My regret is not writing my own book, though Mel would probably do better anyway. When I was a teenager I was growing in the usual family bed but wanted some extra room for squash. I dug out a 4X4 in ground bed and filled it with peat and manure a foot deep. I had to weed the other bed daily. Did I weed my new bed? Never needed it. My family before me allowed the original bed to become infested with weeds. I then always added growing space in 4x4 sections in separate in ground beds because anything more meant walking on soil and then weeds in the rows. When I picked up Mel's book I noticed he was doing an improved version of what I already discovered. I had no trouble converting. So I have been doing some of this for 20 years on and off when I did not live in apartments or in school etc. I only noticed SFG when my sunny space was limited and looked into compact methods. I should mention that by doing it compactly that paying attention to sun exposure is important. Tall plants need to go to the north and that was something I noticed the first year.

There are a few plans on the archival designs website that have a similar base plan with the kitchen in the front. We also considered the Laurel plan, but went with the Tres because the living room area was slightly larger. I'm glad my girls aren't old enough to want their own bathrooms because I don't want to be cleaning any more than I have to! The living/dining/kitchen feels perfect to me. I was concerned it wasn't going to be a comfortable place to kick back and watch TV, but seeing now all my concerns are gone. I think it's perfect. It's a high ceiling and I'm now just waiting to see how sound carries once it's furnished, but we'll mitigate that as much as we can with area rugs and wall hangings. We're not formal people and this fits our lifestyle perfectly. The kitchen is large - as I said, we removed the fixed island. We also put two dishwashers in (one on either side of the sink) and the range on the wall shared with the laundry room. It's a great size fr eating in and entertaining in if you're like us and always seems to be congregating in the kitchen. And just a side note to our under roof per square foot cost -- $85 is for all space under roof. For living space per square foot it's more in the $125 range.

When you say remodel do you mean tear out existing island or are you just talking about painting the drywall? If you mean remodel then yes I would tear it out and do a single level island with some lighting over it. It would increase the size of your kitchen visually. You can do it in the same color cabinets you have if you like the dark and do a solid warm white quartz counter on it or do the island a warm white to match your back splash. I would do cabinet finish all on four sides of the island. I would also keep the counter light in color.

Hi :) I am still here. After some drawn-out negotiations that didn't go very far, we decided it wasn't a good fit. House ended up needing a lot of work in addition to the roof - sewer leaking, termite damage, attic insulation needs replacement, tree removal, etc.