Beautiful Greenchic! The fireplace makes it look very inviting. Would you want a glass ceiling or just walls? Lots of birds on my property. I'm not sure overhead glass would stay clean very long. lol And I was wondering if a glass ceiling would make it TOO sunny for some plants. I was looking through Google images and saw a sunroom that had a horizontal pole suspended from the ceiling that went all the way across the room for hanging plants. That would be a handy feature. Or maybe a couple columns of adjustable bookcase type shelves to sit plants on instead of just glass all the way around. Here's what comes up on Google images for "Sunroom plants" Here is a link that might be useful: Google images

Lets see, woke up grumpy, the darn heater coming on what seemed like every 15 minutes kept me from sleeping well. I left it turned up, as the electricity kept flashing on and off last night, and I don't want to be as cold as at the 2007 loss of electricity. Got up, puter on, breakfast and just puter time. Whenever I got cold, I would go and sit in the sauna for a while. Finally, after eating lunch I drug myself in to some clothes, and headed to the post office. Got a call from the clock repair man (grandfathers clock), and had to cut my outing short. Went home. He took the inards out, and is going to see about fixing them. Left to go back to TJ Max, looking for some new warm slippers. Found some. Also some Grapeseed oil, and a new skillet. Over to Hobby Lobby. Got some batting (using an online 40% off coupon). Want to make Allison a cosy for in her stroller. Next stopped at BRAUMS, for some ice cream. You know, this weather is BEST for ice cream. It doesn't drip. LOL Ace hardware store for another pair of no slip things, for some shoes, they didn't have the yaktrax. Finally back home. Weight work out and stretching exercises done. Washed some dishes including the new skillet, and ate a cheese sandwich for dinner. All in all, I call today lazy. Moni

Tannantok, you're describing my DH's place when I met him! He also had a beer can collection growing on his back patio. He owned virtually no dishes (eating out of the pan was the norm). When you walked in the door you were greeted by a picture of a big haired blonde wearing suspenders and not much more. Laminated to a piece of charred wood. Given to him by his mother. Current decorating would be blankets tacked up to the windows, but he'd also have 1000 watt lights all over the place. I tell him the sun would not provide enough light for him. Clothing would adorn all the lamp shades (if he used lamp shades at all...probably adorn the curtain rods. Bathtowels would be the floor mats. Steak knives would pin up things to the walls, and EVERY wall would have something pinned to it. He'd have a ginormous sofa with blankies and his dogs. No pillows, except for what was on the floor. And every cupboard would be doorless and the drawers self closing.

I'm going to take this question as a philosophical one rather than a concrete one. :) THe thing is, we don't use our kitchens differently! At least, not that differently. :) Food comes into the kitchen, and gets stored. Dry storage and cold storage. For that, you consider the traffic path and any possible encumberances from the exterior all the way to the primary storage spot. Now, the amount of each type of storage can change based on family size and real estate available, but the need itself doesn't change. Then, food is removed from that storage, washed, and prepared for consumption. If all that's being prepared is box mac and cheese, then you don't need a lot of space to spread out the prep for that, but you still do need access to the measuring cups, pots and pans, and water. You'll always need some counter space and water during prep. And if you're doing Thanksgiving dinner, the more prep space the better. There's not really any such thing as too much prep space, as long as it includes access to water designated for that prep alone. This consumes the most time spent in a kitchen, and therefore should receive the lions's share of space. It's the only true work space, really. All other counter space is secondarily occupied if at all. Then comes applying the fire to the food. That can be a microwave heating a freezer dinner, or it can be standing and stirring a roux for 20 minutes while it reaches it's perfect brown color. Actually doing this step takes much less time than people think! Even if you do a lot of slow cooking sauces, if you've got the right tools to keep them at a simmer, you don't need but to periodically stir. After you've started to make a pile of dirty prep things, then comes stowing them away in the cleanup zone, or, if you've designed the kitchen correctly and have a partner, the partner can take the dirty prep items and be loading the DW with them while you are still chopping up a storm. That's what separating the prep and cleanup functions well can do for you. And it's not necessary to have that second source of water in a kitchen to do that, you just need to get over the idea of symmetry in a lot of cases and allocate the majority of space for the side that serves the prep. There have been many kitchens that have been designed here over the years that have done a good job of keeping the zones distinct and separate, yet compact, and minimizing outside intrusion into the high traffic areas while actually allocating enough space to those high use areas. That's all that good kitchen design IS, actually! Breezy's kitchen and Bee's kitchen both come to mind as being fairly close to "ideal" as far as the mythically perfectly designed kitchen. But reality is that no one designs the perfect kitchen and then designs the home around it! There are always tradeoffs. Money and space always come into play, and never in a good way! LOL! Even in homes that are being designed from scratch, bigger usually doesn't generate better. 50 steps between the prep sink and range is so much worse than having a step and pivot. It's like biology, when an organism reaches a certain size, the actual volume enclosed makes it so unwieldy that it's just not successful.