Thank you for all of your advice. I have changed the mast. Bath to outswing (THANKS!). We are building in GA, have one child, and have covenants that require the home to be 3500 Sq. Ft. We don't require a mudroom, but the Storage Room will be used for winter coats/Storage and a general oversized storage area. I am not a fan of natural lighting in the closet, for fading/loss of hanging space issues. I do prefer the toilet to be to the deep interior of the Mast. Bath so that there is some privacy when using the toilet while the significant other is sleeping (it's an issue!). I have fought for more windows, but he does not like a lot of natural light for some unGodly reason?? I do not like J and J's at all! This will be primarily used for guests. It's unlikely to be used at all. I'll be playing around with the kitchen island to have symmetry with the sink and also room for the DW to be placed NEXT to it, and not around the corner. My idea for the kitchen is to be a hard working one, with large and rarely used items placed in the pantry on a counter, with storage shelves on the opposite wall. Thank you all so much for your suggestions. It gives me an idea if we are going in the right direction. I have so much to learn! A

Honestly, that sounds like a reasonable idea to me. The biggest pitfall I see is that something may have been used to maintain the floor that interferes with the adhesion. As long as you assure the floor guy that you won't blame him for anything unpredictable that happens and that you promise not to tell anyone he did the work (so they don't get the wrong idea), I don't see why he would hesitate. I have turned down jobs similar to yours but mostly it was because I thought the client had an unrealistic expectation of how it would turn out or because I was afraid it would reflect badly on my reputation.

First some of my experience (as a new hardwood floor owner), and then your questions. Pleasant surprises - much easier to keep clean that I expected. After almost half a year, I still love to look at my floor every single day. I still look to find "favorite boards" and see how they look in different light. And I still love the feel of the floor on my feet. However - some of the downsides I discovered. If I don't wear a padded or soled slipper, I get toe cramps. Weird, huh? We also live in a place where people tend to sand their icy walkways rather than chemical/melt. That's fine, except it requires some caution to keep from sand papering your floor simply by walking in the house. Rugs do the trick for the most part, but there's always those few loose grains. We're looking at installing a whole house humidifier. We need it anyway, but if we didn't we'd still be looking at it for the floors. We have very humid summers, and very cold/dry winters. Our floors have developed expansion/contraction gaps in some places that are nearly 1/8" wide. I haven't run into this yet, but my aunt had hardwood floors put in and sold her house 4 years later. She typically vacuumed rather than shook/beat her rugs. When she pulled them up after their house sold, the hardwood under he rugs was noticeably darker than around, due to surrounding areas having faded. I don't know how prone hardwood normally is to fading, but something to think about. For you rpictures - I think hardwood would look good in there. Is the entry at your front door already hardwood? You have a lot of warm colors & I think you would enjoy the aesthetics (you have a lot of stained wood accessories, and I think I see a fair bit of oak, so I'm assuming you enjoy the look of wood grain). How much distance is there between your couches? You generally want to place the rug so that at least the front feet of the furniture can rest on at least the border of the rug. Are you thinking prefinished, or finished onsite? Mine were finished onsite, so I could see the actual stain on the actual wood - an in larger areas than your average sample board. That helped. Go to a flooring store (or look through pictures here, or both) and get samples and set them on your floor. Move them throughout the day and notice how they look in different light. Usually the floor is more permanent than the furniture, so consider how you rwood looks with your furnishings to the degree you think is right. If the store has multiple samples, see if they'll let you check them all out and you can "pretend" to have one large sample. (I do that with like 10 paint chips at a time!)

You need to seal the deck to the weather before you put a deck on top. Call a roofer first. Explain to him the plan and he will put down an appropriate material. Probably a membrane material. Then call in the deck guy. But make sure he does not sink any nails or screws into the roof. Ron