Fir bark (un-composted) doesn't break down that quickly as a medium ingredient... and the other ingredients I employ are coarse perlite, granite chips, turface... others might be lava rock chips, pumice, DE chips, cherry stone, etc... That's a more inorganic approach to building container medium. I use such a mix because it allows me a lot of leeway for error in watering... and it allows my plants of choice to remain in the same medium, undisturbed, for at least 2 years... sometimes 3... before I have to refresh the medium. I grow mainly tender amaryllids and other tropical ornamentals. Medium only serves the purposes of support for the plant, a catalyst for moisture and nutrition, and also as a catalyst for the exchange of gases and oxygen at the root zone. Therefore, a heavily organic soil is not necessary to use within the confined space of a container... which differs greatly from a garden setting, anyway. It's next to impossible to duplicate Mother Nature's methodology within a pot, and next to impossible to maintain the same balances of everything that occurs in Nature, such as the vast army of living things, microscopic and otherwise... like worms, nematodes, fungi, insects, bacterias, etc... that work in harmony to break down organic matter into usable food for plants, and help keep the soil aerated. Therefore, I save organic gardening for the gardens, and employ a more inorganic tact for container growing. Doing so allows me to control the moisture amount, the fertilizer, the micro-nutrients... and not have to worry about the fast breakdown of organic matter, imbalanced PH, perched water tables, poor drainage, an inability to properly exchange gases and fresh oxygen - which the roots require for good health, or try to maintain an exact duplicate of the masses of life underground... etc. Most of the medium I use is larger particled, highly aerated, sharp draining... closer to a bonsai or orchid type of medium. There are other slightly more organic medium mixes... such as the 511, as it's called, which contains fir bark, coarse perlite, peat, and some growers use other larger particled ingredients, as well... what a grower uses depends mainly on what's locally available, what they're growing, how long it must remain in that medium, their individual climate and environment, the amount of time devoted, their expectations of optimal plant growth, among other variables. It's not so much the exact ingredients or their ratios... it's understanding the concept of such mediums that's most important... and then adjusting it to fit your individual situation. A grower could actually go purely inorganic by using any of the inorganic items I've listed... keeping in mind the purpose a medium really serves... plant support, catalyst for food, water, and the exchange of gases and oxygen. It all depends on how much time you want to devote to watering, feeding, and caring for your plants of choice. Hydroponic growers use strictly inorganic material as the medium... so we know it can be done. The bottom line is... it's not a necessity to use organic matter to grow plants successfully... and in fact, I advise against trying to duplicate Nature in the confined space of a pot.

Our original concrete outside stairs are now inside our house thanks to a previous owner. Our stairs went directly out from the original basement back door, not sideways like yours. Our stairs are now inside our backdoor and are the final run of stairs to our basement. An addition can definitely happen. How you handle the stairs depends on how large an addition you hope for. I'd be more concerned about what new outside finish you'll have to coordinate with the original brick. Odds are very high you won't be able to match the brick.

We have a large front veranda that is over a storage/tornado room in the basement garage. The veranda floor/room ceiling was built using steel beams, then corrugated metal with rebar before pouring the concrete. The basement/lower level walls are poured concrete, so there is no wood touching the concrete pads.

i wouldn't do the master bedroom expansion in a bay window shape. It should be a flat face across the back like the family room/kitchen. Your proposed back view shows one objection, the creation of two different roof lines. Your proposed back view also shows three different styles of architecture which I will ignore because I hope you just intend to show shapes of the expansion, not the exterior finish.