very good idea to plant beneficial plants!! that's the smartest idea i've heard from anyone!! (no offense!! LOL) especially looking at my squash/blister bugs i see out there now!! they are soooo bad sometimes!! and they love my tomato's. but if you plant basil with your tomato's and marigold with your tomato's you won't have that, i did that out back and i don't have that problem, i forgot to upfront, guess who is my regular visitor???? **very pathetic sigh LOL** but i'm slowly getting back on track again!! LOL http://www.humeseeds.com/comp1.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companion_plants http://www.gardenguides.com/how-to/tipstechniques/vegetables/vcomp.asp here are some of the companion plant guides i use, or look at, LOL hope that they help you. ummmm.....i didn't use them in the front garden and as you notice, i have the problem, my back garden is a mess as far as the grass is concerned, but as far as the bugs, only dragonflies, and ladybugs. so ya, id' say it works!! LOL i planted LOTS of marigold and nicotiana and snapdragon though. LOL ~Medo ohhhhh and by the way, your plan looks awesome!! i agree with the succession as far as the lettuce, but the spinach, man i'd just freeze what ya didn't eat, that stuff is awesome!! :')) ~Medo

Thanks to all who posted. Looks like I need to clean up the floor plan to facilitate your review and feed back. Please hold your comments until the plan is easier to read. bigkahuna, I agree about the island. I was considering reducing the size of the slider in the kitchen from 8' to 6' to give me 2' more room for my countertop, and to allow me to then add another 2' to the island. The Mbth size looks like it's big enough that I should be able to fit everything I need, as long as I get the layout right. I mean, it's not cavernous, but it's not tiny, either. Thanks again!

I understand what you are trying to do with the 4 foot increments; however in real life they mostly don't work out that way because you have to account for the dimensions of the layers, such as drywall, finish trim, siding/brick/stone, etc. So it's important not to go OVER your increment, but it's very likely you will go slightly under most places, or else you will end up with slightly over on external surfaces. If you are planning for certain siding lengths on the exterior then this can put you into small pieces, etc. On the interior: depending on how you cover your windows, there may be space lost due to window coverings out into the room. For example, if you use curtains (and curtains are an energy saving layer at night when drawn during cold weather), they typically use up at least six inches into the room off the wall. So a window over a dresser will use up your dresser top with curtain overhang, etc. Or if the curtains go to the floor then you would have to pull your dresser out 6-8 inches from the wall. Likewise for the desk in your second bedroom. Don't forget this same concept with your barn door, too. You will have to pull furniture out 6-9 inches for the door to clear behind any furniture pieces. Right now you have furniture pieces in the track of your barn door, in the drawing. It's also very awkward to have a piece of furniture partially covered by a window, as it looks your master night stands will be. Much better to have pure wall behind them, or all window, but not in between - it will not look right visually. Remember that your birdseye view shows only the window width. You then have to visually account for more width due to casing/trim and then a few more inches still if you hang curtains and have the rod wider than the casing. Allow about six inches between the bed and a night stand, too. That six inch gap is the perfect place for an outlet bedside. But you also just need it for space. If you have a seating corner in the master bedroom, you will likely sometimes read while sitting there. Therefore you need real estate to put a desk lamp or floor lamp, for lighting. Next up to think about: lighting (and where the controls will be) for the dining and living rooms. This is more of a challenge than it first looks, because you need most your light coming from above in this over-sized single space. Normally you get a good chunk of light bounced off the walls in smaller rooms, but in the case of huge rooms then your light has to come from above and be adequate without being piercing to the eyes. You'll want at least two carefully placed floor outlets in the living room. You'll want to locate your dining table light fixture carefully so it ends up over the table correctly. We did a chandelier type fixture centered over the table, and then two down pointing cans, one on either side of the chandelier. In our case, the chandelier has frosted type glass and the bulbs in the glass pointing UP. It does a great job of washing the ceiling with light, but the table is muffled and rather dark. So we needed down light as well to increase the intensity of light on the table, which you want so you can see well when you are eating, and to highlight table decor. One thing you can do in the living room is plan wall sconces along the available walls that will wash the walls with light both upwards and downwards. Another approach is to place some ceiling can lights near walls, such that their light cones then hit and wash down the wall (if you don't want to have sconces on the walls) Otherwise the room will tend to look dark during non daylight times. Don't underestimate how lit walls will make the atmosphere inviting and cheerful, whereas non-lit walls, even with good ceiling light, tend to make a space dreary. Another great option is to use carefully planned LED strips up against the wall or ceiling, to make a light wash, similar to above cabinet lighting. These concepts do not have to be expensive to do or energy hogs, either, if done carefully. In our bedrooms we used wall mounted two x 4 foot fluorescent t8 fixtures, mounted horizontally on the wall up high. We then put up a curtain rod and valence/cornice to cover the fixture. Light washes the wall and ceiling from the top bulb, and washes down the wall from the bottom bulb, but does NOT glare into your eyes, due to the valence/cornice. Very cheap to do, very inexpensive energy-wise for the amount of light you get, very cheap parts to replace. Lighting is one area where you can EAT IT in your budget if you don't plan carefully, both in buying fixtures and in energy consumption. The three big challenges of "open concept" spaces are furniture placement in the absence of walls, lighting, and electrical outlet placement. (With a two story house you have another: infrastructure placement such as heating ducts and plumbing lines to reach the second floor, but this doesn't apply in your one-story house case.) Don't forget there are in-between models, too, to open concept. Half walls maintain the visual feel of open concept, but also allow for furniture placement against a (half) wall and outlets placed in (half) walls. One thing we did was put cased openings (like glassless windows between rooms) in the wall between our den and dining room. This was intermediate between a wall and open concept. It gave us the wall space we needed for furniture placement and in-wall infrastructure (ducts, etc.) but still gave visual sense of openness between the two rooms. It was a great balance for us. I'm not seeing glaring wasted space. There are a few pockets of space that are just... space. Like the chunk outside the entrance door to the master bathroom. There's a chunk in the guest bedroom. You'll want to trim the size of the shower in the master back into that niche and not bring it the whole size of the niche. This will cost much less to build, be MUCH more friendly to clean and maintain, and give you a chunk of "in-niche" space outside the shower where you can have your ceiling ventilation fan mounted (in our case we mounted two heat lamps on either side of the fan in that niche, but they are on separate control so we don't burn energy using them unless we are chilled). You have very generous spaces in general but not that much wasted space; part of it will be how you use the space and arrange stuff in it. One more thought: if you are a pet person, then plan for real estate for feeding, food storage, bed/crate, toy storage, litter box, etc. And a cabinet or drawer for pet related stuff (grooming brushes, treats, etc.) This post was edited by beautybutdebtfree on Wed, Jul 30, 14 at 22:59

if your doors are frame and panel construction the panel must be allowed to float freely in the frame. It will expand and contract with seasonal humidity changes much more than the frame. You probably want to paint in the dry season when the panel is contracted so that it doesn't then shrink further and show an unpainted stripe. If you seal the panel to the frame the wood *will* move and something will give--you can hope for the paint or caulk bond, but it's also possible that the panel will split. When making new doors it's much better to finish the panel before installing it in the frame, but that's not usually an option in refinishing. Just try to not let too much paint gather in the rabbet that holds the panel.