Hi Joel, You started a good thread. My top six priorities would be 1. Adequate light 2. Adequate light 3. Adequate light 4. Adequate light 5. Adequate water (evenly moist media) using either soil-based or expanded clay pebble sub-irrigation (aka hydroculture). 6. Scouting for pests and pest management If you are really interested in the "secrets" of professional interior plantscaping spend some time on the Plants-in-Buildings website. Kenneth Freeman, the primary author deserves the equivalent of an Academy Award for this website. I would gladly carry his briefcase for what I would learn from him. IMO this is the most educational and informative website about indoor plants on the web with no close second. Read what he has to say about sub-irrigation (commonly and erroneously called self-watering). Read what he has to say about digital light meters (PDF file). Buy a digital foot-candle (or more widely available lux ) light meter. eBay is a good place to buy one. It will cost less than a good quality kitchen knife. You will pay for the meter from your savings not having to replace dead plants. Using window direction, distance from a window and hand-shadows as means of measuring light for indoor plants are highly inaccurate methods. They are a guess at best. I've measured light differences within a foot that could mean the difference between a healthy or unhealthy plant. You can buy a digital lux reading (10 lux = about 1 foot-candle) meter (with a case) on eBay currently for about $35 delivered! If the meter reads 1,000 lux that's about 100 foot-candles. It's very easy to read a lux meter and convert to f.c. by simply moving one decimal point to the left. I'll gladly help you or anyone else select one to buy. Plants-in-Buildings has arguably the best plant selector guide on the web. It the plant you're interested in isn't included here I'd suggest forgetting about it being a good year round indoor plant. Hope this was of help. Good luck with your plants. Greenscaper

What still puzzles me about this stair is that given a 9ft. ceiling height and 7 3/4"+ risers, the thickness of the second floor (ceiling to finish flooring) would be over 16" if there were 16 risers and it would be about 8" if there were 15 risers. For the smaller floor thickness the floor joists could not be larger than 2x8's and for the larger floor thickness the floor joists would be about 14" Since a typical floor thickness is about 12" I am greatly puzzled about your stair construction. Is there something unusual about the floor joists at the second floor? Is the ceiling height 9 ft. plus a tray or coffer? To accurately define the stair riser height you should give us the floor to floor height and the number of risers. To increase the distance from the front door to the stair by turning it, you must put one more riser at the lower run which would extend it farther into the lobby. If this doesn't make sense to you, you should ask your designer to draw the two conditions to scale before telling the builder to modify the stair. I could draw it if I knew all of the dimensions of the existing conditions but what you have posted doesn't seem to add up.

Unless a person knows they will be in a house for a short time, I think it's better to plan for the long term, knowing that there may be a period of awkwardness until the final concept rings through loud and clear. In this case (if you're going to be in the house for a while) I would not let the stone and roof colors limit where I go with future house colors. Personally, I don't find the stone attractive enough to call it a "keeper." If budget allows, I'd consider replacing it. If budget doesn't allow, I'd paint it and that will be an improvement and open up color choices for other things. Roofs eventually wear out an need replacement. At that time, you could select a better roof color that goes with your improved house color. Eventually, you could transition to a whole new, improved color scheme. The new pictures help. To be perfectly frank, I don't think the stone columns and fencing help in the least to make the entrance more inviting and appealing. If a courtyard effect was still desired, I think it would be done completely differently than what is there now. So getting rid of those things would be an immediate improvement. The walk needs help, too. Ideally, it would be redone. But if that is not in the budget, then strategically adding to it would be a big help. It especially needs an area of expanded paving near the entrance door. The small "trees" inside and outside of the courtyard are not the right plants for those spots. Is the budget or DIY interest level sufficient to make some sizable changes to the entrance area?

The grey console is already gone ✔️ And the door with the window is the laundry room down a short hall way - the way both doors open does not currently allow for storage in the space. I didn’t think of putting the back of the couch to the kitchen - we can try that. I always just felt more included while cooking in the living room if everyone’s backs weren’t to me while they sat on the couch. Even though the chairs are there, most people sit on the couch.