Hi Heather, I apologize if my comments are redundant since I didn't read through all the previous comments. We have 5 kids, and we have a similar upstairs loft type set up, but ours doesn't have the open railing along it. We have a 2 story great room similar to yours, and the railing is open between the foyer and the great room. We like the 2 story great room, although it can be challenging to decorate. One thing that we did that I love was make the "cat walk" the upstairs hallway overlooking the great room and the foyer extra wide. Ours is 8 feet wide. It makes that hallway feel less scary with openings on both sides, and it feels welcoming. I know this is personal preference, but with kids, I would close off the overlook from the loft to the great room. I'm imagining that you are giong to use that loft space for toys and video games, etc., and it is nearly impossible to keep that looking nice at all times. Plus, the noice traveling down will be difficult to control. Also, my kids have thrown or accidentally dropped things from the "cat walk" which is around the corner from the loft (like your set up) to the great room. I know that there would be many more things being thrown over if that railing were open all the way around. The other things I was wondering about was your 1st floor laundry room. In our house, the kids generate the most amount of laundry, and it is a TON. Our laundry is upstairs and it makes it so much more convenient to gather up their clothes and put them away. I couldn't imagine hauling baskets and basekets of clothes up and down the stairs. The other thing I agree with are the windows in the kitchen. I'd try to get more natural light in the kitchen, and have windows on the wall with the fridge (since they aren't covered by a 4 season room). I worry that your kitchen will be dark otherwise. Finally, since your dining room is your main and only dining area where you will put a table, I wonder if you'd want to have a sight line from there to the great room. We have only one main dining area as well, and I know it's nice for us to be able to have a sight line into the great room. Although we start dinner as a family, kids start taking off/wandering off while we're still eating since it takes the adults awhile to eat since we don't sit down from running around untile everybody is practically done. Anyway, as much as we'd like everybody to sit at the table the entire time and engage in lenghty dinner conversation, the reality is that we're just glad that we got everyone around the table for some part of dinner and that we can still keep an eye on them in the family room and feel like we're still having dinner together. Anyway, best of luck. It looks like it's going to be a wonderful home.

Ingrid, you'll get more responses if you copy/paste and start a new thread. I commented on your collections on another thread. They are all lovely and bring your personality in to your home, no matter where you're living. For me, I love the horse in front of firebox and think it deserves a more prominent place, such as on the left of mantel where it can be better viewed. Here are my suggestions (sorry so long): First picture, more books on the table, each with a low object (bowl, plate or the like). The two statues would be displayed with the third similar (group like objects) that's in the next photo (between bowls), placing two smaller cups inside cabinet. The books appear very heavy to my eyes over the porcelain, so I would a) move books to bottom shelves, b) do a mix of books and porcelain on all the shelves or c) no books and just porcelain. Everything in the third picture is just lovely, but I would move the small vase over so that it's not right in front of large one, rather in front of plate somewhat. For the mantel, I would move everything on left side of mantel to the right side, with vase/plant to right of artwork. Remove small bowl directly under art. Place horse in front of firebox on left side of mantel. Three small statues on left side of hearth to the round table (light objects on dark table for more contrast). I can't really see what's on the round table beside the dog. Wondering if he would look cute on hearth left of firebox with the two objects currently on the right of firebox. (They would need to be moved to other side of hearth if you take my suggestions above for mantel to balance things out.) I would group things differently on the desk against wall. If you rearrange bookshelves, you could intermingle some of the smaller things on round table in this room with the books and porcelain. I understand what it's like to have a lot of objects collected over the years, locally and when traveling. Seeing them brings us great pleasure and memories, so we want to have them out rather than rotate.

RoseAbbey - yes, a good exhaust fan makes a difference I think. We didn't have an exhaust fan over the vintage stove in our previous house, and the pot rack hanging above it stayed nasty pretty much all the time. It feels like an absolute luxury to have one now, and we definitely make good use of it. Patty, I think it's just a matter of how invested one decides to be in decorative items. You hit the nail on the head about certain items bringing joy to the heart of a collector, while other stuff is "merely décor." Re agreeing with my DH about investing in quality baskets instead of going for inexpensive pieces, for us it's a matter of taking our time and spending wisely. No, visitors might not have a clue what's on top of our kitchen cabinets, but we collect and decorate for our own satisfaction and enjoyment. For example, the three large baskets I decorated the niche over the front door with were priced higher than what I could walk into a place like Home Goods and buy. Two are African and one is Pakistani, and every time I see them they bring me delight. They're more special than what I was seeing in the stores, and I'm so glad to have them. Guests would probably just look up there and think, "Oh - big baskets" and not give them another thought, but those big baskets aren't up there for guests. They're to make my heart do that little happy dance whenever my eyes go up to that niche. :-)

Marti, looking at your shower floor problem, when you put in a one-piece shower receptor floor you don't waterproof below it because there is no water getting under the shower floor. With the system I used, and with Swanstone and other solid surface wall systems, you don't even have to waterproof behind the walls. Things interlock at the bottom so that the wall is inside the lip of the shower, and the walls either interlock above or butt so that they have no water infiltration possible or they have a single caulk joint. (Often a cove molding covers the butt and then the cove is caulked, too.) So, if you use a receptor floor and solid sheet walls, no waterproofing is done. Second, the way you set a solid pan is into a bed of wet compound of some sort. Our pan said to use tile mortar. A contractor I saw years ago on Garden Web said, "We always go one step further and set our prefab pans in structolite, which not only provides added resistance to flexing, but also gives you the feel of stepping on a solid surface." MTI says of its roll-in shower floor, "Shower base is designed to be recessed into the floor to create a flat transfer surface. Add bedding compound to fully support bottom of shower base. MTI's optional Pre-Leveled Foam Base requires no additional bedding compound or support." So, there are ways of making a solid surface or even a fiberglass shower pan very sturdy and inflexible, and these are the right ways to install them. As for the foam base, Jim did our tiled bathroom floor as a sloped shower floor using a Kerdi shower floor product that was a kit of foam pieces that you put into place using tile adhesive, then covered with Kerdi membrane, then tiled over. So, my room floor is a shower, too. That is in case the shower over-flows. So foam can be made strong enough to be under the floor of a shower. The MTI company is out of Georgia, I believe, and is worker-owned. They seem pretty innovative. I have a PDF of a shower pan that they make to be sunken into the floor like you had planned, but not so deep. But like mine, it has the entire long edge open and will not accommodate your wall closing off half or more of the front side. These pans are made more for roll-in showers. The pan I am looking at is MTI's MTSB 6036BF. I don't know if it is still made, or if it is an old product. I have the PDF sheet for it that I saved some time ago. My shower pan is from Transolid and is 37.5 x 63. Transolid also makes a 36 x 60 pan with a center drain. http://transolid.com/transolid-F6036-01 Transolid 36 x 60 It also has the entire front open, though, no wall lip. One advantage that it does have for you is that it is 3" deep, so if you put leveling compound into your poured area - or if you centered the drain on this pan onto your drain, then scribed off where your pan ends, you could pour the half inch bottom and the approximately six inches of concrete you need on each side to make a recessed spot for this pan in your shower space. You still would have to have a glass shower wall and door though. Their new construction solid surface walls are pretty cool. Made with an aluminum mesh backing, they go up onto the studs, do not require drywall like a Swanstone sheet or a plain Transolid sheet requires. And they sell a dome kit with LED lights that finishes off the top nicely. Trouble is, this shower type is only 32" deep. To get the 36 x 60, you have to have the drywall. Here is the basic shower. Transolid 36 x 60 Shower This time, I linked you to the place that sells it. There you can see the prices. The white is least expensive. Carrara and Silver Mocha are most expensive. They have a wall extension for taking this model higher on the wall to the ceiling. Wall Extension, but you have to remind them it is for the ceiling and that you need corner trim at the top. If you have questions about how to use the base, call Transolid, at the first link. Again, since there is a straight front that looks meant for a curtain or glass, I doubt you can put a wall there. You can call and ask if that is do-able, though. Have you talked to Grifform.com? They make custom shower pans. Cost a pretty penny. But, when you add up the cost for redoing the shower size to accommodate a pan that won't fit it, it could be worth it. And a custom pan may be the only way you are going to get the 6 ft length that you want. They should be able to accommodate the off-center drain too. They are in far eastern Oregon, so maybe the shipping to you would not cost as much as it did for me. I think it was like $500. Custom pans can be "flimsier" than ones they already have a mold for, because the ribs and such are set and they are just changing some minor things on the semi-custom ones. That is what I was told somewhere. You might want to ask about that. Setting it into wet mortar might make that moot, anyways. I did not look at the MTI site or at Duravit to see if they make 6 ft long pans. You may want to do that. Their pans are only an inch or two high, if I recall correctly, so I did not think it was worth checking. I could be wrong though! There are the Kohler enameled cast iron shower pans to consider, too. Bellweather is one. They are all no more than 60 inches long, I believe. They all may have drains on the end, made to fit where a bathtub was removed. I hope that you find something here helpful!