If I'm understanding correctly (which I may not be!) most of the problems will be solved if you go to a patio at grade rather than a deck. The french doors would be at the same height as the other door. You wouldn't be able to do a lot of trim around it, due to the height of the eaves, but you could still fit the doors. Btw, a deck and a patio are different things. I think when you say terrace, you may mean what I would call a patio? A deck is made of wood with structure underneath and is therefore raised above the ground (or else it wouldn't be a deck. I suppose theoretically you could excavate and put wood structure underneath and have the wood floor structure at grade, but I'm not sure why you would do that and I've never seen it that way!) A patio can be at grade or it can be above-grade with retaining walls - or even below-grade with retaining walls as a sunken patio. But, a patio would generally be made of a hard surface like concrete, stone, or brick pavers. A deck would be made of wood or imitation wood like Trex. That clear it up?

Hehehe...this looks *exactly* like my dad's house. It's not someone's idiosyncratic design -- this is an established type of house (though I agree -- I've never been crazy about the look of it). Personally, I'd add more windows so that you had three windows on each floor, which will lighten up the heavy look of the roof, and bring lots of light into the home. I'd redo the shakes, maybe with high quality synthetics (e.g., Davinci?) that would retain their cedar color, and I *might* add copper gutters to brighten her up a bit since she looks a little dreary in the picture. I might also rethink the style of the railings around the top window (but I cannot see them very well in the picture). Good luck -- looks like fun! By the way, there's a great book called "What Not to Build" that gives some nice tips on understanding balance and mass, etc. in a home's elevation. -Melissa

The frames of the cabinet boxes, and the drawer fronts and door frames are all poplar. He had the cabinet boxes made and painted then made the doors/drawers which had a problem warping due to humidity in July. So he remade the doors/drawers and then painted them. The cabinet boxes/frames were painted weeks earlier when I saw them and commented on the thin paint coverage. They did not have the clearcoat on at that point. He said oh they aren't finished yet so they will look better. Well they don't and especially next to the doors drawers; it is very noticeable in my kitchens natural light. I am worried that if he just does the frames over then it will look again different from the doors/drawers. They should have been painted all at the same time.

I would turn that large shrub at left of door into tree by removing bottom branches and allowing top to grow taller. Keep the dome shape but allow it to be higher. Remove the large, blocky shrub in front of it and also the tree-shrub at right of door. It would be nice if there was a good patch of color and the rest a nice, uniform, solid groundcover. Don't plant too many different things so that it becomes busy. What happened to the lawn? You cannot grow grass on account of shade? If you u can't or don't want it, grow a solid, low groundcover in the area of the mulch and turn it into green instead of brown.