First, thanks again for all of your replies; they are great! I put some thought into your comments and tried to revise the drawing with two sinks to help the zones function better. Still not perfect at all, and I have a few concerns and unanswered questions. (E.g., where should the glasses go? We get water from the refrigerator, but that's opposite side from the dishwasher.) Does this look better? In response to a few other comments/questions: We placed the desk, mud, and laundry on that "bottom" of the drawing because we can easily close off these "messy" areas with a pocket door when company is over. The top of the drawing, however, is the powder room. We thought it would be better for guests to see a pantry than our laundry mess. But a very good point was raised about people coming in/out from deck or garage and easier access to refrigerator would be at bottom of drawing. Other downside is unloading groceries from the car, but we have internalized that as a once-a-week situation and all grocery bags will be placed on island for sorting and storage. Here's the revised version:

high pH locks up certain nutrients in forms that are unavailable to plants. Having them present on a soil test report does you no good unless you know how much of what form is present. Start simple. Whenever the presentation is chlorosis, and especially when coupled with a soil test that returns an elevated pH, the first check is always mineral deficiency. Simple check, apply iron. if you see improvement, you know this is the right track. Is it the complete answer? Nope. Do you really want the dissertation? No more than I want to type it on a mobile device. Honestly, I'd start with liquid iron. It's simple, readily available, and the down sides are low...the biggest down side with liquid iron is how often you need to reapply it...think of it like a shot in the arm, a quick boost, not necessarily a long term treatment. Granular forms...especially the chelated forms, will give you longer effects, and the chelated generally also has what i'll call the banana bag...chlorosis is rarely the result of a single nutrient, and usually involves the m's...Mg, Mn. Long term results are where sulfur comes in. Adding sulfur will help lower the pH. None of these are one time treatments. Liquid iron is pretty often, granular chelated is significantly less, and sulfur is a time or two a year...other factors are in play, such as how much rainfall do you usually see? Less rainfall, more likely nutrient unavailability. More rainfall, more frequent treatments. this is the simple version. Not the idiot version, just the simple version. 2 Questions: 1. Do you see good new growth each year? or minimal? 2. Did your soil test results come with any particular recommendations?

There are different ways to check for different kinds of bread. I do a no knead whole grain bread when I want to limit my clean up water. It is wet, starts with a soaker and a preferment, and after mixing it rises for at least twelve hours. It's a long process without kneading. The volume only increases by about a third. There are a lot of seeds and other things mixed in which also help impede the rise, though the biggest culprit is the bran. I get my best rise by putting the mixed dough right into a terracotta banneton I can bake it in. It's not pretty but it is delicious. One checks by volume. On the other end of the spectrum, my very yeasty, sticky but not wet, double rise challah dough is guaranteed to double in volume in a short time. Usually about 80 minutes. The challah could do the windowpane test, but the whole grain won't stretch that much without breaking. I use the spring back test for whether cakes are fully baked, but not breads. Both of the above would fail. The challah would deflate. The whole grain would look insouciant and say, "Huh?" Linda is right, btw, about the gluten developing over time. Working the glop and stretching and folding is done to develop the gluten, according to the bakers who started this trend, and the sciency ones as well, but if you leave it to ferment long enough, it'll happen without. That's the point of "no knead bread". But it also takes days to make. Re the whole wheat love of your starter, that's some magic flour! Generally, they like white because it's a sugar high. Don't be scared of a happy starter! Next time you decide to change the feed, give it some of each and put it in a bigger bowl so if it grows that fast, it's contained.

Haha, well now this makes sense. I'm in Silicon Valley and have more than enough exposure to engineers and tech types who think they can understand and improve just about anything with homespun whizbang. They far too often fail but have trouble admitting that. Usually the damage isn't too costly. That may not be so here. JoeQ, your clever "system" may bring your furnace to a premature end of life. Or may have already. And that can lead to carbon monoxide emissions in your home. Or may have already. A new furnace may be a few thousand dollars. Health damage from carbon monoxide, hard to quantify. Your "system" isn't performing its most basic requirement, which is to properly control the furnace without damaging it or risking your health. Declare your experiment over and call an HVAC company to get your stuff working right, the traditional way. Good luck.