Thanks for all your hard work Karen! Can't wait to read it in its entirety. Jodi-

It's one of my favorite shows and I thought the season finale was great. Loved it when she (mom) went looking for her son at the party dressed in her jammies and then started dancing. What better way to humiliate your kid lol Modern Family finale was good too!

Veer, I don't know anything about the disapproval you encountered over the use of the term "Dark Ages" but it seems amazing that it would cause anyone that much distress. Have we become so "politically correct" that we must take care not to offend those who have been dead for nearly 2000 years? Manchester says in his World Lit only by Fire that "Modern historians have abandoned the phrase, 'Dark Ages'" because it implies a negative judgment of the time. "Yet," he adds, "There are no survivors to be offended." Apparently there must be some survivors :o). The truth is, it was a time in Europe of relative silence as far as written records are concerned; dark because it is mostly unknown--a prolonged, dim, mysterious phase in European history. I see no problem with the term "Dark Ages" when referring to the early Middle Ages--that time between the light of the ancients (when knowledge was shared by all the known World and gathered in the Great Library of Alexandria) and the dawning of the European Renaissance. Carl Sagan, in Cosmos, expressed real despair for the destruction of the Alexandrian library (3rd or 4th Century AD?). What part, if any, did this loss have on the darkening of Europe? Indeed, what effect did it have on the world today? Sagan seems mainly to blame the Church for the ensuing depths of ignorance and suppression of scientific progress. If thinkers were allowed to air freely their beliefs and discoveries, the iron hand of the Church might be weakened. As a result, whatever was written was monitored for any thoughts contrary to the beliefs decreed by the pope (who could not be wrong in any way). In defense of some associated with the Church, Thomas Cahill contends in his book How the Irish Saved Civilization, that following the fall of Rome, Irish monks, tucked away in an inconspicuous corner of a small island, quietly and conscientiously occupied themselves by copying every book they could get their hands on, thereby preserving many of the ancient works still extant so that when the time came, they were available once more to the World. It is amazing to consider how events of the past shaped the world of today. How will the actions and choices made today help shape the world of tomorrow? But therein lies a whole other topic.

@3onthetree said "Love the attitude too, of "we're open to changes that get the best result." The checkbook usually is the judge and jury, but always good to think about stuff." --I have strong ideas, weakly held. I know what I like, and come up with lots of suggestions, what if this, what if that? Everyone on the team has been explicitly told to push back on these and tell me which ideas are bad, too expensive, etc. and offer up better solutions. We're we very interested in having steel I-beams suspended across the family area, but the cost, complexity, and mass are too high, so we're going to use box beams, possibly metal clad. "I'd probably check on that existing balcony structure. If it's a pole barn frame, then the balcony may only have a ledger and those brackets holding it up, rather than cantilevered." --Nice intuition. The balcony is supported by very large L shaped wooden beams. Too expensive to replace with cantilever, but we're going to reduce the visual mass by using steel angle iron and plates. " The entry is tall, vaulted and skinny. I might try to re-orient the Powder block to give a better proportion of vertical space..... Seeing through from the Foyer all the way to the Laundry door may not be the best view, maybe move the door and the skylight at the end draws your eye." --We will have an interior door at the end of the hall so you don't see the laundry room, and make that section of house more private. Reorienting the power room doesn't work. My office entry is in the hall in the entry, and moving it to the interior hall doesn't feel right to me. "Wine display/bar, which should be the "WOW." I like @Hannah Wolfson idea of moving the bar here. A groin vault ceiling, with brick groins (the 'ribs'). It's kind of a purposeful "ante-room" to the Living and turning into the Master Suite. So the essence of Napa with wine, brick, and vaults right away, then with glass in hand move forward to the . . . ." --Brick is out. We're very modern inside. Moving the wine display elsewhere is under consideration. "Maybe visual straight out the window to the pool area/fountain". --The pool is to be centered out from the kitchen/family room currently, not the dining area. "Why do you have a 9' flat ceiling in the Living?" Excellent question: that's the current ceiling. This was heavily discussed over the past week. The option was to slope from 9' to 12' into the family area. The view from all was that flat was more modern: "The only good angle is a right angle." (Yes, I know there are angled walls into the master bedroom--the architects are reviewing for alternatives). " - What is the A/V along the wide hallway next to Theater Room? Can the Theater access with double doors into this hall? With a snack/beverage counter, or room for retro arcade games? A nice barrel vault ceiling?" --Not really AV. Just a temp label (Sorry, Mark). The entry to the HT has to be in the rear, not the side, for the best acoustical performance (and for the WOW factor when you enter and find yourself inside a Star Wars Death Star hanger deck).. Snack/beverage counter, arcade does not go with our 'look'. Spare, modern. "Have you done elevation studies? I see a lot of 'punched' openings creating a standard rhythm on each side." The upstairs window locations are under review this week.