I was able to find a respected architect who makes house calls. He was instantly able to understand the many issues concerning property access, site orientation, surrounding environment, etc. He even read me fairly well after a short conversation and a walk-about. The homes garage needs to be made smaller because of a set-back encroachment, aside from my own dislike for street facing ominous garages. The privacy and views because of an elevation drop are toward the southeast-south. That orientation would also provide a nice southerly exposure in the winter when the sun is low in the southern horizon. Unfortunatley the homes public areas, kitchen, dining, and living areas, are not taking any advantage of that. No fun sitting in a large living area looking at four walls unless you are nintendo junkie (his words). So looking at doing something better, not just different, will involve a total "flip" of the homes floorplan. It was dicussed it would be nice to atleast get part of the kitchen and living area over to the south side of the home. That would require the bathrooms, laundry and atleast one bedroom to be moved toward the garage. It would very nice if the kitchen could still interact with the back yard which is outside the north and east wall of the kit/din area. It was aknowledged that the roof would not be a big deal to replace and I expect/want to do that. I think I have resigned myself to accept the 8' walls and 5/12 roof so as much of the structure as possible could stay. It was also talked about using trusses on both ends of a new east-west ridge (instead of the current north-south) and hand-framing between them to vault the ceiling and maybe add clearstory windows over a new living area along the south side wall. While enertained at my effort with a new entry and bumping out the front wall for a laundry room, he did not feel it addressed either well enough to go through the effort. I liked his style and candor. It was just a couple hours of consultation with nothing else planned. So now that my mind is grasping at changing direction and entertaining another set of drawings, I'm whooped. I'm open for talking points or ideas if anyone see's something to start from...TIA.

I very much enjoyed the series "Call the Midwife." I have watched up to season 3. It was so refreshing to watch a show that doesn't overlook the hardships that women have faced, and to some degree still face. I live in Canada, and have seen a lot of US/Cdn TV which usually features wealthy and perfect conditions, beautiful movie stars, with little to no reality, and without touching on female perspectives. I saw a mention earlier about the lack of slums in Canada. I can only speak to the history of western Canada, which was mostly rural. In the 1950s, Western Canada enjoyed a high standard of living where there was ample food, although, my father did say that if you spent all your money on frivolous things you could starve. Before that, especially during the Great Depression, my grandfather had a sister who died because the family couldn't afford the medicine for her, and his mother saved for years after to pay the hospital for her daughter's death there. They lived in fear that the bank would take their house, but almost every house was in foreclosure in their area, Vancouver BC. My grandfather had a dairy cow he quite liked, and a garden, so it seems that western Canada was quite rural, even in the cities at that time, possibly with the exception of Chinatown, where the Chinese Canadians there had things quite rough. Today in Canada there seems to be a greater divide between rich and poor especially in the larger cities. Some of the issues in the book and movie still go on today, for example, abuse of women, children, losing a child, (although not as common today) being judged by others, mental illness after pregnancy and the great love we as mothers have for our children. I found it interesting that Jennifer Worth said most families lived near their parents, brothers and sisters, usually moving two streets away from where they grew up at most. Here in Canada we don't seem to have that closeness with family. Also there is a lot of privacy here and I think many mothers can feel isolated or suffer in silence. I don't live near my family because the housing prices and lack of jobs paying over minimum wage makes it very difficult to live there. Worh had another comment on the older people being rehomed to better living conditions, but that many of them died because they missed their friends and family and they didn't have that support. I found it interesting, and I think nowadays here in Canada, people's values are more about money than relationships which is sad too. In that way, the community of East London seemed to be better.

Is this thread being "wrapped up"? I agree that it has been very enlightening, but I have only just finished my third CD book, "Nicholas Nickleby", and I am about one third of the way into "The Old Curiosity Shop". What started with the proposal of this thread and the subsequent discussion looks to stretch indefinitely into my reading future. I want to thank everyone for sparking my interest - and I especially what to thank whoever it was who had the idea of general, individual readings of Dickens rather than concentrating on just one Dickens book. To supplement Ackroyd's Dickens bio, I also read Tomalin's. friedag, you are right that different biographers have different perspectives. Like carolyn_ky mentioned, it is obvious that Tomalin's big interest is "the affair" between CD and Ellen Ternan and thus Tomalin's biography is about half the length of Ackroyd's. Maybe that shows some of the differences between male and female biographers, because Ackroyd recounts the affair rather perfunctorily but includes much more detail of other aspects of CD's life. It could be, too, that Tomalin is more attuned to what interests female readers of biographies: relationships, factual and rumored. friedag, Charles Palliser's "The Quincunx" is said to be a Dickens pastiche. New Zealander Lloyd Jones wrote "Mister Pip" - the setting is Papua New Guinea and could be right up your alley! I have not read either of those, but I did read Gaynor Arnold's "Girl in a Blue Dress" and Richard Flanagan's "Wanting", both of which were inspired by CD's unhappy marriage to Catherine. All I can say about them is they are intriguing takes, but I found them quite maddening (angry-making, that is, not crazy-making).

mama goose, great ideas. I've planned for ~2" of filler next to the dishwasher. The MW next to fridge is a good idea, but this is where I planned to store dishes/glasses. I'm hearing people are liking storing dishes in drawers nowadays however. So maybe this is an option. As for the window heights off the floor, it's a great idea and extending the cabinets down the wall now would solve a number of problems, but there's a long list of specific reasons to this house & site that I'd like to keep a big window there. The island as pictured was 6'6". I needed 18" for the prep sink, 18" for pullout trash, and ~15" for the end seat. This leaves me with 27" between my drawers and the end-shelf idea of yours which is great, and is now a must-have. I think 21" and 6" for those would be OK, but it'd be a sacrifice to my prep area storage I'm unsure about, and especially so if the island is shortened further. Instead, I ran with an idea I had had before of a longer island / table abutting the island. I'll have to think this over and would love feedback on this. This is really the elephant in the room here I think. I lose up to 3 seats here, but gain a 3' wide footpath to the door, with no odd collisions. Attached 1st floor layout.