Deer resistant ... that makes it a little harder. BTW - have you seen the motion-detecting sprinkler things? Just in case you fall in love with something that isn't deer-resistant. Do you need/want year everything to look good year round? I think that deer are the hungriest in the winter, so maybe if some of your plantings were perennials that died back in the winter it would let you have more options for summer color, and even let you have more light in the windows in the winter. Heuchera (Coral bells) are a nice plant that have really pretty foliage, you could mass several of them for blobs of color. There are purple and chartreuse versions (and other leaf colors as well). They are hardy to zone 4 - since you said dogwood struggle to make it through winter I'm guessing you are in a cold spot in 5, so looking for zone 4 plants would give you a better safety net against frigid winters. Ferns would contrast nicely with the coral bells because they have that arching shape with fine cut leaves, while coral bells are low mounded plants with round leaves. So you'd get nice texture difference there. I'd plant daffodils among the coral bells so you'd have some spring blooms before the coral bells really leaf out (they have flowers as well, but they're tiny). Daffodils are pretty deer resistant because they're toxic to deer. Also toxic to dogs, but I think most dogs know that. I had a beagle that ate a bag of tulip bulbs but he never touched the bag of daffodil bulbs. I'm still struggling with the area between the windows - I can't think of any tall, spiky plants that will be decent height and are either deer resistant or die down to nothing in the winter. Your house doesn't seem to want an arbor - the architecture is all clean lines as opposed to ornamentation (IMHO an English cottage garden would look really out of place there). I'm still loving the idea of using the dark backdrop of your house color as a stage for something white. What about paper birch? Again, it's a tree, so you'd need to plant it away from the house. But they are hardy all the way into Maine, they're beautiful white trunks would look great against the house in winter, and the multi-trunked ones are almost sculptural. They aren't a plant that deer favor, either. One last (possibly crazy) idea. I know it might look weird to have a foundation planting and then a single tree out in front of it. It could look like the tree had been "voted off the island" by the perennials. But what if you made the bed a wide triangle shape? It would echo the shape of the roof there - as if the gable end of the house was mirrored onto the ground in plantings. That would let you put something tall in between those windows without it having to be a shrub. On the flip side, that kills the idea of the big white hydrangea tree on the corner. I really do like the sketch you have so far, I'm just thinking of other options in case you were thinking, "I like this, but what else could I possibly do with the space?"

The bump on the shower was put in so that the shower didn't need doors. I know that the bump isn't absolutely necessary, but it will allow us to have more shower heads (and possibly more people) in there with less fear of splashing. We'd like to have the option of bringing a kid in there. As for the "make-up bump", we're open to any and all suggestions on how to use that space. I suggested to DH that we move the linen closet into the nook created by the closet overhang. However, he seems to be a fan of shifting everything back so that the closet doesn't extend past the bumpout and the using that space as an option to place the bed. Does anyone see any advantage to moving things around and doing one large shared closet? If we did one closet, it would be placed on the left side so the bathroom could occupy the right and get the morning sun.

Hey girl-nice to see you back and hope everything is hunky dory now. Coupla things. First the access to the dining area given the kids table and the stools. If either seating area is occupied, no one can get through to the dining area. It's important to remember that chairs stick out two feet from a table when somebody sits there. I'm thinking your current island is mobile? You might move it into the position you're showing on the plan relative to the sink and range. I have concerns about the clearances you're using in front of the range particularly - you have ovens and opposing sets of drawers there and your aisles are undersized. What happened to the windows? Lastly, when everything and everyone is in their "normal" everybody in the kitchen at once mode - try to set the table. I have a feeling that won't go well. I'd still like to see cleanup and baking reversed. I tried to find any of your previous threads and ended up with nothing. BUT I did see you asked a question in my progress pictures thread that I missed. So, the two walls on the ends of the "L" shaped room are now covered in v-groove knotty pine paneling. It's painted with thin coats so you can see the grain markings under the paint. It looks good in the pictures, but its better in person.

If there is to be no prep sink in the island, I'd do this. It gives you separate zones for clean-up, prep, and cooking without crossing into the other zones. It gives you a landing place from the fridge. You'll notice I made the sink more like a 32" single. The sink in your plan is way too small. With 32", someone can do clean-up on one side of the sink while someone else does prep on the left side. With only one sink, you really need a larger sink that allows for this type of multi-tasking. Even if only one person is working in the kitchen at a time, it's nice to have room for both tasks so you don't have to move things out of the sink continually. If you do what I like to do, which is keeping the DW door open while prepping so I can load items directly into it which makes clean-up a lot faster, your 4-foot aisle is wide enough to walk around the DW to get to the fridge. With 24" cabinets + 15" overhang for seating, the aisles is a bit tight at 42" instead of the recommended 48". This might be OK depending on how often you believe people will be sitting there when people need the bathroom or want to access the fridge without crossing through the work zones. Or it might be really annoying. You would need to consider traffic flow and how your family uses the kitchen to decide if the tighter aisle will be a problem. The sink off-center on the window is fine. You can find many photos of kitchens with sinks not centered on the window and they look fine. Also, this means that you will have plenty of room to prep in front of the window. Since most of us spend more time prepping than any other kitchen task, being in front of a window while prepping can help make things more pleasant. I encourage you to at least consider a prep sink on the island. An area without a sink often isn't used for prep work like people think they'll do because of having to wash, then carry the items across the aisle to prep on the island, and then carrying prepped items across the other aisle to the range to cook. You could always have a cutting board cut to fit into the prep sink so you have more counter space there at times where you need the extra space.