A two story would be cheaper and would be a much more pleasant existence. Having 3' to the property line is barely enough to have a walkway to the rear. It's really really claustrophobic. And unattractive. My first house was on a 50' wide city lot and it was 30' wide, with 10' to each side. The drive was allowed to be on the lot line and it led to a rear separate garage. This worked really well, as the house itself could occupy the width of the allowable setback without worrrying about a garage. I was in the old neighborhood recently and subsequent owners had converted the garage to a one car and the second bay was a poolhouse for the pool that they built. They had also popped out a dormer for the 1/2 story attic upstairs and what had been a 900 foot starter home was now probably a 1500 foot urban gem. It almost made me wish I had never sold it! (But then I remembered the crime wave that the neighborhood went through before it started being gentrified.) With a 53x100 lot, you could easily do something similar, with a drive to a rear garage that could be linked to the main house by a breezeway. The garage could even be a secondary construction at a later time to make the plan more affordable. The courtyard area between the two structures can be a charming jewel type garden/patio area. And the full two story structure can provide all of the needed living space without occupying 90% of the lot----which I think is a very unappealing look for a home.

I just found your blog while doing my initial research on pool builder (found it in your Yelp review). I loved reading about your experience and seeing the pics along the way! Thank you so much for the wonderful insight. I have to say that your pool installation has made me so excited to pull the trigger on our own, and now when I need a break at work, I go to your blog -- my new "Happy Place".

Hi Mike, thanks for that encouragement. I wasn't expecting to be able to produce fruit from this tree during the winter months. My first goal would just be to get a single lemon, maybe next summer, maybe the summer after that. I'm patient. The blossoms are wonderful and even just having them bloom is enough to make me happy at this point. I just want to make sure the plant is happy as well. I don't believe it has been warm enough outdoors yet to put this outside. I live in the Canadian maritimes and it's often windy and cool up here. It will be getting quite warm soon but it's only April still. Soon as it's at least room temperature outside, perhaps then is a good time to consider bringing it outside during the day? I have a cold frame I built onto the southwest face of my house where I'm growing my vegetable starts (tomato, pepper, eggplant, etc.). I just stuck it in there today and so far so good. It's about 70% humidity in there. But it still gets down to the single digits (Celsius) at night even though I cover the frame with a couple blankets. Hoping that isn't too cool for the citrus; I might bring it inside at night for the time being. It receives a minimum of 8 hours of sun. I still need to find a good liquid fertilizer. Do I have vinegar... well, sure, I've got white and apple cider in my kitchen. Is that useful for citrus trees? I'm not sure what kind of soil it came with but I can see perlite and the odd wood shaving... It looks fairly coarse. I'm not sure why it took so long to dry out the first time but I'll keep an eye on it.

I came to this forum from kitchens where I spent a large partt of my life for a while. My kitchen planning got stopped cold by an injury and then restarted with some different ideas. I tested them and reworked and retested until I was pretty comfortable I had the best possible for my situation and limitations. I held my breath and posted my plan. I asked for thoughts on one specific part but got a lot of challenges in general. I could get upset or defensive, but I realized I had an answer for why each of those things was in the plan as it was and I didn't want to change it. I got reassurance on my one question, and then I knew I was ready to move forward. You have to test your ideas. That is the least expensive and most important part of the process whether you are building or remodeling. Changes only get more expensive and when you cant change, regrets may be forever. Those hard feelings are likely to be much greater than any you may get over a "this is the biggest investment we will ever make and where we plan to live forever - we get once chance to make it great, so I'm sure you can appreciate that we want a double check from someone who hasn't been too close to this." Consider that the family member may feel the same away about giving you feedback, criticism or questioning the things you say you want. Guarding each other's feelings is the best recipe for unhappiness for both of you. Ask any first year law student about the number of family matters in their case books. If you can't question a family member or get a second opinion now, it will only get worse once you start. If your family member is worth their salt, they will understand and will want you to get the best possible result. Ask the second architect to do a reality check for how this will live and spot problems, not do a redesign. Just make it a team approach moving toward a common goal, not adversarial. If you can't do that now, I'd scrap the project. Seriously -- this is a huge investment of time, money and self. Can you really afford, financially, emotionally and in terms of family relationships to not be happy when it is all done? Now is the time to test nerves, bang heads and check and recheck plans -- not once the work has started.