I am good with clay, peat moss is honestly pretty overated for external use with heavy clay if your in the south. Now compost and manure will be like black gold, copost right away and manure later on. What I do for things like this is add a couple bags "20-40#'s" of compost and then go to a friends stable and get his horse manure and mix it in, 4 months later is ready for planting and stuff grows like weeds. You can get aged manure and its pretty good as well. You need to break up the soil before creating the raised bed to you don't have a hard surface. I topcoat with heavy pinestraw sense it doesn't wash away in the severe downpours we have in the south, granted it makes the soil slightly acidic, it also makes it 100x easier to weed because they get leggy and are insanely easy to pull. If its a large area, look into getting a full truck load of topsoil, then see if its sandy, loam, or rich soil and then add manure. I really hope this helps, as you just found out its probably about 75% about the soil.

I don't know anything about storm shelters but having a open staircase outside is just going to be collection area for leaves, twigs, etc. You may also need a fence/gate around it. Colored and stamped concrete can look really sharp. Just make sure you get a concrete guy who does it regularly.

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Your home is gorgeous! I spent a year renovating a 1939 petite colonial (1700 sf). In my case, I had to add a kitchen as the old one was tiny had badly renovated in the 1990s. A few workflow tips in your newer post with the kitchen. I'd put the prep sink at the range end of your island, instead of at the dining room entrance end. Think about it -- you chop, then have to carry the food to the range. Please rethink that desk in your kitchen. I've had "work/message centers" as built-ins in previous homes, but here in my new old house, I'm using a piece of furniture -- a drop-front secretary where I can close up the mess when guests arrive, but sit there and work (printer in the bottom). You can put the secretary in any room. Where your desk is located, it's not a drop station for bringing in the mail, schoolbooks, etc. For aesthetics, please try to make the kitchen fit the spirit of the house. White cabinets would likely fit it better than stained wood. Consider having at least a few glass-front upper cabinets. If you turned that desk space into storage, you wouldn't need to line the walls with upper cabinets. It's amazing what you can fit into a "hutch" look that would fit the aesthetics of your home. I had hutches flanking my farmsink in my previous home. One for pantry items, the other for dishes. My current 1939 home new renovation -- hutches -- the one of the left of my paneled fridge is for dishes and the one one the right side is filled with food items stored in canisters and containers. My kitchen is only 12x12 as the dimensions are in keeping with the original room sizes. The dining room is 12x12 and the living room is 12 x 21.