7000ft, I am totally convinced you ought to write a book. Your family sounds very interesting and it sounds like you all work as a cooperative of sorts. How much of your food do you produce? The tomatoes that I grow are primarily for sauce, so I use Roma-type tomatoes. They are odd-looking, being long and quite large. The variety I grew this year was Super San Marzano. I've tried some others, but this one is the best. The sauce-type tomatoes are awesome for making sauce. They are very meaty with minimal juice and seeds. Making sauce is a breeze because you can skip the steps for squeezing the juice and seeds out. According to the catalogs, some varieties have pectin in them that helps to thicken the sauce. We ended up with 25 jars of sauce in the freezer. That is a record for us, so we are pleased! That's 25 dinners during ski season that I don't have to cook. :) I also grow a cherry tomato and some sandwich-type tomatoes. I've had good luck with Early Wonder, which is early yet tasty. (way better than early girl!) Inside the GH we enjoy our first tomatoes in mid-July. Without the GH we are lucky to get any red tomatoes at all. I'm sure it's the same for you. My gardening efforts are pretty much solo, but my husband was instrumental in building the GH and in helping look after things as needed. He is an expert at raising seedlings because I tend to travel a lot in the spring. He also built a root cellar and he is fully on board with our quest to grow as much food as possible. It's a bit of an oddball pursuit, so I'm happy that he's into it!

Lovely! I like the classic white tile and porcelain and how you used furniture pieces in the bathroom. I love that the storage at the end of the tub has pull-outs that can be reached from the toilet. Your custom sink and backsplash and counter are unique and beautiful. Yours may be the first bathroom sink I have seen in which a small or medium dog could be washed! That is a good thing! I showed your pictures to my DH because I am thinking of classic tiled walls with a chair rail for when we redo our bath in a couple of years. He liked it! I was expecting him to say, "too old fashioned." He did not, he said it looked nice. From him, nice is a compliment. He even liked your rows of listello. I was just at the Tile Shop's site the other day looking at the Hampton tiles because someone was selling some on Craigslist. I am hoping to do as you did and get what I can cheaper there, and fill in the rest from the store. I can see that you worked very hard to secure all of your materials - and then cut the floor tiles to size and culled the Hampton tiles, too! You succeeded very well in getting the look you wanted while saving money along the way. Congratulations, and thank you for the pictures and great detail and supply list.

Benches, shower curbs, and niche bottoms, best practices are that they should be solid surface, not tile. Granite, Corian, marble, whtever you will be using for your vanity top, just have the fabricator cut to fit for that. I prefer the stainless Schluter profiles. They are virtually invisible. Redguard? How many coats?

Overwhelmed by all the responses here -- thank you SO much everyone! This community is incredible. Trying to get back to every single message: Mark Bischak, Architect - A mockup is a brilliant idea. I'll put down some painters tape and get a better feel for the space. I really think AR/VR would be so powerful for floorplan visualization. I did think about accessing via closet, nice to have that separation from the bedroom for when only one of us is getting ready. But the boss nixed that one. Gas chamber I am still 50/50 on. Karenseb - I just measured, and a 36" width shower is plenty large. I like the idea of a two-person shower, but just big enough to where we are comfortable but don't sacrifice the ability to get nice steam build-up. Your second message with the floorplan is very interesting. Two closets and a more usefully dimensioned bathroom would be fantastic. I will run this by my architect. Thank you!!! Susan Davis - Lots of fun to be had!! Good point about the door that pushes in, I think that is ideal as well. North Texan - Thanks for the description, I will try to re-create based on your vision and post an update. Love, love the skylight. Of course moisture and energy efficiency loss, but natural light is a must. Virgil Carter Fine Art - That is a huge concern. What is a comfortable amount of aisle space for two to be in the bathroom? I think mocking up with tape will be very helpful here. Mrs Pete - I am searching for the floorplan that makes a 'WOW!' when you walk in. Yes, I agree, single hinge opening towards the wall would be ideal. We want to do shelves and a pull-out hamper in the 18"-24" ceiling height cabinet. Without the toilet room and making any major modifications to the master suite, this is my favorite floorplan as well. Karenseb's design is very interesting to me as well. shead - Thanks for the input on the shower. I agree; it's too large and will be both a pain to clean and will not be as steamy as we'd like. Not to mention, if it spans the entire wall, we only have one side of glass. A second side of glass will make it feel more open.