@kellyknits Thanks, I've noticed that chlorantha isn't too picky, but does like to abort its flowers if you let it get a little too dry while the buds are forming. Other than that, keeping it in bright light seems to guarantee lots of flowers. I'm glad to hear that yours is doing well too. @mitzicos Wow those look pretty rough, I'm not sure if they're still alive from those pictures, but if they are, keep them humid and warm and they should eventually start forming roots. Older stems are often yellowish grey and it can be difficult to tell if they're alive. DId you cut the lower end off? If you did, was the inside green, and did it bleed latex? If it did then they're in good condition. You can shove those leaves that have fallen off into the pots as well, they'll form roots, but might take a while to form a vine, if they do at all. The cuttings you received today look okay, not great but they look like they'll make it for the most part. Mine looked much worse and were mostly bare stems but they all pulled through. @Josh Thanks, I bought some adenium seed off ebay after I'd read all the stories about growing these over on the cacti forums. They're a lot easier to grow than I thought they'd be, even though I did have to invest in a light to provide enough light. As for the Jade, I've always liked Jades quite a bit, but it's hard to grow them here without supplemental light. They always turn out leggy and gross and not at all tree-like. There's small Hummel's sunset jade hiding to the right of the Gollum too, I started it from a couple cuttings I took from my other plant when I moved out. The lights seem bright enough to make the leaves flush red, so I'm hoping for a treat once it gets bigger. @Mike You can get mylar at dollar stores, but you won't find it under "mylar". Thye actually sell it as "Emergency heat blanket" for camping and for keeping in your car glove box. It's a lot thinner and reflects less light than the 1-2mm thick mylar sheeting you can buy from hydroponic stores, but at $1 a sheet, it's a bargain. The H. chlorantha was imported from Thailand, as were all of my hoyas. There's a web store called "Aleya garden" with an ever expanding selection of Hoyas. Now probably isn't the best season to order anything, but if you wait for a few more months you should be able to get lots of new Hoyas. I don't bring my plants outdoors anymore since I now grow under lights only, although I used to bring my Jades and succulents outdoors. For those plants, acclimatization was mostly just setting them out in the shade and then moving them to brighter and more direct sunlight every week or two. The shelving is just a standard wire shelf unit, you can find them at storage shops. I got mine at a store called "Storage solutions" but I think that's only in Canada. The dimensions of the shelf are 48x18", which is just enough to fit my grow light in.

Our warming drawer is in our island with 2 drawers below. The location works well for us because it's the side of the island facing the oven, so we use it either for things coming out of the oven and/or for items that we'll be putting on the island to serve, such as appetizers, rolls, pizza, etc. I like having it as the top drawer because it's easy to go from the drawer to the island top, or even to serve from (e.g., open the drawer and grab a slice of pizza.) The drawers below are for pots and pans; the spaces on either side are blank because those cabinets open toward the ends of the island (trash pullout on one end, drawers on the other.) FWIW our cabinets are tall (we raised our counters to 39") so the drawers you see under our warming drawer are a bit deeper than what one would get with regular height cabinets.

Lovely home and I would love such a large hall!Altho not that formal some hooks above the bench to hang up backpacks and such are very handy. I like the look and comfort of your bench better than the storage benches around and if you want to you can place a few baskets under the bench to hold shoes or mittens and hats for the kids too. here is a pic. of my very small hall with hooks and when the stuff is not on them they really do not stand out or take away from the formal feel all that much, I think.

great thoughts, folks, thank you!! rob, the "sunroom" space is now going to be the only LR and DR in the house, so I definitely want it to read as interior space. If it was still going to be a sunroom, and there was a formal DR and LR elsewhere, the in/out materials connection would be a good idea... but I think I want to be really "interior" space. I'll post some exterior pics in a sec, but remember we haven't started the exterior yet! That's the late summer/fall project ;) bmorepanic- good point about code. Hmmmm. I just showed this to our code enforcement officer yesterday and he didn't raise an eyebrow. But maybe I should point it out to him and double check? Actually, I originally had that wall drawn as solid, like you have it, about 18" just to cover the end of a piece of furniture. But then my architect stepmom suggested this as a way to keep the open feeling. smilingjudy- after I had it drawn as a solid wall (like bmorepanic's), I also drew it as a column morphing out of the wall, just as you describe. Stepmom architect still changed it. And I definitely don't want to fill in the area between the two columns, even though it makes more sense architecturally. The impetus for this whole thing was to make the house feel more OPEN and be able to see the view out that big bank of windows..... It's a small, low, closed-in house otherwise and that's a feature (the windows and big huge yard beyond) we definitely want to take advantage of. Right now, just the window and door mullions in that space constrict the view and open feeling, and we're REALLY trying to make it as open as possible. (The original renovation plan was to keep the kitchen in the corner where the mudroom is drawn, which would have left that entire wall open. Now, while I LOVE the kitchen in this space, it does close it up more with the counter and backsplash... so I don;t want to close it any more.)