roobear - can you tell me the names of the colors in that wintery picture? Looks like the trim, garage doors and shutters are all different? Squirrel - My DH is sitting here and I showed him your last picture. He said "Will you tell her to just stop!" (in a good-natured tone - LOL!) He sees you spending our money :-) I say keep going!! It is looking great, and fun to see the mature landscape around the house. We had our sidewalk and front entry porch stamped and stained in our last house. It was absolutely beautiful but was quite expensive. That was about 10 years ago, so maybe with technology advancements and everything else the cost has come down. May be worth checking out! Just saw your post on the Japanese maple. Wondering if my ash tree would cause the maple some issues. The house faces west, so the ash provides a lot of great shade on the house during the summer months. I think you are exactly right about digging down deep and replacing more of the clay soil out with good stuff. I didn't do a good job of that last time. Ugh!

Here is the latest plan from the architect. I do think I am going to move forward with this and cut back on one other remodeling project in the house to help make up some of the cost difference. -The architect flipped the bathroom. -He extended the wall on the left, which will have a long window above. He left one slider to get the bikes out. I like the wall as it adds more privacy from the road/driveway. -He added a door out of the garage to the back yard. - He added 8" in width by moving the wall closer to bedroom 3, so now the room is almost 13'8". But I am thinking I might just move it back to 13'. -Now, do I want a slider where the parrot cages are with access to the backyard? I kind of think I do. I can see myself pushing them out there to clean them (although they are fairly easy to clean with Lysol/bleach wipes). I could see this as a dog room also for someone else with access to the backyard. As it stands now, I might put a fence as in the third pic, and let a dog use bedroom 3 with a doggie door to the fenced area. - Th ctr. Is suggesting a door in the six foot opening into the laundry to keep the AC separate. I have no idea what to put there. Thank you!!! :)

This would be a great spot to do some fun/funky knobs! You could even pick a theme and do all different knobs. Anthropologie has some fun knobs. https://www.anthropologie.com/hardware Since you are on a lake ... is your DH into fishing? You could do an assortment of fish themed knobs. https://www.knobs4less.com/Novelty-Fish-Collection/fishcollection.html Life is too short for tiny boring knobs! :-)

The house - especially the rear - looks great. The approach to the garage looks odd from this angle - can the OP post a photo from farther back? Agree about cutting back bushes so that path to the front door is visible. A stand-out color for the door would help, and I would want to replace the handrails with something that coordinates with whatever deck railing is used. The landscaping on the two planting beds will be key. Initially I thought of a small flowering tree, but you won't want to hide the front door, so probably bushes would be more appropriate.