Thanks for the help all. This is all great advice. beeone, the cutoff drain you refer to is how i found the bedrock! I am still putting this drain in for the heavy rains. I'll state a few things I neglected to post originally. Im just an aspiring home orchardist, so the only beneficiaries of the fruit are my drive for variety, my family, and my daughters school for whatever we do not eat so no pressure for maximum yield. Ok. So heres the plan. Against better advice im still going to keep my 10x15 spacing with agressive summer pruning so I can keep my variety selection as broad as possible. Im goin to go with either M7 or M111 because of the heartyness of the tree and their ability to heal. I guess ill probably mix the two to see which does better. We get lots of wind here as well. So, to assist with the wind issue im goin to plant two windward windbreak hedges. Type unknown at this point. Poplar perhaps? I will not raise the planting area, and will instead take my neighbors free soil to create raised bed planting rows of about 12"hx6'w. I plan on mulching the each rows and will use pea gravel between rows. I will also finish my french drain project to cutoff ground water after heavy rains. Oh, I forgot to mention that I already have irrigation in the area I wish to plant. Im going to steal three zones of my sprinkler system and convert to drip so drought will not be much of an issue. PSHEW! All this for a handfull of trees! LOL. Any comments welcome. Thanks again everyone for your experience! Cheers Sub

Nancy and Others: I have also been researching what to replace my great room sliding glass doors with (one 6 ft wide and two 9 ft wide). Here it is, already December and I haven't made a decision! We bought the house in 06 and these are the orig that came with the house. I spent last winter stuffing kitchen towels in between the sliders with a spatula. Not the most attractive thing for the room company walks into. Originally, I thought of going with french doors but the prices quoted were so outrageous and since we don't plan on staying here more than 3 or 4 more years (as it is, we'd take a bath if we sold now with home prices as low as they are now and we wouldn't be able to get what we paid for it), I don't know if it would be wise to invest that much money. I'd been thinking of going the sliding door route once more. Someone above said french doors are tighter than sliders and thoughts of all those kitchen towels between the sliders last winter have me shifting back to french doors. I also want the blinds for the same reason you do....five dogs (3 pugs and 2 shi tzus). One thing I've learned talking to people at Home Depot and Lowes....the town I live in won't sign off on french doors that swing out. In the south, like Florida, they are preferred because of hurricanes pushing open doors that swing in, however, they are not permitted here. I assume it has something to do with snow and ice on the outside preventing exit in case of an emergency. I guess your posting was a couple of years ago so it may be too late to say to check with your building dept first. I'm curious to hear what you installed and how happy you are with it. Daisy

I'd like to see those layouts in 2-D with every aisle labeled...in particular the ones by the doors. Additionally, the dimensions around the pass-through. The last thing you need is to spend time & $$ and not really fix the narrow access problem. 2-D layout can give you more technical information that 3-Ds do not...even with that "person" in the pics (who looks cramped), the 2-Ds give us a better idea of what's really there. If the aisles all work and they're OK with moving the pass-through (it shouldn't affect the view too much since the window is quite wide in the direction of the stairs & hallway)...then these would also be considerations. If I had time to do it I would do it for you, but since JohnLiu already has them in his system, it should be pretty easy for him to produce them. Other considerations... Even Palimpsest says 6" - 7" of filler is necessary, not 4", so you need to add another 2" to 3" to the filler. Use the higher # for the "worse case scenario" so no plans are made with "best case", especially in this case of such a difficult space. Remember that an open DW door will stick out approx 27" into the aisle. Drawers, if full-extension, will stick out 22" or so. Remember to have sufficient "safety" around the range, especially if it's at a doorway, and particularly well-used/busy ones. Ideally 24", but with the limited space, I would try for at least 15". 15" should be sufficient space to keep handles over the counter and not hanging off into the aisle as well as not be as dangerous for people walking by for various reasons... (1) grease splatters/steam/smoke, etc., (2) walking by w/packages & elbows sticking out all over & bumping things on the range or knocking something off the counter and onto the range (you know what it's like when you come in w/your arms full for groceries or other paraphernalia), and (3) with a narrow aisle right there at the Mudroom door (at least it looks narrow in the 3-D view, but need 2-D w/labels to know) you don't want to force people to veer into the Cooking Zone to get around the wall run. With the bulk of the refrigerator right there at the pass-through, I highly recommend building it in to at least "pretty" that bulk up since it's going to be the first thing seen when you walk toward the kitchen from the LR & Front door and when you look in from the DR. Lastly, remember that whatever depth cabinet you have, you will also need to take into consideration the countertop overhang...usually 1-1/4" to 1-3/4" (I usually average it at 1-1/2"). So, a 24" cabinet will actually mean accounting for approx 25-1/2".

Ive lived in my house for 20 years and probably had a handful of times water would appear in the basement. I knew something also was wrong with a plumbing issue but couldn't afford to have someone do the work. Finally in 2007, I had my plumbing looked at and 15,000 dollars later my pipes were replaced and a new bathroom renovated. I mentioned to the plumbers about the random water in the basement where they were working and didn't see anything underground. I also had my driveway paved and made sure they slanted away from house and they put a drain to connect downstairs. Then I found my downstairs downspout was clogged and I found out I had an empty septic tank. I was running out of money so I hired a contractor do unplug the spouts and replace the pipe underground while he filled the abandoned septic. Then came the fall and the rain and after heavy rainfall the water flooded my basement. The brand new carpet that I finally could afford was soaked and it continued to run into my house for the next 5 hours. I was devastated and heartbroken. I went outside in pouring rain at midnight and dug a trench to get the water from my house. no problems in 2009 so I thought I did some good. Wrong I had my basement flood twice in 2010. the water outside the house is not higher than my base of house, the water comes up from undergroud through any little crack in cement floor. My kids and boyfriend have helped me soak the water up and been luck we were home at the time. But oh so tiring. So far I think we've saved the walls from mold. Anyway, my question is-if we dig a hole near the base of the house will the water go there instead of my basement is it something we can do ourselves? I am out of money and out of ideas and I've got to save my home. The basement is like a apartment and my two boys live down there. This house is all I have. oh my gosh sorry this is so long I guess I needed to vent. Ive talk to city officials plumbers and water guys but they are not sure where the water is coming from.