Dear carolina8bn I live in Myrtle Beach and understand what you mean about the brutal heat! Your home is adorable and Charleston is a lovely place to live. I like the circle drive and to me, the center sidewalk is inviting. You could install pipes as youâd mentioned and build up the ground area but you can get plenty of privacy from plants and trees too. Here are plants that Iâve had success with in Myrtle Beach. You could add a dogwood tree and a dwarf magnolia. Both flowers are very pretty. Fill in the other areas with a few large rocks and add a couple gardenias and some hibiscus both of which will spread out a little and grow to be over 3ft tall. My hibiscuses are huge and seem to like the sun, the gardenia prefers a little afternoon shading but they smell so good. Add a couple Crape Myrtles, and an azalea too. The azalea is really popular here as they mark the arrival of springtime but after they bloom, their flowers turn brown and are ugly, pluck the dead blooms and the shrub will stay green. You could also add a Camellia which grows well here in the south and their flowers bloom in the colder months, this shrub is slow growing but beautiful, especially after a frost. All of these should be small enough to grow under your power lines. To save money, you could try ArborDayFoundation.org. I was able to buy something like 12 to 16 trees and shrubs for under $90. I planted them in pots until I had my area prepared. They were small but grew very well and this worked for me because I like to watch things grow. Also, the crape myrtle is super easy to root. If you take some clippings and place them in water, they will almost always grow. Ask a neighbor if you can clip some, we southerners love to share our plant clippings. You had mentioned the color of the gray driveway not being desirable and I see that you have retaining edgerâs near the ditch. I would add edging around your entire driveway on both sides to really define your drive. It looks like your driveway is gravel, if it is, then you can refresh the drive with a gravel that has natural colors. To me, defining your drive will add great curb appeal. The sidewalk through your new lush flowers will be nice and inviting to walk through once everything starts to grow. I donât know about your HOA but perhaps adding a small arbor on the sidewalk near the house and then adding some clematis vines to grow over would be nice. Happy planting!

Hi, I'm wondering why you have the double doors to the left of the hallway-- there's an access to the master bath from outside the master bedroom? So will this be a shared bathroom? If not, you could gain a lot more space by eliminated that hallway access. As for the bathroom itself, a couple things immediately jump out. It's a large bathroom, but things look a little "cramped up" -- probably because the shower's so large and seems to take up disproportional space. The vanity area doesn't look near large enough for two sinks. Maybe you could separate the sinks and have two vanity areas. Finally, I would want something directly in the sight line of the long hallway as you enter, eg, center the tub so that's your view as you enter the bathroom. Good luck.. your closets alone will be to die for! :)

hi there. overall it looks like it will be a beautiful bathroom! i agree with the previous poster that toilet compartments aren't for us. we have a kneewall and it works just fine for us but to each his own. :) there are 2 other comments i'd make. 1) we have a giant walk-in shower with a bench that's all done in tile (floor, walls, bench, and ceiling) and it's ridiculously hard to keep it clean. it needs to be re-caulked every 6 months or so (as ours is on an exterior wall in a cold winter climate - i see yours is interior so no problem there), and i always feel cold despite 2 shower heads covering me with water. the warmth of the shower isn't contained because the space is so large. if you've had a big shower like this before and like it, just ignore these comments. :) 2) one thing i really miss in our master bath is a nice place to sit and primp. i have a large walk-in closet as well, and put a seat, little shelf, and mirror in there, but the lighting is terrible with no natural light. you have so much space that i'd suggest a place for a low vanity for sitting and styling hair and putting on makeup. (or standing and putting on makeup). maybe there's a nugget of something helpful in these ramblings? good luck!

All of this is reflective of my personal likes and dislikes. You could build the kitchen as described above and like using it just fine. I would likely move either the ref or the ovens onto the range run. My preference would be the refrigerator and put it up near the in-law suite entrance so it was more accessible to the breakfast area because I'd use that as my everyday dining space. It's easy to reach for cooking too. I'd be left with the ovens and the pantry on the wall between the stairs and the mud room. Again, personally, I might change that a bit - move the ovens to be away from the mudroom door and maybe a larger pantry - or maybe pantry on one side, ovens and a small counter on the other and a small window. *Edited* to add that moving the ref or ovens away from each other will stop the doors of both appliances from running into each other. It's possible when the ref has a door that opens towards the oven when an oven door is open. I would cut down the aisle size between the island and the pantry - does it say 6'3"? I'd make that 4' or 4'6" instead and make the island longer. I think that starting from the pantry side, I'd do 24" dishwasher, 33" sink, 18" trash, and then rest of island. It would gang up the prep space towards the new ref location. If you wanted, you could do a hand sink that doubled as an entertainment bar on the side of the island facing the family room in the corner closest to the breakfast area. A different, but equally good thing would be to do clean up on the outside of the long direction, also storing the dishes in drawers on that side. Then add a prep sink on the "cooking" side of the island. This would let children (or my spouse) help with setup, cleanup without getting in the main cook's way. Either way lets you keep an eye on what additional hands may be doing when they are helping do preparation. I wouldn't worry a whole lot about symmetry. It works well to have a pleasant layout that is balanced with the rest of the room. For the cooktop run as I've described, I'd do the ref right up against the inlaw suite entrance, then leave about 3 feet, allow 3 feet for a cooktop instead of 30", then just fit in what I could for the rest. I would be tempted to do the english thing of lining up all of the electrical gizmos on that counter, all plugged in and ready to go. Also, I have never walked into to somebody's house and thought their kitchen would be perfect if only they had centered the cooktop.