Ms Lu, Forget about all the dos and don'ts for a moment. I'll tell you what I do (and I'm not necessarily normal in my approaches) with every landscape design on an existing home. It evolved from being a necessary step for drawing a plan and became (to me) the most essential step in planning a landscape. It is to clear my head of any detail of what I might do and simply go out to the home and start to do an existing conditions plan. I know that you live there and believe you already know those existing conditions, but there are different levels of familiarity. A humorous analogy would be going to first base, second base, . of intimacy with the property. We all know that the more we do anything, the more we understand it and pick up on detail and remember it (whatever "it" is). This is no different with your landscape. The four bases of an existing conditions plan are measuring and photographing, recording your measurements in a sketch or diagram as you measure, and drafting the plan which is a two step process of reading measurements (and looking at the photos for confirmation) and the physical act of drawing it (the home run "theres no place like home, theres no place like home" ). That is a lot of work, but you will know and understand your site like you never have before. It puts you at "ground zero". Now you can move forward logically. You will, hopefully, be a lot less concerned with concepts such as "perimeteritis" or "negative space" and be more focused on what challenges you have to overcome. Some of those should be newly discovered while some you already knew about. . And you will have a base plan to start sketching in your proposed work. Here again is a place where you can work backward or forward. You want a place to sun bathe and enjoy your coffee -these are "activities". You want some privacy and not to be bothered by road noise these are "experiences". Ultimately, you need actual dimensioned physical space, structures, plants, etc, where you can do these activities with the desired experience these are the "requirements". You seem to be thinking backwards by first defining the physical requirements for the experience before the physical requirement for the activity. Glenda the Good Witch said "it is best to start at the beginning and then follow the yellow brick road". I agree. Your list of activities should grow as you do your existing conditions plan (passive activities are also activities). Certainly, you will become aware of more aesthetic issues that will need to be mitigated or enhanced along with the primary ones. Parking, arriving, maintaining, entering, exiting, viewing, bringing in the groceries, playing with the dog, . are all activities, all will yield an experience, and all have physical requirements. Start by planning the primary activities. Place those that are movable where they least conflict with other activities and near supportive activities. If you need a patio, put it in the plan before you think about screening it (opposite of your current thinking that is starting with the screening). Enhance that space (it may begin to screen it). The design will evolve. Just dont make the secondary physical requirement (the screening) become the primary activity and then have to then figure out how your primary activity is going to work within it. Build your landscape around what is important both philosophically and physically. Perimeters and negative space evolve within that bigger context. Starting with a "mixed border" that is "10 out and 56 long" is the same as designing a planting bed and then trying to figure out what to plant within it. Put on the ruby slippers and click your heals together.

I have done something similar at the family cottage. After trying different materials I came to the conclution that a strong wire was least visible solution. I found a type that looked strong enough, and covered with a type of vinyl or plastic that prevent any rust (there was green and white to choose from). I streched two wires across the wooden poles, as tight as I could. It sagged a bit after a few months, but after one more tightening it has held up fine. My roses are now after four years just beginning to grow horizontally along the wire. Albertine was a bit slow to start, but Climbing Etoile de Hollande was over 6 feet tall third year, even with pruning and bending the canes horizontally to make it branch out.

Lovely! I like the classic white tile and porcelain and how you used furniture pieces in the bathroom. I love that the storage at the end of the tub has pull-outs that can be reached from the toilet. Your custom sink and backsplash and counter are unique and beautiful. Yours may be the first bathroom sink I have seen in which a small or medium dog could be washed! That is a good thing! I showed your pictures to my DH because I am thinking of classic tiled walls with a chair rail for when we redo our bath in a couple of years. He liked it! I was expecting him to say, "too old fashioned." He did not, he said it looked nice. From him, nice is a compliment. He even liked your rows of listello. I was just at the Tile Shop's site the other day looking at the Hampton tiles because someone was selling some on Craigslist. I am hoping to do as you did and get what I can cheaper there, and fill in the rest from the store. I can see that you worked very hard to secure all of your materials - and then cut the floor tiles to size and culled the Hampton tiles, too! You succeeded very well in getting the look you wanted while saving money along the way. Congratulations, and thank you for the pictures and great detail and supply list.

Thank you so much, Jay and Rafor. It is fun to create new beds for my plants. I had to restrain myself this last year before construction began, because any work around the Teahouse would have been wasted effort. But gosh, it was hard digging out that compacted clay and the chunks of spilt concrete, and old broken tile that someone had used years ago as fill where the old shed roof dripped Jay, what we installed in a sort of permanent way is made by SPT-USA, model WA-1230H, and it is called a "portable air conditioner" on the owners manual. BUT, it is a dual cycle, heater or air conditioner, and a very economical heat pump. They are wonderful, let me tell you. My SIL had a unit about 5 years ago which heated/cooled their media room above the garage instead of running ductwork out there. It comes with the stuff to poke the 4" diameter exhaust duct out a window, and it draws less than a hair dryer in electricity. It has a 3-prong plug, it will usually evaporate the condensate unless it is a "high humidity" area, like south Alabama, so DH built ours with a drain line just below the air exhaust. Knowing it would put out water regularly, I planted my iris by that drain line. Since our walls in the Teahouse are 8" thick solid concrete, our installation is of a permanent nature instead of a movable or portable one. DH has an older unit up in MA that we will bring down here when that house sells. You can never have too many air conditioners that do not have to block a window! I plan to use that one in the kitchen when we redo it next winter. So this is our third go-round with the portable units. I do not know where DH bought the latest unit, but I'm sure you can find it online. They shipped it to our door. It weighs about 70 pounds, and has casters. DH built little "elevators" for ours, I think it has a short guy complex, but it sure does look like R2D2. Oh yeah. It is quiet also.