Erin, Good plan to use the shade you have to your advantage as it will keep crops longer in the garden. I'm glad that my suggestions were helpful. Gardening is learn as you go thing, wait & see, try & try again... that can test your patience. What I like about SFG is that it simplifies gardening and since you plant by squares you're not planting huge long rows of things you won't have time to harvest & eat up. It's handy to carry a basket & scissor out to go "get dinner". A lot of things that aren't mature enough can be put in a stir fry if you just want to thin out your plantings a bit. I don't want my garden to be harvested at once, so that's an easy way to eat it up. Starting late is no big deal. You're working the soil & figuring out your gardening habits as well as conditions with lighting, moisture needs, etc. Working on your soil is also a good thing because hungry plants don't grow no matter how much sunshine you have. The book says you won't need to add anything except compost to SFG beds, but I find that adding a complete organic fertilizer (COF) in spring for the heavy feeders is important to get fast growth for my limited sun site especially as the sun position lowers mid-August onward & tall trees give more shade. Just follow the directions on the bag & keep it in a closed container to keep dry as it won't expire. I do add compost after harvest before planting again. My soil needs lime yearly, so we add that with manure in the fall with used coffee grounds from St*rbucks as a mulch to protect from the pelting winter rains. Then in spring we add the COF & if needed to top up the beds more cured compost. We mulch with dried grass clippings, so that also feeds the soil. Maybe you can limb up the Sycramore tree a bit to get more sunlight. Then as it grows taller those lower limbs will be higher up, right? In part sun conditions the harvests are a bit longer in coming. Teaches patience & can be frustrating when you read 66 days to harvest. I find bush beans more successful than pole beans and runner beans better than both because of the shade & my cooler climate. The crops you're waiting on are longer to harvest & warm weather ones. Growing lettuce, spinach, & other greens quickly is rewarding because it fills space & you have a harvest to "prove" you're a gardener. You might want to try planting chives because they are a well behaved perennial edger & you have multiple cuttings from each clump. I have onion chives in one bed & garlic chives in 2 other beds. I let them flower away & don't worry about them seeding around because I mulch. The bees love it & pollinate my other things, too. Here's a pic from early last summer with chives, pansies, calendula & bedding dahlia in front. Cabbages, broccoli, bok choi, etc. in the back. The green buckets are leftover from a self watering container experiment the year before, but got blight, so I have left them vacant. The other buckets collect rainwater & the big black thing is a composter. Burlap bags are on the paths to keep the weeds down. Notice the large douglas fir trunk in the back on the north side of my garden We've limbed it up as far as we can reach & that helped a lot, but it still sucks the moisture out from the bottom.

Oh, those are a lot of questions. I'll try to answer the ones that I can: @Stan Z, those windows face east and the open side of the kitchen faces north. The window that is currently there is larger than the one planned (new is shorter and narrower by at least 1 foot). We do need the light. @jannicone, I expect to take something out of the oven and turn around and set it on the island. That's what I do now and it works well. The center of the dishwasher is 27" from the edge of the counter. That doesn't seem too terribly close. Where are you suggesting that I put the stools? I don't understand. If I put them only at the end, I only have two chairs. If I put them all along the side, then I have no prep space and have lost two banks of drawers. If I'm prepping on baking side of the island, there won't be anyone else in the kitchen so no one will be sitting there. I thought it would be ok since there is 48" of cabinet space, then the chairs. I only have a 42" island (where absolutely all my prep happens now). Perhaps its an issue. I'm planning on stools w/o backs so they can be pushed all the way under the counter. Oh, the counter between the fridge and the cooktop. Well, I happen to have a Savannah cat who takes great joy in stepping in fresh baked goods, taking bites out of things that just came out of the oven, and throwing stuff to the ground just to watch it smash. The purpose of that counter there is to be able to put stuff in there to cool (oh my gosh I want that -- I have to cool stuff in my office now) and where all the cooking oils/salt/pepper/stuff that I use at the cooktop. Its not on the counter now, but its all over creation by necessity. It will be nice to have it all by the cooktop, yet safe. @richbeau, I live in Texas. Nuf said. :) @homechef59, I think that the appliance wall is more of a recess than a bump-out. Building terminology is not my bag though. I'm planning on using my current counter-depth refrigerator which is a style can be almost completely built-in. Pulling those cabinets out to accommodate a full-depth refrigerator would reduce the aisle from 45" to 40". Using my current fridge is a budget concession. The dishes will go in drawers to the left of the sink. If I could get them closer to the dishwasher, I would! I hate putting away dishes. Yes, the dishwasher door would get hit by the outside door if they are both open at the same time. The stupid dishwasher issue was hard to fix and this was the compromise. Plus, I never open the door more than just enough to scoot my body through or else the cat will go on an adventure (which I have to follow). I have to admit much of the design of this kitchen and much of my house are attempts to be smarter than the cat. Its a sickness. @buehl, mostly one person kitchen; only me and my 15yo son in the house. Two if my sister visits. Two for prepping/cooking/cleaning up when my sister comes. (Or she'll sit on a chair :). The appliance wall cannot be moved or removed. The pantry wall cannot be moved removed. The outside door cannot be moved. Here is a floorplan that has measurements. Note that the appliance placements are not correct on here. These were my proposals.

3+/ I believe that insurance should cover all risks of loss of funds, money or damage to materials. You will protect yourself from the fact that something may not go according to your plan. That's exactly how it was for me. I started working with my house, but it took too much money. I was upset. I realized that I needed to hire a contractor. In the end, I turned to these guys https://alsharqa.net/%D9%85%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%88%D9%84-%D8%AA%D8%B4%D8%B7%D9%8A%D8%A8-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%82%D9%87-%D9%84%D9%84%D9%85%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%88%D9%84%D8%A7/. They did their job very well. I was satisfied with all the finishing work done! And what would you say about turning to someone for professional help?

@Yardvaark firstly, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to shop that out so I could see it and thoroughly explain your feedback, I really appreciate it. Second, I do have some follow up questions to your post, but if you don't have the time/desire to reply, I do completely understand. I am just grateful for the initial feedback and I don't want to capitalize on anyone's time. Regarding our existing elm tree...I'm totally seeing the need to limb this up but I admit it's also very scary as I don't want to damage the tree. We inherited it this way as the previous owners did minimal maintenance. I am frustrated because I asked the certified arborist we hired what approach we should take with this tree and she told me that trees like this should only be minimally pruned with the smallest cuts possible and you never want to take large limbs out. But looking over these pictures my eyes are opened to how ridiculously large it looks covering our deck! I am afraid that the limb to the right you mentioned, however, is integral the tree at this point and don't want to totally stress it. I wonder if we could keep these limbs but really thin them up? Is that even a thing? I can have someone else out to take a look. Harder right now as we are in lock down. We were also told never to prune our elm after March 31st to avoid attracting the beetle that can spread dutch elm disease, so I'm afraid we have to wait until next year to fix this either way! Here is a picture of the elm closer up: And from the backside of the tree, note the left limb that is the right side from the street view is pretty connected to the main trunk: And regarding the street tree and redbud on left, from the placement in your mock up that's pretty spot on to where I was imagining them, so I'm happy I'm on the right track there. I am, however having second thoughts about the redbud only because upon seeing it I wonder if a tree there would block too much of the house creating something similar to what I'm currently dealing with on the right (albeit smaller scale with the size of the Redbud vs Elm). I'm really intrigued by your suggestion to curve the walkway, as this section has been totally stumping me. My husband strongly objects to curves because of our houses squared edges, but I am trying to show him the value of juxtaposition and contrasting lines. I agree with not wanting to close in the sides of the walkway, although I'll admit I was considering adding a front border at the street and planting there, so I'll definitely reconsider this. The one thing I'm not sure of though is continuing the pavers in the planting area in front of the courtyard. I've had my mind set on creating a little separation and privacy in this area as right now we are super exposed to our street. I want to sit out here and see my neighborhood but not be totally open to it, if that makes sense. I envisioned plantings in front of the courtyard that would create this soft separation, my husband has even suggested a low fence. So I don't know if I love the whole area being hardscaped. I tried a photoshop app on my phone so please forgive my shoddy attempt at this, but this is what I had in mind for that dirt area in front of the courtyard (not these specific plantings, but something mixed like a low grass, perennial shrub, and maybe dwarf evergreen shrub. Keeping things 3-4' max height and natural looking). I would wrap it around the whole courtyard towards the house and in front of the left brick wall. The dirt area here separating the courtyard from the walkway is 5' deep: But this is where I'm not sure if the Redbud would block off that left side too much. I think I would love the view from inside, but street view does it cover this side of the house? And then I thought well what if I didn't do the Redbud there, but maybe a cedar screen with some plantings so it's less of an obstruction but still living: I had really wanted to put a Redbud somewhere, just love them. Maybe in the center with the screen in the courtyard? But from straight on, I'm afraid it would block the front door too much. I cheated it left and forward a little here, but maybe that doesn't matter.. And finally (yes!) do you have any other alternatives to grass in that middle section? I was hoping to remove the grass for something less water heavy since we are keeping the other lawn areas. I was also wanting to alleviate the water hitting the hardscape so much when watering as we have hard water and calcium deposits abound. But if the lawn would really be best to tie in the two sides of our property, so be it. It's already irrigated anyway! I know this is so much info. I am trying to be thorough but also without expectation as I understand this is a lot. We have already spent money on a consult and design advice with the arborist/designer so I was just hoping to have a better picture before paying for more. Thank you again!