I know our pond was discussed in detail on some koi forums, it was bought up by Roddy Conrad (many years ago) he discussed how we manage to successfully maintain clean and healthy pond practices with aggressive water exchanges and a separate biological pond. I read many of the posts with Roddy but unfortunately missed yours. Water changes and flow thru systems have of course been a cornerstone of fish keeping, from fish farms and hatcheries to backyard ponds forever. Many of the Japanese growers seem to have flow thru systems, but most of us don't have a stream/river in our back yards for that so we have to make due with water changes. Up until the last few years most of the discussion in Koi Ponds has been about how frequency relates to keeping fish alive. In the last few years it's changed by a very few people to frequency relating to other things like clear water. algae control, and increasing fish growth. It's new so interesting to me. What surprised me is that you are already basically doing the 24/7 drip thing except once a day instead of 24/7 and hose instead of drip. Your volume is right in the range of 10-70% per week (varies by goals). And you've been doing it for a really long time so that's good data. Not sure how long Andy Moo has been doing 24/7, he's been around a long time too. And of course you're also using your hose as a TPR and basically the same as vacuum. Whether dirt is pushed to suction or suction is moved to dirt the result is the same. And you're doing it often. Pretty much all the people I've dealt with who wanted a bottom system as a option (not required for fish load) wanted it solely as a convenience. They just want a pond for looking at fish after work and don't want to pick up a hose. I do not belong to any of these forums, ( I did try briefly, however they were beyond snobby) as they have very expensive Japanese koi and they have sterile ponds, (meaning no rocks on the edges) also their filtration systems cost many thousands of dollars and they are quite snobby about their koi and ponds. Hell they don't even consider butterfly koi to be koi. Every forum seems to have a single specific type of pond that the 20-40 dominating posters have. Every forum says they accept all kinds of ponds but that sure isn't true. They'll say "all ponds are different, and that's great" and then launch into telling people why their pond is all wrong. But that's forums, protecting their little world. I most read pond forums that sometimes have good info but I don't find much reason to post very often. I've learned a lot about that I might be able to adapt to other ponds and more importantly so I understand these systems. Aquarium forums are even better for learning but I never post in those since I've never even had an aquarium or are interested in one. But those folks sure know there stuff, lots of test data. I think the hard it is to keep fish alive the better the forum because they have to take everything more serious. Fish farming forums are good too. If it don't pay they don't use it. However, the main reason I won't frequent these koi forums is because with all their expensive and super elaborate filter systems -- many of them they still use PP to help clear their ponds. I don't get it, why subject your fish to dangerous chemicals? If you systems are so wonderful why do they need chemicals and uv lights? You can see the amount of trouble I could get myself into frequenting these forums. :) Besides, my koi are mutts. I haven't seen much in those forums about PP use for general maintenance in several years. Occasional use by few for a specific reason. Or maybe they just don't talk about it. There's been better filters developed since Roddy was talking about PP and way easier to use, and pretty cheap, oxidizers have become available since then too. They need those things because they keep a different kind of pond than you do. For example for me to do the kind of water changes in San Jose would have added about $80 per month to my water bill since they use a tried system. While $960 a year isn't a lot I kept the water clear enough for me using other cheaper means. It's just a choice thing. For my next pond I can design a pond specifically to include 24/7 drip so I can reuse the waste water for landscaping. Here in Phoenix we water the landscape all year, and use a lot of water for that. So the water from the 24/7 drip will be basically free. Free and completely automated me likes. I know Dr. Roddy Conrad from another forum that we were both members of. We got along well,( but I did disagree with his PP practices.) He knew our set-up that why he was able to explain to the koi forum members our set up and aggressive water exchanges. "Successful pond husbantry practices " he called it. I don't remember if the other forum members agreed with him. Probably not. The Doctor that lost all the koi in his pond (twice) was that from on overdose of PP? I don't think I've ever posted directly with Roddy but have reads hundreds of his posts. He may have taught me more about ponds than maybe anyone else, especially when I was first learning about koi keeping. I've just been interested in learning different techniques and don't really have an opinion on whether it's good or bad. Just a tool. A hammer is good for driving a nail, not good for opening eggs. The tool itself is neither good or bad to me. I don't find a lot applications for PP but when needed and useful it works fine. But I'm sure happy Roddy took the time to teach me how to use PP, it's effects, and it's downsides through his posts. I'd be happy to buy him dinner any day. Plus his explaining, experimenting and providing lots of early data on Trickle Towers was very important to the hobby imo. And he took a lot of crap from the peanut gallery to boot which taught me a lot about forums which has helped me in developing software. TT popularity may have been short lived in the Koi Pond world but lead to even better filters. So I take what I can from those forums and just try and stay out of the crap...as best I can.

Catbuilder - the outlet high on the wall works fine if you are only using the handheld during showering or for cleaning but not if you want to use it while laying in he tub. If you have a normal 59" hose and the starting point is way up high on the wall and you are sitting in a 60" tub with your head at the other end and want to wash with the handheld it won't reach. You would need a much longer hose and I don't want a super low hose (like 80") dangling down all the time. Hollysprings - I actually have a Jason air tub with integrated flange that I purchased for a steal on Craigslist. No, I have never used an air tub. I would love to find a showroom near me where I could test one out.

Wow, your dimensions are very similar to my house, although we have no basement and a prior owner did an addition off the back. The good news is that you can do a lot if you're prepared to utilize space from the dining room for the kitchen. There are (at least) 3 factors you need to think through carefully. One, opening up the wall between the kitchen and dining will make your kitchen visible from the front door. Not everyone likes that; for us, it was a perfectly reasonable compromise and I don't have a single regret. Either way, you want to think about the design with that perspective in mind. Even more important, you need to get the function right. Opening up the wall would give you 23 feet of length ... but it could mean a huge trek between the sink, range, fridge, trash if you don't plan carefully. Do you have a staircase to a second floor - does it run above your existing staircase? Finally, your budget looms large here. Opening up the wall was less exorbitant than I initially presumed, but in a small old house there are lots of costs I didn't initially anticipate. Your windows may need to be moved/resized among other things. I joined Gardenweb thinking we could just replace our existing layout and estimated it would cost about $15k. The eventual cost (including a heavy up, opening up the wall, and moving the gas and plumbing on a slab) was at least double that, and we'll add a bit more storage and counters in an upcoming addition/remodel. For us this made sense; we're here for the long haul and we still have one of the least expensive homes in our zip code. But YMMV. Finally, take a look at these two kitchen reveals that I remembered from wayyyy too much time on pre-Houzz Gardenweb. The first one looks larger than yours, but it's worth looking at since they did such a nice job of expanding without completely blowing out the wall separating the kitchen and dining: Cape house kitchen reno (So does this more recent one btw.) This one has a different layout than your kitchen but it shows how you can maximize every inch of a tiny kitchen if you plan carefully: beautiful small kitchen reveal I found this one when I was looking for the links to the others, another great example of what you can do with a very small space: tiny kitchen/dining reveal

Thank you for all your recommendations and notes. Really appreciate all of them! Guys, you made me change the way I look to this wooden decor. I finally looked it very beautiful: it's natural, hand made, in very high quality, and now, it would be very expecive to decor like that all room. But.. this kind of style: wooden decors, vintage kitchen cabinets, vintage lamps, rug on the wall reminds Soviet Ocupation times for as, Eastern Europeans. I think, mostly, every Lithuanian who would see this decor would say: "Soviet.. this is old, out stylish, definitely not beautiful, discussing". I heard comments like this from my family and friends. Sometimes felt little bit asshamed to invite in my recently bought appartment because of this decor. When you guys said this is beautiful, or how to style this decor up, I felt shocked that someone find it even beautiful, unbelievable :) And It would be pretty if I would style this decor up/repaint, it is just as lithuanians, associate this with Soviets. So even if I would want to donate this to someone, I think here wouldn't be possible to find someone who would take this. So my SOLUTION :) Actually, I will say bye bye for this decor, prefer a drywall. :) And I'll definitely upload after photos here in 2-3months.