Thank you for your patience as I try to carve out time to work on the house in bits and pieces. I reworked the design and incorporated many suggestions. Here’s how it turned out: Now to address your questions: - Our timeline to build is ASAP. We are trying to crank out the floor plans as quickly as possible without sacrificing good design. It would be wonderful to have the house built by the end of next summer, but at this point that sounds overly optimistic to me, even for a modular. - We won’t be finishing any of the attic space. - I created a floor plan for the ground level. Due to flood regulations, we are only allowed to have breakaway walls on the ground floor, and it can’t be a fully finished living space like upstairs (i.e. no drywall). Any items stored on the ground level are not covered by flood insurance, so we don’t want anything pricey down there. I am struggling with how to handle the main entrance. The front door is under the deck, and once you enter it’s about a 23 ft walk to the stairs going up to the main house. How can I make it feel like an actual entryway and not like you’re walking through someone’s garage? - We are waiting to hear back from the builder about our elevator size/shape options. - I’m showing king beds in all the rooms to help with window placement and give a sense of scale to the drawings. It’s likely that most, if not all, of the rooms will have two twin beds pushed together (with something in the middle to make a smooth surface?) to make a king, at least during the first few years before we’d consider bunk beds for future grandkids. That way we’ll have flexibility when non-couples are sharing a room. I am trying to figure out the rest of the furniture placement as well and would appreciate any input. - Love the idea of a kids’ bunk room! Since there’s only one infant grandchild so far, we’ll hold off on bunks for now. But it’s good to keep in mind that they would fit well and could be added at a later date. - We laid out the proposed master bedroom in my parents’ current bedroom, and they are happy with its size. - I combined the utility rooms into a single space with both furnaces and the tankless water heater, although it looks a little snug to me. We’re waiting to hear back from the builder about the feasibility of having the ductwork for both furnaces in the same room. My dad says the tankless water heater needs to be on an outside wall. - My parents say they don’t want a second washer/dryer set. They want to get side by side front loaders. - The ADA bathroom is also the public bathroom on the top floor. No one currently needs ADA facilities, but we are designing it that way to future-proof since my parents are retiring there. The bathroom has a transfer shower. It is small, but it is ADA. It’s possible that grandma might move in, but far from definite. If she did move in, there are no privacy issues with her sharing a bathroom. She currently does not have any personal belongings stored in the bathroom at her house because there isn’t any storage space. She’s very set in her ways and likely wouldn’t change that even if her bathroom were suddenly three times as big. She could probably fit all of her personal belongings in bedroom #2 with plenty of room to spare (not exaggerating!), so while I’d like some more closet space in there, it’s not essential. If grandma doesn’t move in, bedroom #2 would function as another guest room. - The office and lounge are now both off the deck, so the communal areas of that floor are clustered together. I also added another bathroom so each downstairs bedroom now has its own, and there’s a public half bath with a closet that could be replaced by a shower in the future if desired. - We are avoiding putting closets in the office and lounge so they aren’t taxed as additional bedrooms. As far as I know, there is no code restriction on the number of bedrooms the house can have. - Great point about the disadvantages of having lots of windows in the theater. We changed the location to gain more space and are also using it as a lounge when the tv isn’t on. We plan on having heavy curtains drawn across the windows for movies, though I’d imagine those would mostly be at night anyway. I love Jillius’s suggestion to have bar seating along the couch! - It would be great to have some sort of game area for ping pong or foosball, but there just isn’t room for it in the lounge. It might work for the outdoor living area under the house (though anything stored at ground level isn’t covered by homeowners insurance). - My parents don’t want a dishwasher in the lounge. I agree that it probably wouldn’t be used. People will mostly be eating snack food straight from the packaging (classy, I know :). - I forgot to add a 3’x3’ audiovisual equipment rack to the lounge and need to find a home for it. Hubby is an audiovisual professional and will go to town setting this room up. - The western light coming into the living room shouldn’t be an issue because there is a house next door mostly blocking it, but also because we aren’t planning on having a tv in there. - I really like the idea of a 48” wide dining room table, but is there really enough room for 2 people on each end? Don’t their knees hit the person next to them on the side of the table? Where would you find an 8 ft long table that wide? - So far the only places I have found 8 ft long extending dining room tables are Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware, and they are mostly 42” wide. Does anyone have any other sources? angela12345, where did you get your table? - My mom is short, so the microwave in the kitchen can’t be above counter height for her to use it comfortably. My parents don’t want a microwave drawer, and I think a below counter regular microwave sounds awfully inconvenient (though I’ve never had one). I imagine lots of bending to check on the item being heated and to view the display and buttons as you’re pressing them. So I’m thinking a microwave at counter height would be best, preferably hidden by some sort of cabinetry. - I am not concerned about having the fridge and wall ovens next to each other. I have double wall ovens in my kitchen, and while they put lots of heat out front, the sides of the ovens are just barely warm to the touch when they are on full blast. Has anyone experienced otherwise? - I am concerned about the wall ovens putting out enough heat to make it uncomfortable to work in the prep sink area in front of the windows while they are on. But I’d rather avoid under counter ovens because of all the bending and heavy lifting that would be particularly troublesome for my parents as they age. - I am not a fan of sinks in islands that are not centered. Aesthetically they just look out of place to me. I’m really hoping to make the kitchen design work with the main sink centered in the island. - I really like Jillius’s suggestion of an arch over the rangetop to echo the curved island, though I’m not really sure how to incorporate it into the design or represent it on the plans. I’m totally new to kitchen design (and house design, for that matter!). I'm currently using AutoCAD. Is there different software I should be using for kitchen elevations? - How does the kitchen design look to you? I’m having a hard time picturing the prep area under the windows and if it will look out of place with the rangetop and cabinet run on that wall. I’m not very familiar with appliance garages and don’t know how well they will work here. I’m also concerned about having enough cabinet space since there are hardly any uppers. How does the work flow look? Many thanks! beach_house

There certainly are lots of species popping up that were never there before - including what looks like a grevillea species that's just started to appear. There's a guy from the council who's been helping people with advice on revegetation & I've heard he's gotten really excited by some of the plants that are appearing. He's got a blog with pictures of some of what he's found in his work - I'll attach the link for anyone who's interested. http://notechis.blogspot.com/

Oh my goodness aruzinsky, apparently I've offended you - you're so upset you published your objections twice. Seriously, though, "people like me?" I'm not presuming to "speak" for anyone - simply using the word we in a general sense, like "we take care of plants," or "we work hard;" like a chemist might say of him/her self and others in the same profession, "we do experiments to learn about the effects of chemical substances." In that sense, "we" aren't likely to talk about eradicating insects, because eradicating is defined as "to get rid of completely," and "we" know that is impossible, and control is the best "we" can do. As in the article you site, where the researchers repeatedly use the word "control." However, to be more precise, "we," be we growers, plantcare companies, or even retail stores, generally just talk about "killing" mites, and what products and processes kill them best. If people want to use chemical controls, fine by me. I thought all the discussions of chemicals might be a little off-putting for some people, so I merely wanted to throw in my experience of success using a simple, inexpensive, easy to acquire, and safe treatment. I don't think it's a "fault in my thinking" to say I never observed damage to a plant. The point with interior landscaping is not to grow plants as big as they can be, but to keep them looking beautiful. Spots, discolorations, stunted leaves, and so on, would not be beautiful, and these things I did not see. Some of these plants were in my care for several years, and did not show any negative effects. Informal observation has value, too. After all, I don't need to conduct detailed astronomical observations to be able to say with reasonable certainty that the sun will come up tomorrow. Spider mites, as well as other pests commonly found on indoor plants, are a fact of life. (Of course, if you live in an area where the winter temperatures are regularly below freezing, you're not going to be seeing bugs floating in from outside. Thanks for clarifying that.) That doesn't change the fact that they do float around when temps are warm, and they can infect anyone's plants at any time. Some people might appreciate knowing they have alternatives other than chemical insecticides for dealing with them, call it what you will - eradicate, exterminate, eliminate, extirpate - the point is to get the little buggers off your plants.

You have all been tremendously helpful, and I really can't thank you enough. I probably shouldn't admit this to plant lovers but this is one area of the new house build that I had really hoped I could just turn over to the landscape architect and not delve into too deeply myself. Clearly I do need to dig in and learn more about my plants, especially for this area, and I really appreciate the help in getting me started. I've gone down the internet rabbit hole on what exactly is the difference between a tree and shrub. Before this I probably would have said shrub = shorter than me, tree = taller than me, and that's why we've always said trees for that spot. In reality, I think want things that are in the gray area between tree and shrub height. I'm going to do some measuring and looking at roof heights on the plans for a sense of scale and go from there. We want a tree "look," but definitely not 30'. I plan to make a spreadsheet of the options suggested here and see what works best. I may have more questions. Again, thank you!