What height is your box at? Here are some hints I looked up at batmangement.com Common design/construction problems Bad designs are simply flawed from the start. They are often too small overall and contain crevices too large. Sometimes a critical detail is omitted, such as a landing plate. Usually these boxes cannot compete with a modern design, even after being upgraded by a creative hobbyist. Bad construction is a different matter, usually the box can be successful after some paint, caulk, extra screws, and extra roughening. * A single chamber box. Bats simply prefer larger structures which offer more stable temperatures. * Factory smooth interior crevices. All interior wood must be roughened for bats to readily cling to. Some commercial boxes staple screening to the inside of the box which may eventually fall off. A box seen for sale at a major hardware store has only one groove on the "landing plate"; this is totally unacceptable. * Unprotected roof. Roofs without shingles may last only a few seasons, once the roof is compromised the box will be incapable of retaining heat and fall into disuse. * Nailed together with unsealed seams. This type of box will warp and separate at the seams allowing unwanted ventilation and disuse. * Unpainted, unprotected exterior. Some manufacturers insist on leaving bat boxes unpainted. While in certain regions the natural wood color may be a suitable color, there is no good reason for the structure to go unprotected. * Old design. Bat research has proceeded at a very fast rate, thanks to improved communication among many different hobbyists and researchers. For example, a tall open-bottomed bat house is now prefered over smaller closed bottom designs which tend to attract more parasites. * Old plans. Bat house plans can be found in a variety of places, which is good. Unfortunately, many posters, books, and flyers were published years ago with now antiquated plans. Frightningly, this information is still distributed by many seemingly reputable sources. A stack of utterly horrid plans obtained from a state wildlife agency were seen distributed at a wildlife program in 2000. * "Recycled" material. Some people construct bat houses of good design but with lumber salvaged from demolished structures in effort to cut costs. As some pesticides can leave active residues for years, BCM always uses new lumber when constructing bat boxes. Common placement mistakes The greatest bat house in the world will never contain a bat unless it is placed properly in the field. In cool climates it is best to avoid shady locations at all costs. Often this limits the mounting options to strategically placed new posts or sunny chimneys. Bad placement includes the following: * Box is in a shady location, it needs a minimum of seven hours of morning sunlight. * Box mounted on a tree, rarely will the box receive enough direct sunlight in cool climates. * Box placed on a structure, directly under the eves. Again, this may be simply too shaded. * Placed too far from permanent water. Dry, arid locations are less desirable, though bats will drink from swimming pools. * Located over bright surfaces which reflect light into box. Shiny flashing or even pans to collect guano may deter use at certain times of the season. * Located near burn barrels or air vents where smoke or strong wind will disturb bats. Beware of air conditioner units which may not be active when installation occurs. * Erected where the box is prone to vandalism. * Placed in brightly lighted areas. Avoid mounting where dusk-to-dawn lights shine directly onto the box. * Erected directly along roads, where bats are vulnerable to automobile traffic during their dawn return. * No maintenance. Some mounting solutions make a quick yearly inspection into a difficult and even dangerous ordeal. Bat houses do require minor wasp and seam inspection, otherwise bats will begin to abandon the box. Be alert for a hornet invasion as well; bats will immediately abandon a bat house until these agressive insects are removed.

What kind of trees are they? If they're decent hardwood trees with valuable lumber you might be able to get someone to do it for nearly free in exchange for the wood--black walnut and cherry come to mind as extremely valuable, but fruit wood, nut wood, oak, maple and elm are also valuable. Call an arborist and see if they can direct you to someone. Or call local mills that deal in hardwood, and/or any local industries that use hardwood (furniture makers come to mind.) If the trees aren't worth anything, you could always post on Craigslist and see if someone will do the job for less than a tree company. (Ask about their experience and tools...I also wouldn't do this if any of the trees could fall on your house or your neighbors' houses though.). Otherwise, I'm out of ideas!

One-level islands have many advantages to a two-tiered ones. People will want to see a rough sketch of the adjoining rooms, hallways, closets, widows and doors before they address some of your questions. It can be hand-drawn to give a sense of how the rooms relate to each other and walk patterns. A diagram of the kitchen and dining area with dimensions will also give you better answers and help. Is the wall between the kitchen and the living room a bearing wall? The answer to that will determine what you can do and how to do it.

@Yardvaark It's my partner's house. I don't think he thought this through to the very end when he started. His only goal was the "cut back the hill for more flat lawn in the back and use the sand to make the lawn level up front". I can take more pics when I'm there next time. I wish I had before pics so you could see the difference. This used to be a very closed-in mostly grassless pine and hemlock grove with a house plopped down on the edge of it. There were trees everywhere, very little sun reached the back (west) or side (north) of the house. Once he got the trees removed (some of the big 100-200 yr old pines were professionally removed, but we've done the hemlocks ourselves), the grass started growing, and once he saw he could have a real lawn, he hasn't stopping digging and moving the sand around. It started as digging out the stumps, and it's been non-stop digging anything that can be dug and spreading the sand in other places for over 4 years. It's only now that he's gotten close to the line of driveway reflectors that he used to mark where he wanted to stop digging back to that he's considered that a sheer drop off of sand under an azalea that is floating at eye level (with roots sticking out at chest level) isn't going to be easy to landscape. He saved the last couple of Hemlock trunks we took down so he has 6-7' logs he can possibly use to make a retaining wall, but I'm getting the twitchy (skeptical) eye looking at them. I'll take better pics next time I'm there. It's truly a landscaping nightmare. He will not invest much money into landscaping. It took 5 years of deliberation to buy the birch trees he'd wanted all that time, and only then because they were discounted at the end of the season (the road is called Birch Lane). He refuses to buy any annuals (waste of money, he says). Perennials need to be 95% sure to survive and come back, so he will only buy 1 or 2 plants a year until he's sure it will come back (so creeping phlox, virginia spiderwort, chives, chocolate mint, periwinkle (which is invasive but he doesn't care), hostas, solomon's seal, lily of the valley, azaleas, rhododendrons, maidenhair ferns, lilacs, and day lilies are the only proven plants so far - most of them shade plants and he's reducing the shade more and more). The exception is if I can find it for free (like on freecycle) and the western red cedars he planted for privacy screening after we removed the hemlocks from the back. Something that can be started from seed would be great since seed is cheap, I can just buy it for him and he's not stressed out about wasting his money on things that won't be successful - with a caveat that he's also reluctant to water things as much as they really need because "water isn't free". So, that's what I'm working with, and I admit I am pretty over my head right now because I have no idea how to deal with the sand. The erosion problem is, in my mind, a serious one, but apparently the town doesn't mind that part of his hill (in the front, the road frontage, not back here where this project is) washes out into the road when it rains hard, so we're concentrating on making the back yard nicer since the front hill is basically impossible to fix without a huge investment in retaining wall (which he will not do - he already invested $30,000 in replacing the windows and he doesn't plan to keep this house since it is just his first starter home). I'll get more pics!