deep_woods, Thanks for your tips....I have become moss obsessed and have found very little info on the web for growing it in containers. I hope to eventually take it outside, but for now, I am focusing on growing it indoors in several types of containers including: under a cloche, in a hanging terrarium (with a hole in the front), in a jar, and in a small bowl with no covering. I have harvested moss in my area (Philadelphia), where it grows all over the rocks and in cracked pavement (almost no soil at all), and even on debris-filled pot holes. From your previous conversations, I gather that taking some of the native soil/debri for the containers would be a good idea. Just as brendainva, I am growing in containers that have no drainage holes. I also gather that you would not suggest pebbles, clay balls, or charcoal at the bottom? These are suggestions I have heard from other sites. As I mentioned, most of the moss here, which is short, bold green, and clumpy, grows on extremely nutrient poor areas such as rocks and walls. Which makes me think it might do well on some rocks/pebbles. Although I cannot tell you what species it is, what are your thoughts on this? You said, "Shallow containers with fertilizer and warm weather and regular misting or watering from above with some mosses can lead to doubling the moss in a month." What type of fertilizer are you referring to? Eventually I would like to add some ferns or other native plants to my moss terrariums. For now, however, I am focusing on the moss. Thanks so much!! We need a MOSS FORUM QUICK! If you have any other sites or articles that you would recommend, pleeease send them my way.

Congratulations on your plans! I really like them alot. Elevation is beautiful. Inside is nicely laid out for the most part. There were just a handful of things that stood out to me as needing some tweaking: -The roof height change between the left wing of the house and the garage bothers me. It also appears that the roof of the left wing is higher that the roof of the right wing--is it? We encountered a similar challenge with our exterior plans. We opted to raise the height of the roof on the garage so the rooflines would match up. -Is the family room big enough? I see you have furniture placed in there on the drawings--is it based on your actual furniture? If not, it needs to be. Based on the furniture layout & the required walkways around it, your family room effectively shrinks from 19'2" x 15'4" to 13'2" x 9'4". I would definitely revisit this space. -There is ALOT of square footage dedicated to play/toy area. That's really enough space for a full on guest suite/in-law suite. Do you really need all of it? What are your plans for it once the kids are grown? -There is not a full bath on the main level. Not necessary but nice to have should have need of one (i.e. injury that doesn't lend well to navigating stairs, in-laws need to move in either temporarily or permanently, overnight guests who may bunk in the playroom or library, etc) -Are you planning any island/peninsula seating? If so, how many seats? In many of today's plans, there is a plethora of seating for meals where all family members fit--4(+) seats @ island/peninsula, nook off kitchen and a formal dining room--total overkill. If you have enough room for everyone in the immediate family to sit at the island, you could pull the nook wall back and make it part of the kitchen allowing more cabinetry for storage, more counter space, more light into the main room itself & you'll knock a nice chunk of square footage off that you say you need. -I see you've already posted the kitchen in the kitchen forum--that was my suggestion as well. -I'm not wild about the layout of the 2nd floor shared bath layout--alot of wasted space, IMO. Have you thought about flipping the vanity to the opposite wall and put the tub in the alcove where the vanity was originally, then put the toilet on the opposite wall where the tub was originally offering some privacy for whoever may be using it. You could make a toilet closet there if you want or just leave the short wall in place. You could also place a window in that area too for natural light. The linen closet could also be made larger in this scenario as well. A compact stacked washer/dryer may even be able to be accomodated. If desired, you could make the bath accessible from one of the bedrooms as well. -Love the big closet in bedroom 2, however, the door eats up valuable wall space (for furniture placement options) and puts 2 doors side by side. Have you considered moving the entry to the bedroom back into the hall just far enough to accommodate a closet door on the right as you enter the room? (looks like we're only talking about inches needed to accomodate this) That would give you back the precious wall space in the main part of the room, make use of the dead space currently not used, & take care of the door by door visual issue. -Do you need a linen closet in the ensuite bath for bedroom 2? How big is it drawn? It looks really tiny. What linens were you planning for that space (I'm guessing towels, soap, toilet paper, etc). Could the space under the sink be used for storing those items and remove the linen closet altogether allowing for more space in the main closet? Or maybe some shelves inset 1/2 way up the bath wall allowing for storage in both the bath and the closet. -Love the shower in the master bath, however, I'm not sure the rest of the bath feels as well laid out--almost as if everything was set in place based on the shower placement & layout. The space between the tub and the walls/windows does not seem very wide and will make entering/exiting the tub a challenge. There's a door collision issue between the bathroom entry and the toilet room which also makes getting to the toilet room awkward--think morning sickness/tummy bug/etc as worst case scenarios that happen on a somewhat regular basis not to mention one person trying to enter the bathroom when another is trying to exit the toilet room. Typically the purpose of the toilet room is to free up the rest of the bathroom for use by another when the toilet is in use. Currently, both doors will be closed anytime someone is in the toilet room which somewhat defeats the purpose and if someone does enter the bathroom while the other is in the toilet room odds are they will leave the bathroom door open causing a collision when the person in the toilet room tries to exit. I'll look at the master suite some more and see if I come up with any ideas on how to make the space more efficient. I don't like identifying a "problem" without offering a solution, but non are coming to mind right off. Overall, I think this is an excellent first draft and it won't be long before you get your finals. Hope this helps!

We've always said it's never too late to post to a DAT, and I'm testing that theory. I've been working on this one since May. The house is another Oakland hills home, but definitely a nicer one than the one I previously posted. This one is on the uphill side of the road and so has an exterior elevation worth looking at. Here is a shot of the living area with the dining room in the background. The kitchen is through the door at the back of the dining room. The living room is all neutrals, but the kitchen walls are green and the bedrooms were all painted shades of blue, green and aqua. Here's the kitchen and the room past the peninsula: It looked to me as if the homeowner spruced up the kitchen for sale by painting the cabinets white and putting in new black counters. But the black and white seem too stark to me compared to the rest of the house, and with the large west-facing window, the kitchen gets a LOT of light, and it just makes the black and white more stark. Now, if I really bought this house, I would probably live with the kitchen indefinitely. This design is more about what I thought the homeowners should have done if they were staying, and I riffed off their design choices elsewhere in the house. I wanted the kitchen to be a bit softer, and transitional between the neutrals of the public spaces and the water colors of the rest of the house. The cabs read a bit pinker than I wanted; I was going for a creamy neutral. I took out the uppers on the outside wall and the suspended cabinets over the peninsula. I left the layout the same otherwise, including the cooktop on the peninsula, however questionable that may be, although if it is feasible (couldn't tell) I would look to moving it to the interior wall. The adjacent space beyond the peninsula looks like it was intended as a breakfast nook but with the dining room and peninsula seating already, more space for eating seemed like overkill. Since the deck is off that room, it seemed like it would be nice to have a space that worked for indoor/outdoor entertaining. So I turned it into living space. What I wanted to do, but didn't have enough energy to do a board for, would be to do a wet bar at the far end of the room, behind where the white loveseat is. The room also has what looked to me like mirrored closet doors, which I replaced with something I liked better. So below I did board for the window wall, a view of the peninsula, and the living area facing the interior wall. Kraftmaid cabinets, maple in canvas Counter: Silestone Unsui Kohler Iron/Tones sink in Palermo blue Heath tile robins egg blue Kohler Purist faucet Maytag dishwasher Paint Benjamin Moore Acadia Green White oak wood floors woodfloorsonline.com Wolf gas cooktop Rangecraft Landau range hood angelo:HOME Ennis Shoreline 3 piece sofa collection (Overstock.com), only used 2 pieces C.R. Laine Pendleton chair in Kyoto Wasabi Abaca ottoman (Overstock.com) (this is just like the one in the existing LR, although I didn't do that consciously) Target Andres seagrass barstools (I picked these before the ottoman and now I think it's too much seagrass, but I didn't have the energy to look for replacements) Closet door pic from door.clutchot.com Both paintings are from 1stdibs.com, Energy, and The Rose and the Nightingale.

I’m glad I posted - I very much like the idea of adding a little bit in the way of slightly nicer trim and doors. That seems like something that can be done without it looking like we were trying to make the house something it isn’t. (I don’t mean anything super fancy, just better than the current stuff which looks like the cheapest option from a big box store and doesn’t have nice proportions.) We’re lucky in that there aren’t popcorn ceilings, too. Though I don’t think adding crown molding would look right, the ceilings aren’t high enough. I’m still in a bit of a rut about the kitchen, but we have a bit of time before we get started on that so hopefully I can get my mindset away from shaker and more shaker, which is where I was leaning for the current house as it seemed the right balance of simple and traditional. We may still end up going a bit traditional there, though - we’re going to look into opening up the wall some between the dining room and kitchen to help with the lighting issue (the dining room has a big window and the kitchen has none) and I don’t want to totally lose the idea of a more formal dining space, so I’m thinking the kitchen shouldn’t be too casual. My wish list is soapstone counters but we’ll see what the budget looks like. I do hope we can spring for proper hardwood floors, at least on the main floor - this house still has the original hardwood and even needing to be refinished it has a depth that’s gorgeous. I think that would help add a lot of life to the basic structure of the house.