Starting with your drainage, if you had someone do the finish grading, then the soil level is done. You don't need to add any topsoil. Anything you add now will ruin the existing drainage...which was set by a professional drainage guy. Why would you want to mess that up? Is something wrong with your gutter drainage? All this is brand new and already you want to "fix" it. I don't understand. It seems like you're spending money just spend it. If you are worried you won't be spending enough, then get started with organic gardening. I'm not saying it is necessarily more expensive, but it can be. Why? Because you cannot overapply organic fertilizer. The more you use the better everything looks. With chemical ferts, there is a limit and beyond that you will kill the plants. So I'm saying that organic allows you to spend money. You don't need to, though. Having said that, there is a way to kill your grass with organics. All you have to do is apply too much compost, or worse, manure, to your lawn. One of my neighbors did that last weekend. Now the neighborhood stinks and her lawn will be dead for a couple years. But I digress... If you have sandy soil, just thank your lucky stars and put in a garden. Topsoil is highly over rated in my opinion. My lot was washed out from 4 to 6 inches deep when we got the house. We used topsoil for most of it and sand in the back. The only place with really great grass is the sandy part in back. You can see a distinct line where the sand stops and the native topsoil begins. The sandy part is deep green and the topsoil part is yellow. Why is that? Our native topsoil is mostly crushed limestone with a pH of 8. Sand is crushed quartz and granite with a pH of 7. Then again, your sand may have other minerals in it. You might want to get a soil test. But the point is, don't bring in topsoil just to bring in topsoil. All the grading has been done by people who know what they are doing. Adding topsoil, even 1/4-inch every year, is one of the worst ideas in lawn care. If you have a golf course with no buildings, curbing, or concrete, then fine. But for the average home owner, it leads to a big mess as time goes by. I have pictures of lawns where the owner added far too much topsoil. I'll post one at the end of my rant. As for grass: You missed a great opportunity to install your lawn last fall. Had you done it then your grass would have sturdy roots by now that will be able to resist the summer heat when it comes in June and July. You would also have a relatively weed free lawn because the main annual lawn weed, crabgrass, dies out in the fall leaving your grass time to thicken up to keep it out. Now you are doomed to spring lawn he!!. If you seed a new lawn in the spring, all the crabgrass seed will be sprouting along with the grass. Crabgrass sprouts fast and grows fast. Since it is an annual plant, its roots harden fast and furious. It will easily take over when your newly planted target grass weakens and thins. The only easy way around that is to use sod to start an instant lawn. Sod is already thick and dense and has hardened roots. However, sod is expensive. I suggest you save all the money you were going to spend for grading and topsoil and spend that money on sod instead of seed. Which sod/seed? I'll leave that up to my Yankee friends. A lot of people in the nawth use a blend of Kentucky bluegrass and turf type tall fescue (TTTF). The KBG will spread and thicken to fill in and become very dense. It will also become dormant and turn brown in the winter. The fescue will be green all year (only redeeming feature in my opinion). Fescue is a thin turf unless and until you get enough seed on the ground. The usually requires reseeding every fall until you get it right. KBG spreads without reseeding and makes a very nice lawn. Here is a friend of mine's KBG lawn in Southern California (very near the Pacific). He fertilizes with used coffee grounds from Starbucks once or twice a year. From the satellite view of his neighborhood, he clearly has the nicest lawn in the area. There are many different varieties of KBG and fescue. That is what I'll leave up to the others. They will ultimately send you to NTEP to get information for grass performance in your particular area. Don't install the sprinklers until the garden and lawn is in. All kinds of design changes can come about between now and then which would ruin your preestablished ideas about watering. As for the actual installation, there is a much better forum here at GW for sprinklers. Go there, not here, for sprinkler advice. Too much topsoil. I have other pictures of this same neighborhood showing that the original soil level was at or below the concrete sidewalks.

Here's our version, and its definitely a family favorite! Confession Cake 1 DevilÂs Food Cake mix 1 3 oz. pkg. Instant chocolate pudding mix 2 cups sour cream 1 cup melted butter (2 sticks) 5 eggs 1 tsp. almond extract 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips Oven 350 degrees Mix together: the cake mix, pudding mix, sour cream, melted butter, eggs, and almond extract. Beat on low to medium speed until all ingredients are thoroughly blended. Add chocolate chips, and stir well. Pour into well-greased bundt pan. Bake 50-55 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes, then invert onto serving plate. Cool cake completely before cutting. No icing needed, just sprinkle with powdered sugar, or leave plain. Try different cake mix, pudding, and chip combinations. We like raspberry flavored chocolate chips in the chocolate. Jan

sameboat, When using those molds for CP, after 2 or 3 days, try putting the molds (with the soap in it) into the freezer for 20 minutes, they might come out a little easier for ya. When I started making soap, I used to use a lot of different containers for a mold, but I did use drawer organizers for my molds, that was a huge pain! One recipe I never did get the soap out successfully! lol! I use a triple beam scale for weighing my fats and oils, it'll measure down to the .1 of a gram, but I find that I only require to measure down to the single gram. I always have a drink coaster on the scale plate, so the containers won't slip while measuring. When I tare the scale this coaster is included. I measure my scent by the fluid ounce though. Have fun!

My first thought, even before your budget constraints, was board and batten. It's difficult to determine where the misleading post actually is. A birds-eye view (from above) would help a lot. is the entry recessed, is the misleading post connected to the entry or the right gable, does the right gable stand out? I do like your planting scheme, but I would like to make two suggestions. First that the large trees on the left are not too close to the house. For the tree in front of the gable, I would suggest a flowering cherry or some sort of small flowering tree, that is, again, set out from the house that area could be landscaped to 'surround' the tree so from the top view, the tree is a medallion focal point -it's a very pretty way to offset a focal tree. The reason for the flowering tree, is that you will see it through those two windows. With the planting you have, I think that doing stone work around the entry only would be appropriate. Having stone on the lower part looks wrong, and it won't be seen much behind the bushes anyway. You have a horizontal line through the gable, with differently spaced battens on upper and lower. It seems that this line should be raised higher and I would put it at the gable roof line. I would also make the vent disappear by painting the same as the house color, not the trim. And lastly, the area with the three low windows on the right, might look nice with a park bench in front of them, even if no one ever sits there, it would make sense of that planting and section of the house and be a welcoming lawn ornament.