What others are saying is correct--the breaker panel MUST be easily accessible. I advise against putting them in a closet--a lot of builders like to do that to hide the "ugly" box, but home inspectors and fire marshals hate it. It looks like the panel cover is one designed for boxes that stand out in the open, not recessed in the wall. If you look up the brand and model, you may be able to get a new cover, one designed for recessed installation (Instead of looking like a box lid, the edges go straight out to sit flush with the wall surface and cover the gap in the wall around the sides of the box.) If that's a fuse box, not a breaker panel, I highly recommend replacing it. If your jurisdiction permits it, and you can shut off power to it, you can replace it yourself easily for less than $200, including new breakers and a new panel. If you feel up to it ;) You can find numerous sources on the Internet to walk you through replacing a panel and making sure it's safe and up to code (which most older panels are not) As for the hump in the wall, I agree that you should try drilling into it to see what's behind it. It may be raceway for your electrical wiring--it's possible that your wall is cinder block or brick about halfway up, with wood framing on top.

"Just not sure how to prove the water penetration to the builder. I may have to bring in some professionals to test for moisture / water seepage...what should they do?" said Joe from the Hammer. You don't have to prove anything to the builder! Let alone hire outside professionals to buttress your case. Nor provide the builder with the fix. If you're unsatisfied with the builder's response, you must file a claim with TARION before your warranty expires. TARION inspects and decides. And even their initial decision can be appealed. As well, if you start applying useless and counterproductive remedies, the builder will claim to TARION that you are causing the problem. Builders depend on dragging such consumer complaints out past the deadline. Stop playing along.

Mary-- Thanks for the input. I don't understand what hopper windows are. Can you explain? I just rode my bike around our neighborhood trying to look for examples of double egress windows in the front and actually found one in a house that has a brick window box in the front just like ours. So, the situation was very similar. It didn't look too terrible. I agree that it isn't the window as much as the big hole in the ground that bothers me the most. The contractor has suggested a tiered planter look, and that has definitely been eliminated because those do look way too contemporary to fit in with our house. The other thing I noticed is that with a brick façade on the lower portion of our house the windows that look the best are the ones that are painted a color that blends right in with the brick rather than trying to coordinate with the regular trim color on the house.

Frank, We're in the same zone along the same coastline so my information may be of use to you. First let me break down what your conditions are and what you want to happen in winter, to wit: 1. Your plant is in the midst of being trained into some shape or the other. 2. It is in a big pot that you can not move inside when winter sets in. 3. You and the plant are in NYC. First, remember that unlike your typical bursera and other temperate trees that evolved in areas with four seasons, adeniums will not survive outside in winter, or sometimes not even spring and autumn. They start slowing down when night temperatures drop to 16C and will start dying when night temps drop below 10C. The stronger of these plants may linger until first frost but all will certainly drop dead after that. Adeniums also do not go truly dormant the way deciduous trees do in winter. They just slow way down to barely awake. Even leafless, you can see growth nubs developing and then failing. This means you can wake them up easily but it also means you do not have that true dormancy to take advantage of when you can put them in an unheated garage or a box outdoors somewhere. Having said that, adeniums do survive out of the pot for a really long time. I have done this to both seedlings, yearlings and adults. Their subsequent survival depends on the rate at which you reintroduce them to being repotted. In their desiccated state, especially if you kept them somewhere cold and dark (basement closet, in my case), you can't just plop them back into the pot, water them and put them outside. I had to wait for spring to put them back in the pot, measure their water in tablespoons, then introduce them to heat and ever so slowly, to light. The plants that I did not put through this careful process either died or took all summer before ever growing back leaves. By the time they developed a full head of leaves, it was also nearing the time for them to go back inside. So I stopped overwintering them out of the pot because the trouble the process demands in order to jumpstart growth and succeed is way more than I was willing to tolerate. Moreover, the plants you are planning to overwinter out of the pot are very stressed plants already--i.e. adjusting to being braided, twisted and what-not. If you add more stress to that by taking them out of the pot, you increase the risk of them not surviving. If I were in your place, I will move them right now to a smaller, more manageable pot that I can then move indoors in winter. One less thing to worry about. Also this way, they only need recover from a light winter sleep, with their roots intact in the pot, instead of having to recover from exposure, then readjusting to being back in the pot while also dealing with being braided, twisted, stretched, etc. Pagan