garden, while I opened the cupboard to make coffee. I usually let my dog out to pee pee and she would make a beeline for them. But who knows how long they were pecking away in there and how big some of them were earlier in the morning hours. Maybe even an owl or larger bird? But I think those are dedicated carnivores. (When I lived in Santa Barbara I once saw a hawk swoop down and carry off a pigeon. It was devastating to me. Poor bird. I am so grateful to be at the top of the food chain. But the seagulls will snatch whole sandwiches out of your hand while you are busy admiring the ocean. So I know that birds take things, sometimes heavy things, up into the air and away. Maybe a 2 1/2 watermelon plant? ) Still a bit baffled. But the collars and cages are coming out until the plants are big enough to survive. This post was edited by lindsaybev on Thu, Nov 20, 14 at 13:26

I'm new to this discussion. Would one more set of eyes be welcome? Your inspiration of moving the doors is a real game changer. Brilliant. U1 is, from my point of view, the best. Given the limited natural light and view, you do want the window to be the focus of that wall. May I address the mud/laundry room? We had one when the boys were growing up. It would be helpful if there was a seat to put on/take off boots etc. Otherwise they'll go to the banquette, tracking whatever with them. Perhaps a window seat under the window by the door. It could then have boot cubbies underneath. You say the room is 7' wide. That makes it pretty narrow to have a full 24" counter on both sides. Consider the outside wall being solid 12" or 18" cabinets. Do think about putting a front loader and dryer under a counter, even if you don't put doors in front of them. It gives you a place to sort and fold. Or put a laundry basket. The sink could then be part of that counter. Putting a door where the window is from the laundry to the porch seems like a natural. Folks (boys) on the porch/patio can get to the beverages/sink/ without going through the house. I know you have an office, but the kitchen does tend to become communication central. Have you thought about a place for the phone and attendant notes? Perhaps the end of the cabinet run facing the back door in U1 or the end of banquette near that door? The banquette may well become the go to place for homework and school projects. Lighting? storage under the banquette? Finally have you thought about putting a skylight in the porch roof outside the kitchen window? At the end of of the day, you are going to have a wonderful house.

This is a fascinating subtopic and would make a great topic on it's own. I am the worst category - I have poor visualization and spatial skills BUT I care a LOT about my space and am one of those people who really find therapy in an environment that is aesthetically pleasing. (It would be so much easier if I just didn't care) As you can imagine this makes picking a paint color crazy-making. Well, I can see it in my head, but it doesn't transfer to reality - and because I have zero artistic skill (have me draw next to a kindergartner student and have fun guessing who drew what), it's VERY difficult for me to translate/communicate what I see in my head for others. This is why I like to find inspiration pics that are pretty much exactly what I want. I trust my taste, but not my ability to visualize it in my head and make it translate to reality. (Unfortunately, I haven't found such a pic for the kitchen after looking at 3 M pics, so that is unsettling for me.) And, now that pal mentions it, it's probably difficult for me to totally trust someone who CAN do it, partially because I know I haven't been able to adequately relay what is actually in my head so how could they really translate it for me? When I was a new home owner, I brought a chair home after going to stare at it for weeks. The way I visualized it, it was PERFECT in my home. When they delivered it, it was way over-sized for the scale of the room and had to go right back. That's maybe when I really realized this is a problem for me and I was in my 30's. I try to only buy furniture that can be returned upon delivery, which gets trickier as time goes on! LOL But, I've learned to use free room design software like you can find on West Elm and that really helps. In fact, I used that to furnish my new office at work last year. The space was tricky in that it is small and needs to function as a group space as well as individual meetings and accommodate people of different sizes and physical capabilities. But, it also needs to serve as my office and store my books/paperwork, give me a place to write, etc. I did so well with it I am episodically asked if I hired a designer. Come a long way, baby? I'd love to study this more, actually. While my visualization/spatial skills are poor and I can't draw, I have considerable natural propensity for music and played for years and years. In the world of relaxation strategies, different people tend to respond to different techniques - some love listening to sound or a voice coaching them through, others respond better to visualization or staring at objects, etc. And the idea that people are raising here that we can build our spatial abilities through exercise, puzzles, practice, training, exposure is very interesting. In the meanwhile, I have this gutted empty space and it is not accompanied by a gut sense of how the space will feel or function with stuff back in it... and it's a tad unnerving, now that I pause to think about it.