Thanks for your thoughts and comments! We are also downsizing from a traditional 4700 sq ft house (with formal living/dining) to 3600 sq ft with a great room design, so it is taking some getting used to, but we really wanted a house where we used every inch rather than having all these extra rooms we rarely used. Our old house was large, but didn't use the space the way I would use it--my laundry room was tiny (a closet really) and the bedrooms were large but the kids rooms had tiny closets. So, with this house, we made made sure the kids still had large rooms like they were used to and got larger closets and their own bathrooms to boot (my son doesn't really care, but my daughter is super excited to get her own bathroom and walk in closet :)). Once they move out, we'll have mini suites downstairs for guests. The kitchen/dining/living area is 41' long. Looks like we will be working with roughly the same area for those spaces. :) What is the total sq footage of your house? Of our 3600 sq ft, there is about 1930 for the main and about 1670 for the LL. Nice that you were able to fit 3 bedrooms downstairs and still have a nice sized rec room and play area. We will also have a wet bar down in our rec room. :) Great idea about adding water line in one of the storage rooms for laundry! We do plan to add stairs from the deck outside but just couldn't decide where to place them so figured we would wait to make that decision at the time the deck is being built so we could see what it looks like. I love that you will have an outdoor shower. Love those! We plan to put a hot tub on the deck right outside the master. Thought about putting it down on the LL patio, but my DH really wants it on the deck. Gotta give in to what he wants every once in a while ;-).

Nice home benbrew - You have what are termed 6/6 style windows. Curious - why replace the wood windows? The exterior of the home looks in great shape - and the best windows for a home are typically the one's that it was built with, unless they, in some way have failed. I posted a few links - which may confuse you - however may offer a more information to make your final choices. I recently had 6/1 75 yo windows in our home - "rehabbed" - they put all new parting strips in, replaced glazing where needed, put all new ropes in - and in general got them back up to excellent operating order. Personally I think vinyl cheapens the look of a home where lovely wood windows once were. Many areas of our country have strict standards with replacement windows http://www.cr.nps.gov/hps/tps/briefs/brief09.htm http://www.jeffgreefwoodworking.com/pnc/hmimp/DblHng/index.html http://www.vancouverheritagefoundation.org/articles/yohwindows.html http://www.eastrow.org/articles/vinylwindows.html http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/windows/msg0518223420195.html?13 I suppose that will give you plenty - I'm a fan of orig architectural appointments in homes - I think seeing if keeping the originals is possible & add some nice shutters will do your home much justice. Good luck whatever you decide

This is more or less what I do using MS Paint, which anyone with a Windows computer has. If one doesn't, then there are some free "paint" apps available for download. You can cut and paste with it, meaning that if you can find a picture of a plant, you can copy and use it in the drawing. But the trouble with that is "cleaning" the plant from its background can be time consuming. If you have drawing/painting skills, it is much easier to just paint plants into a photograph. The process is much like oil painting. If you make mistakes, but not to many, you can use the "undo" button. If you drew something too long ago and don't want to undo because you drew more recent things that you want to keep, then you must draw over what you don't like. Or paste in a piece of the original photo to bring an area back to the starting point, and then draw on that. I use a touchscreen and a stylus. It's hard to draw detail with a finger on a touchscreen. If you have only a mouse/trackpad you can still draw using line and some other tools, so it will be more limited in what you can do.

Denita, thanks for the article. Beth H, I am glad you were able to find it. On my computer the rye color actually looks tan (and the pearl looks gray!) That is why I need some outside input. I do like the details on the example houses -- but this was an insurance job, after a tree fell on the house, and unplanned and therefore I had no money for adding details unfortunately (the contractor & I did talk about possibilities). I had to replace the roof, siding, shutters, porch columns and slab. I did have him add wider trim around the porch and garage, and the windows. I could paint the inner windows a dark color -- they are vinyl but should hold a good paint. I am attaching a picture of the house as it looked after the tree damage, with the old shutters in place. The shutters were original to the house -- do you all think it looks better without? (to me it still looks rather naked without them, and without the tree!) I am still hoping that someone will come along who can photoshop in the different possibilities. I would especially like to see Kathy's suggestion. I do appreciate all of your input!