Chandra, Assuming you effectively combat the bermuda, and you choose quality mix to fill your raised beds, I'd say you are in for a very prolific harvest. Yes, lots of uncontrollable things can happen, but if I counted correctly you've already got 8 large beds built with more to come? If you mulch and keep your weeds down, I think you'll be looking for cars to dump your excess produce in. P-mac, I did want to address this early. It's important enough that it dominates the talk in the Harvest Forum. So many more people are canning now than in recent histoy. By my way thinking, I can watch a new gardener try things that I anticipate aren't going to work, but let them do it for the experience. Innovation doesn't come from doing the tried and true. But to watch a beginning canner do things that could literally bring death, and not speak up would be very, very wrong. Since we haven't started talking specifically about what we're putting up yet, we can bring it up in a preventive manner. It's very important that people know to use tested recipes. There's that saying about "you don't yet know what you don't know." I'd just feel terrible if someone hurt themselves canning and we could have said something to prevent it. My first year out of college, a group of men I worked with went to a BBQ joint for lunch. They all got botulism poisoning from improperly prepared baked potatoes. Some were hospitalized, each of them over a week of work in the middle of tax season and everyone of them lost 15 to 20 pounds. It was horrifying to see what it did to them and it made lasting impression on me.

Thanks for the replies! (I posted this over on "porches and decks" weeks ago and got none at all.) Curb appeal is important, although I think either would look OK. Bluestone would definitely look better, but not if it's massively more complicated and expensive. The house itself is a 1950's bland ranch, which had been skewed (bad) "colonial" by a P.O. and we're reversing that. We live in a coastal Maine town and our reno is coastal/cottage with vaguely Craftsman accents to speak to the long low silouette and deep eave overhangs, as well as to the interior reno we're just finishing, which shares Craftsman attributes such as open living space, bringing the outdoors in, and lots of natural materials like slate, cherry, and other wood and stone. The exterior (currently) is structural colored cement block that looks like brick from a distance but isn't really, plus white vinyl from a P.O.'s early 90's addition. We'll be removing the vinyl and replacing with Kennebunker cedar shingles (oil-dipped in a natural grey-beige that looks like weathered cedar) and painting all the masonry in a similar grey-beige color. Side door is varnished fir, craftsman style. Cedar deck out back is long, low, sort of Asian. Garage will have cedar arbor/pergola overhangs on the garage doors. Landscaping includes cedar trellises, japanese maples, ornamental grasses, textured plantings, bluestone and slate. The side porch (which we're also rebuilding) will be wood framed with Trex or cedar decking and simple square columns. The front door is rarely used so it's mainly for curb appeal. There will be a flagstone path, fairly informal, just set into the grass, leading to it. It would look best in bluestone, but the framed wood would probably work as well. I'm not sure how deep the existing steps are. It appears to be one solid mass of concrete and brick and stone. There used to be a major drainage issue in the front (since corrected) and they steps sank into the dirt over time. I don't know how deep they are. They SHOULD, of course, be 4 feet deep, but who knows. Yes, I expect it's a jackhammer project to remove them. So, theoretically, if we did wood, we could just build it all bigger than the existing mess, and leave that mess in place beneath the new porch (which will be higher anyway.) and that would probably be the easiest thing to do. If we go with masonry, can we somehow go over the existing mess, or would we need to remove it all? What's the procedure for building and filling such a thing? Existing steps (note that the "brick" cement block will be painted, and the door stripped and varnished with a new wood storm door. Landscape shrubs have been replaced with smaller ones):

I'd advise against having them condem it, your result is going to be they make you tear it down, then won't let you rebuild due to the setback issue. I've been the same round myself, you see. Get a permit if required (I'd go with yes, but it may not be required for the concrete work) Yeah, I know, you'd think they'd REALLY want to have a look at your foundation, but at least where I redid a historical house, no. I'd say your first issue is to find a concrete guy with some good experience to come have a look, maybe a good GC as previously recommended. Even if you plan to diy it, I've found it can be VERY worthwhile to pay a fee to someone with experience to chat with you and tell you how they'd do it.

Mama Goose- what was the reason for putting the fridge drawers on either side of the range? Sorry, I should have explained. One reason is symmetry, but the main reason is your desire to have separate prep areas. Each fridge drawer is convenient to each prep station, but still easily accessed by someone using the other work station. If the drawers were on each side of the antique sink, anyone prepping at the clean-up sink would always be walking around the work table and across the kitchen to access the fridge. You could stock the fridge drawer closer to the entry with things the kids use often, so that they don't need to enter the work space to grab a snack. You could designate a baking zone, and stock the closer fridge with items for baking--butter, eggs, cream, etc. I labeled the counter beside the clean-up sink as the baking area because the counter space is longer than that available next to the antique sink, but I was thinking how pretty large glass jars of flour and sugar would look next the the old sink, or on shelves beside it. You just need to decide where each zone works better for your cooking style. In the last plan I posted, I put freezer drawers beside the antique sink, because freezers aren't accessed often--sometimes hours before prep is started, so it doesn't matter as much where they are located. As I said before, I was trying to reconcile function with the vision of the movie kitchen. In my house, I wouldn't put the main fridge in another room, unless it was one step away, with it's own landing space (like just the other side of an open door way). I have no experience with fridge drawers, but they seem to fit the space. You could put a built in fridge where I had it in a previous plan, recessed into the hallway, but make it look like a large cupboard, to match the ones in the dining nook, or use a CD fridge, which would not need to be recessed. You'd need to rinse items at the sink, then carry them across to the table to be prepped--less convenient than having a nice prep space beside the sink, and the range on the same run, but it depends on how much function you are willing to trade for aesthetics. (I don't know the length of the antique sink, so you might have more space around it in the following plan.) You could still have a fridge drawer closer to the clean-up sink/baking zone, or omit that and just have the standard fridge. With four kids, home grown garden produce, and frequent entertaining, an extra fridge drawer makes sense. If a prep sink on the island is out of the question, the draper's table is beautiful, but speaking from experience, it won't be comfortable to sit at for a meal, because you can't scoot a chair or stool under due to the low shelf. The table in the movie is gorgeous, but it doesn't look comfortable at all, because there is no knee space. We converted a dining table to work-table height by adding feet and a similar low shelf. But we have a bench (crafted by my BIL) that is the exact height to sit and rest our feet on the low shelf, but just fits under the table, on the low shelf, so when we need to move it out of the aisle, we can stow it there--our table is only 5' long and doesn't need the extra leg for support. You won't want stools in the aisle while you are trying to load or unload the DWs, so maybe you can have the Amish cabinetmaker build stools to fit the space under a draper's table. A few years after we started using the converted dining table and bench, I added a couple of vintage iron swing out stools to the short ends of the table. I really like them, because they m/l disappear when not in use. If it's in the budget, an old industrial style table, with swing out stools would work well in your space, or if you can't find an original, there are some great reproductions out there.ETA, maybe something like this for the fridge, paneled to match your cabinets (and without that strange circular tower): Image from decoist blog/GE Monogram fridge