Thanks everyone- I think I have decided not to grout, because I kind of like it the way it is too. I can't wait until spring comes, so I can put it outside and see what the sun hitting it looks like. Is there a recommended spray I should coat it with for weather protection that won't dull the look? Or is it ok to leave it alone?

Hi all,Good Morning! I see that a lot of you haven't received your books yet, is no problem to wait, lets give it the rest of the week for everyones books to arrive. After all the first lesson involves the book LOL. So everyone who signed up, once you all get your books, pop in on this post and let me know when you get your book then hopefully we will start on Friday or Saturday of this coming week. Woodpat, glad to have you join us. This will be a casual and very easy exercise, I am hoping to have lots of thoughts going back and forth between everyone participating in this.

Four kids and no place for them to play indoors except their bedrooms or in the smallish living room??? And while you may not feel the need for privacy outside of your bedroom, when your kids get to be teenagers, they probably will. There is no place in your house where a teen could entertain a friend and not be right under Mom and Dad's nose EXCEPT to take the friend to their bedroom...which they might have to be sharing with a sibling. I know I'm old-fashioned but I'm still uncomfortable with the idea of tee- aged boys/girls taking friends of the opposite sex into their bedrooms - but I'm smart enough to know that teens need to feel like they can at least have a private conversation with their latest crush or even just work on homework and complain about their teachers without Mom and Dad automatically hearing every word. When I was a kid, I took my friends into the kitchen if Mom wasn't cooking or if she was getting a meal together and I had a friend over, she and Dad would retire to the kitchen together and let me and my friend have the use of the living room. With today's open floor plans, that doesn't work too well. So, IMHO, families with kids need some sort of secondary "living area" - whether that is a den or a library or a play room or an "owner's retreat" in the master bedroom, there needs to be some place where kids and adults can each have a little bit of privacy. I understand that you're on a budget so I'm hard pressed to understand why you would decide to have that two story living room. That second story space would be very cheap useable living space if you gave up the idea of a vaulting ceiling in the living room. Besides, having a two story ceiling in such a small room is probably going to turn it into echo chamber anyway. The vaulted ceiling is going to make the room taller than it is wide or long. It is probably going to wind up feel like you're sitting at the bottom of a well in there. Plus there are all the problems with keeping a two-story room at a comfortable temperature etc. If you want a somewhat higher ceiling in the living room, consider raising the roof in that room by 12 inches then put two step going up from the upstairs hallway into the room over the living room. Even if the main part of the ceiling in room upstairs room is just 7 ft high, it will still serve quite nicely as play space for the kiddos and could even be pressed into service as an extra bedroom if 4 kids should someday become 5...or if grandparents come to visit. While you may not like reach-in closets, they are MUCH more space efficient than walk-in closets. Especially given that the corners of walk in closets (where two bars meet at an L) are pretty much useless. You can only hang things on one of the two bars and those items hung in the corners are hidden by things hanging on the other bar and therefore seldom get found to be worn. When one is on a tight budget and building a smaller home, one NEEDS to be space efficient. In the same space where you have two "walk-in" closets upstairs (each with probably less than 6 linear feet of truly useable space each) you could have two back to back reach-in closets with 7 ft of useable space each PLUS a reasonably nice-sized 2 ft deep hallway linen closet. Doing that would then also allow you to basically flip the bathroom horizontally so that the closet space that now serves the bedroom in the back right side of the house could be used for a closet for the office instead. That way it really can BE a bedroom and you wouldn't have to cheat and call it an office because it has no closet. You could then rearrange the upstairs bathroom to make it more user friendly for 4 kids. Right now, if someone is in the tub (which is typically the bathroom function that takes the longest amount of time) and wants any privacy, no one else can use any other portion of the bathroom. With 4 kids, it would be GREAT if you could have separate rooms for bathtub, toilet, and sinks but I don't think you have the room for that. However, I do think you have room to create a larger more user friendly sink area and a separate room for the tub and toilet. Lots of kids are willing to share the bathroom while they brush teeth, comb hair, etc - but even then, they need room around the sinks for their toothbrushes, hair curlers, etc. The sketch below is rough because your images are too small to see the dimensions and when I magnify them to maximum extent, they're a bit fuzzy when translated to my paint program. But I think if you did something like shown, one child could be bathing and/or using the toilet while two others are using the sinks. Note that I recommend pocket doors for the kid's bath because that way you don't have to deal with swinging doors. Having vanities on two sides of the bathroom gives everybody a bit more space around his/her sink. Depending on the genders of your 4, girls could have one side and boys the other. As for downstairs, I agree that the master closet and masterbath need major reworking. YOU and your spouse may be perfectly satisfied with 3 feet of useable closet space each but if/when you want to sell this house, no potential buyer is going to be satisfied with that! That master closet would be a total deal breaker for me...and I'm not even a huge clothes horse. But I do want more space than THAT! Also, as another poster has already pointed out, there isn't enough space in front of the toilet and the two vanity sinks are too close together leaving you no room for storing anything. In fact, hardly room enough to set an electric toothbrush and a razor. And, that back "hallway" is a disaster. Too many doors opening into way too little space. The laundry room size is fine as is the powder room...but getting to/from them is not. I would shrink the master bedroom and start over on designing that space. Wish I had suggestions for making it all fit, but I really don't. Maybe someone else can chime in. I'm just afraid that if you build this house as it is currently designed you are going to be very unhappy with the results.

I like tops longer then my waist, but not tunic tops. I am short and it is a really unflattering look. I like tops that are about 5-6 inches below my waist with the sides slit a couple of inches. And not too tight, but not baggy either. I absolutely hate the 'maternity' top look. When is it going to change? Don't get me going on the tops young women wear especially the plus size ones. If you got the figure, flaunt it but please don't exposure all those rolls of fat. I saw a young woman at Costco the other day, both DH and I thought we were going to lose lunch. She had on a spaghetti strap tank top. It was about 2 or 3 sizes too small. I don't think she realized how truly bad she looked. Her boobies were falling out of the front AND sides. She had rolls and rolls of fat hanging out all over the low cut jeans. The way she acted I think she thought she was sexy. She had no clue, I felt so sorry for her. Clare