Since Don started this thread there has been a rethink/redo on the part of the AHS with respect to dwarf and miniature Hostas. A miniature Hosta is now classified as having a leaf size of The revised list Don did for miniatures and very small Hostas can be found at my website, Bob Axmear has moved the link to my site to his links page on the HL, that has made finding the lists more difficult. I suggest you redo your bookmark/favorite for the lists. Pieter

Hi Allison0704, I came across this thread while looking to see if you had posted other pics of your beautiful house. I read everyone raving about your kitchen and found those photos. It is absolutely beautiful! I can see why you are happy in your home. My job puts me in the middle of your type of situation, between the ARC and the homeowner. I manage an Association and their facilities in Georgia. Given that I have not read your governing documents, but having read your posts, I would say there were probably lots of mistakes made on behalf of the Association. I'm glad that you have worked things out to your satisfaction. Unfortunately, volunteer homeowners, whether on the ARC or Board of Directors, are considered the "scum of the earth" by some residents. Seldom have I met any who is there for reasons other than the "good of the community." The more homeowners become involved with the running of the Association, PRIOR to the developer leaving, the better off your Association will be in the long run. Developers have total control until they turn operations over to the homeowner HOA. Those departure circumstances should be documented in the covenants. Usually, that will be upon reaching a certain number of years or when there is only a small percentage of properties unsold. I do not want to paint a broad brush of all developers, but some have been known to leave HOAs totally bankrupt. It can be a very difficult situation for the homeowner HOA, if you are not prepared and are surprised by what you find upon their departure. I wish you and your neighbors well. Again, I'm glad you worked things out and I will continue my search for photos of your beautiful home.

Not bad at all for someone who claims to know nothing about house design... When you say the exterior walls are set, does that mean you've already poured the foundation and built the shell. Kind of odd to start that before your plans are all set. But, maybe you're rebuilding on top of the foundation from a previous house or somehthing like that. So, here are a few suggestions to help you make it better. (I'm assuming the stairs can't be moved either since they were probably set when the foundation was done.) First thing, if you plan to hang clothing in your closets, all your reach in closets need to be two foot deep from interior wall to interior wall. The two foot measurement can't include 4 inches of wall on one side b/c then, your closet will only have 20 inches of space from wall to wall and you won't have room to hang clothes. So, bedroom #1 will need to be made a little smaller OR you need to take a few inches away from the living room or something. Same problem with the closet in the laundry room and the reach-in closet in the master bedroom. Next, your bathrooms are quite a bit bigger than they need to be. The bath by bedroom #1 has about 75 sq ft of floor space. Unless you are designing the bath for wheelchair access, 75 sq ft is about twice as big as a secondary bathroom needs to be. Maybe you really want huge bathrooms but, given how small that bedroom is, I'd suggest redesigning the bathroom to be smaller and giving the room that is "saved" back to the bedroom. If a bath doesn't need to have wheelchair access, you can fit a full sized tub, a toilet, and a 32" wide vanity into just 35 sq ft. 50 sq ft can be made accomodate a wheel-chair accessable bath if designed right. So, right now you have a lot of wasted space in the bathroom. Similarly, the back powder room that you've label "Jeff's Office" (LOL) is more than big enough to hold a full sized bath. A toilet and nice sized vanity will fit into a 5' x 5' space quite nicely. 5'x6' is a spacious powder room for a 2500 sq ft or smaller house. Then there is the size of the separate toilet room in the master bath. At 4'x 8', it is HUGE!!! Again, the only reason to do that is if you need to get a wheelchair in and out of that room. And, if that is the case, you'ld be better served not having a separated off toilet room. If it were me, I'd steal 3 feet from the side of each of the powderroom and toilet room to add to the back hallway (which I assume leads to your garage.) An extra 3 feet of width on the back hallway would make large enough to function as a really usefully sized mudroom. At 6ft wide, it is too wide for a hallway and not wide enough to be a mudroom. The vanity area of your master bath is also rather large. I think you could easily make it shallower - which is good since you need to make the reach-in closet wider and still have plenty of room for the hallway into the bedroom. Of course, that would probably mean that your 8' x 4' tile shower would have to be a little shorter but I don't think you realize just how BIG an 8'x4' shower is going to be. I have one that is 5' x 3.5' and I can tell you that it is PLENTY big enough for two not-so-small adults to shower together (blush). I think your kitchen design could also use a bit of tweaking. The space allocated for kitchen is fine but.... You have nothing to block the view of your kitchen sink from the front door. I don't know about you but I almost always have at least a few dirty dishes in the sink or sitting next to it. I would not want dirty dishes to be on display the minute guests walk into the the front door. I also am not a fan of cooktops on an island. While they look good in the magazines, having people sit right across from boiling pots strikes me as a recipe for disaster...especially if those people are children! I'd rather see the cooktop against a back wall and, if possible, OUT of the way of most kitchen traffic. Which brings me to the location of the fridge. It's good that you're thinking in terms of recessing the fridge somewhat. Modern fridges are ridiculously deep and stick out beyond traditional 2 ft countertops by as much as 12 to 16 inches. But, if you can find a way to do it, try to locate the fridge so it can be accessed from the main dining area without having to walk between the sink and stove. Children and guest who aren't cooking often access the fridge (for drinks and things) WHILE the chief cook is fixing dinner. It's better if they don't have to get in the cooks way to grab a soda. I'm also a bit concerned about the location of the pellet stove being so close to the top of the staircase. Thirty plus years ago, DH and I spent three winters in Maine living in a house heated with a woodstove and I was always thankful that it sat in a corner of the living room where we didn't have to walk next to it to get from one part of the house to another. That sucker got HOT! Maybe pellet stoves are more user friendly than our Franklin stove was but if not, I'd sure want to move that thing as far away from traffic flow patterns as possible. I certainly wouldn't want it right by the staircase. Finally, I'm guessing that you intended to put more windows in than you've shown. I like the fact that all of your main rooms have windows on two sides. That really lets the light in nicely. But, don't you want a window in each of your bathroom and your powder room? It looks as if your laundry room backs up against the garage so you won't be able to have a window there. Too bad. Natural light in the laundry room really helps make it a pleasanter place to work. Maybe if you revamped the master bath so it took up a bit less space, you could move the powderroom over next to the stairs with the pantry between it and the kitchen and then put the laundry against the outside wall (where the powderroom is now). That way the laundry could have a window. Of course if Jeff really spends lots of time in "Jeff's office", he might really want a window in there. Me, I'd give up the window in the PR in order to be able to have one in the laundry room. I know this looks like a lot of negative commentary but actually, most of it is just tweaking your plan a tiny bit. Hope some of this is helpful.

I always encourage people to not do a built-in bench and instead go for a teak-type of bench or stool. A moveable seat ic just that...moveable. You want it in, it;s in. You want it out, it's out. You want is under the shower head, across from the shower head...there it is. If you ever have any medical issues and need assisted bathing, built-in benches are the absolute worst from both the caregiver and the receiver's perspectives. Built-in bench dimensions? Figure on having the finished seating surface about 18" +/- above the finished floor. It's a personal thing, but even going up to 20" high is fine. Higher or lower depending on stature and comfort when getting up or sitting. The depth can be 16"-20" if it'll be for lounging, or 12"-16" if it'll be a foot prop and/or bottle storage and for an occasional rest. If able, my general recommendation is to have a minimum of 42" of floor space in front of the bench. That'll allow decent floor space for someone to shower while another is sitting on the bench. I personally prefer floating benches (open underneath) over built-in (with an enclosed front). Fold-down are an option, but there's usually a weight restriction. There are different ways to do it. A few years ago for a steam shower I built a floating teak bench top that had an open grate design. I built a couple of lugs into each sidewall of the shower, the teak bench top could be placed on the support lugs and you had a floating steam shower bench. When they weren't steaming, they either left the bench top in place, or they'd put it on the floor just outside the shower. There it would function as a teak "drying off platform". The bench top was also wide enough to span their tub and I detailed the bottom edge of the bench apron to nestle on the rim of the tub. They sometimes used it as a bath caddy when in the soaking tub. Different strokes.