quirky, don't lose faith yet. About 1/8th of my current lawn was common bermuda grass 2 years ago that spread from my neighbor's lawn. It's all bluegrass today, and since the roundup attack of 2 years ago, not one bermuda has returned. The lawn was sprayed by a Landscaping company, then after it died, I completely destroyed the roots system with a roto tiller. I wish I would have taken pictures of it them, because I know that seeing is believing. Having said that, I constantly have to patrol the areas adjacent to my neighbor's bermuda lawn. To matters worst, my neighbor is the type of guy that will let his bermuda grow to about 4 inches tall, seeds out like son of gun because it's a commong type, then chops it down to an inch leaving bermuda sticks and dirt. Then a couple of weeks later the cycle repeats. I have a plan, next spring when the bermuda starts to come out of dormancy, I'm going to spray Turflon at night to make sure stays a sleep a little longer:-)

God knows how to do his things. My heart goes out to you. We also wanted to build and we have been debating for the last couple of months. People that knows about economy and real estate advised us to get something already built. I was working on the plans (lots of work) and meanwhile I started to look in case I found something. Turns out I found a lovely place with the perfect size for DH and I (when I almost give up) and today we put an offer (35,000 below the asking price) they called us with a counteroffer (20,000 below asking price) we then offered 30,000 below asking price and asked 3 items that I fell in love with when we went to see the place: a big mirror, a set of 3 paintings (I was worried I had to fix 3 holes on the wall) and a desk, all the items were designer selected items - I know who the interior designer was. They called back saying that we got the set of paintings and the desk. Not the mirror because it was too expensive. I told the realtor NO. With the mirror or no deal and you have 1 hour or we will move on - What I actually wanted was building - she called back and said congratulations. I felt a little bit bad about the mirror (I have a problem of guilty conscience)but I am thinking that I also gave up my dream to build our house and the lady had troubles trying to sell the house and in just 2 days from start to finish she sold it. I know she did not loose money. (the idea of asking for some items was from the realtor - I never heard of that, she said that people is doing that more and more and that she had a client that went o se a house and said, I offer full price with everything in it!!! and he got it!!! :) Could you find a bid with a fixed price and no allowances (allowances scare me)? you have to chose everything in advance without going overboard and maybe you can find a builder that can do the work below your current price and level up the extra expense that you had with the dirt. Could you be your own general contractor? We have built 2 houses before and we were our own GC. What we did, we went to areas with nice constructions going on and got a lot of subcontractors names and phone #s. I also got a lot of names from a catalog that we got from the showcase of homes (all the builders listed their subs) and that is how we found good subcontractors with good reputattion. we asked 3 bids on each item or trade and most of the times went with the middle priced one. We saves some money but the best thing was, we used good materials and not "builder" grade ones. It is a lot of work but it is worth it. I just feel that if there is something that can be done, why not? Good luck!

I have had good luck on grassy sod using the modified lasagna method. I only used what I had on hand: A layer of very wet newspapers (several thicknesses), a layer of old alfalfa hay and some straw. During the winter I would lift a section and layer in my kitchen waste which was mostly coffee grounds and egg shells with some green stuff. By spring (did this in the fall) I could dig in the sod with my hands by lifting the mulch and then planting. I only did this with roses and tomato plants and some daylilies. I didn't use it for seeds. Of course I don't have hard pan or clayey soil or even very rocky ground....I lucked out in that department. It has been several years ago and I now need to layer some flakes of the old hay back in place again just to keep things neat. If you have access to more organic matter such as grass clippings and manure that will speed up the process. You could also first plant a green manure crop shallowly and then begin layering right over it. once it gets some size. Good luck. I am curious why you want to go so deep?

I think I would make a design that has walls on the office as well. An office is not something that I consider a space that is pretty to look at and can get messy so having it in view of the public areas would bother me. The other part is what if you're on the phone do you want the noise from all the other areas to be transferring to your phone call? Say someone running the garbage disposal in the kitchen or TV noises from the living room, or just conversations, screaming children, barking dogs, etc. Not sure of your house make up, but there are plenty of sources of noise in a house. I work from home twice a week and having a place to go and close the door is very useful when others are around and especially when in meetings where I can have my phone on speaker and also work at the same time. This way I'm not disturbing others either and others can't hear what is being said either unless they stand outside the door and listen in of course.