My joy about my windows was short lived. The hunky guys that installed the windows cracked one of the big ones. Granted it was or is a small crack BUT those babies cost a lot of money. I called the company but they didn't call back today, I'll try again tomorrow. My sis and BIL came and moved my wicker porch furniture to the sun room today. We also gathered up all the garden torches, shepherds crooks, etc. and put them in one place. My sweet sis is also storing my garden tools and equipment til I can get a garden house built. Katrina's bathroom gets tile tomorrow. Suzy your place sounds like a heart song. You know one of those places that makes your heart sing on any day. I wondered if anyone would notice the guys. People were slowing down and looking at it today when we were there. Gloria, I'll have to have the driveway done sometime soon. Not looking forward to that.

Thanks a lot! jon1270 Your pointed out the right problems; I don't know the answers for most of your questions. For size, I want about 500 square feet (unless additional will not cost proportionally). Exterior would be wood siding, to match the original. Shape? I would see a rectangle is most possible. Windows need to be good in order to save heating in winters. Interior material and wall surfaces would be just so-so; no need to be great. Floor is wood. Fireplace is not needed in the addition. I have no idea of foundation, basements things unless I ask a constructor to review it on-site to find out what is the best, Yes, it is on and on... I am thinking of paying a GC to be onsite to provide some estimates. Is this a good idea? Again thanks for the reply. Donald.

funkycamper, i think the contractor is able to work some magic with walls and beams, so most or at least part of the kit/living wall could be removed. and again, he's lifting the ceiling, so he has a lot of choices of where to configure the walls, if I can give him a basic idea of what we need. I think we need to keep the 3rd bedroom, since most of the houses here have at least 3 bedrooms. I can't see rebuilding a wall again down the road for resale. Rather do it all now. Also, keep in mind we DO want to increase the square footage, so sippimom, although your idea is really unique about the northeast sunroom, and I like it a lot, it only gives us a little over 100sf more, where we're really looking for 350 or so. Other potential trickiness of opening up past the fireplace: the town is picky about anything other than back additions we might fit both instruments in there, but they would be isolated from everyone else--good for practice, bad for chamber concert. need it open to some seating, at least for the piano it would get rid of the side front entrance, forcing entry thru the front door or the garage, which is small and tight, so not good for bringing in groceries. Thanks for your responses. it is helping me clarify exactly what the needs are. I guess my real question is, what would a good layout be for a back addition, that would perhaps allow one instrument to stay in the living room and the other to be in the addition WITH an expanded kitchen/seating area. Is this possible? Should I perhaps also post on a different forum?

Thanks! The screened porch in total, including both the original porch and the add on, is 14x22, so it would be a generous dining room when we are able to make it happen. We normally do look to Restore and Craigslist for projects and affordably replaced a rotting wall of windows in our family room that way, but I can't imagine finding all the windows and doors necessary to do a space of that size and have them match. I have always wanted French doors instead of the slider, but it always seemed an aesthetic choice that did not justify the cost, but I love the idea of that space opening to accomodate the moving of the table! I do have a sink set up in that potting bench in the garden for washing dirty veggies and deslugging the lettuces (my least favorite thing about gardening, blech). One inside would be nice so it can be used year round, but not strictly necessary. The fridge will fit, I just don't know if we'll be able to recess it into the studs. There is a vent back there going to the level above, but we think we may be able to re-route it. Those are also 6" studs, so it really would make a huge difference, and I'd rather have a standard depth fridge if possible, but we are also looking at counter-depth options, too, in case that doesn't work, but we feel we would need a second fridge if we went that route, and our laundry and "garage" (Dh's workspace) are tiny. It is fine as it is, there is enough space even if it weren't recessed, but it would certainly help the space feel more streamlined and give us that much more valuable floorspace to have it flush with the cabinetry. I am planning on an offset drain sink so the garbage can be under but on the side away from the dishwasher and accessible from the left side of the sink where we will do most of our prep work. I'm planning on two faucets because as unusual as it is, the people who have them in busy kitchens love it. I don't have room for a prep sink, but two faucets with the prep space separate from the dish space means multiple workers can avoid interrupting each other. I had the dishwasher to the right of the sink, but I moved it over to the other side next to the cooktop so that we could scoot the peninsula out and gain those 6 inches in floor space in the kitchen. I think it will be awkward, but not more awkward than other solutions I've seen in tiny kitchens (like having it shifted over in a perpendicular run to the sink), and we'll keep the dishes in the 36" wide drawers and shelves across from the dishwasher, so what I lose in loading, I gain in ease of unloading. In weighing conveniences, I decided we'd rather have it be a little less convenient to load but unloading is easy and neither will interrupt the primary prep space, so meal prepping can happen at the same time. Really, the possibility of using that little alcove totally messes up my plan in that regard, lol, but as I said, I want to consider everything, especially because I know my choices are somewhat unconventional. We put versions of the kitchen blocking the doorway into sketch-up, and it really doesn't feel right with the other architecture in the home, especially extending the wall from the foyer to meet the front of tall cabinetry. It feels like a thing changed to accommodate a kitchen and not natural to the space and very closed in both in the foyer and the dining room. It closes up lines of sight that do a lot to make the smaller space and transitions work. If the wall between the two doorways (the one extending between the kitchen and dining where we currently have a header) weren't load bearing, and we could easily make one wider opening that also incorporated the space between the doors, it could work, but we simply can't afford the kind of engineering that would involve. When we recessed the fridge into the doorway, the ovens were squeezed in. Plus, it makes the peninsula shorter by 30 or so inches, and I do like having that space as our primary prep area. It is nice to be able to have younger helpers doing tasks across from me so I can assist when necessary or to converse with a child doing another task at the dining table easily. I feel like I need to keep that space at least 42" to keep it useful for things like cookie making, and it is 45" right now. I'd gain counter space, but not where I'd most want it. Anyway, I liked the kitchen space that afforded for the most part and was open to adjusting to working more at traditional counter space at a wall, but I pretty much hated how cramped and unnatural it made the foyer and dining room feel. I was looking at the Martha Stewart kitchens catalog I grabbed at Home Depot, and I was studying the layouts and laughing about how convenient it would be to be able to design a small beautiful kitchen that didn't need to fit a refrigerator or maybe a sink or a dishwasher, lol.