Bahia - I know ... I couldn't find a more appropriate forum and saw a few other simialr questions on this thread. Hope no one is offended. Adrienne - Wow. Great questions. 1. Long term investment. We bought the house last October and we will be here for at least ten years. 2. We live in Virginia, just outside of Washington, DC. Winters average 30s and 40s with a few weeks where the low will be in the teens and 20s, and usually not much snow (the winter of 2010 being the major exception when we got more snow than, say, Syracuse). Summers are very hot and humid, though our property has lots of shade thanks to the old growth oak trees. 3. In order maximize the interior ceiling height, the back roof will be rubber which takes less space. We would likely not have gone with a rubber roof which I had a property two houses ago, but it makes sense in order to get several more inches of celiling height. To be honest,I haven't looked at the color options on that style roof so if you have any suggestions, I'm open to them. 4. There are lots of stone variations on this property. The house and stoops are actually the same brick, but an addition put on the late 60s (where you can see the first floor bump out on the back of the house) is a different brick (it's not a terrible match, but our main house brick has lots of pits and character and the addition brick is much smoother). The driveway retaining wall in a third brick. The sidewalk retaining wall in stone and matches the sidewalk retaining wall on the whole street. Our front walk is Pennsylvania flagstone, as is our new back patio. The terrace retaining wall and the rear property line retaining wall are Nicolock in Colonial 3 and 6, crab orchard blend. 5. As these are the 1939 original windows, we ordered new ones (they will be in this week!), but they are also white. The eavestroughing will remain white, I think, since I'm not sure paint would adhere to it ... but to be honest I haven't given it any thought until now. The shutter are paintable ... and I'd also consider replacing them with a different style. Most of the capes in our neighborhood have board and batten shutters. Curious to know if others think they are more appropriate for the house. The front walk and stoop , behind the hedge, is in good shape. The previous owners did a nice job with a small flagstone patio. We'd consider sprucing it up, but we'd like to explore adding a small front porch in the future so we probably wouldn't want to do too much there. On the other hand, I would take out the front landscape bed and re-do that with something more striking. Our area is full of lovely hydrangeas ... and we have none. At the very least I would love some taller shrubbery since the white foundation of our house (including the painted first row of brick, argh!) is not attractive. 7. Previous response includes some of my landscape plans. The tall oak which gives us so much shade, the holly tree and the grafted dogwood tree (one trunk is pink and the other is white!) are the only things I am married to in the landscape. We get very little direct sun in the front yard so our grass is somehwhat patchy. In the back yard we've removed tons of junky, unhealthy, croooked trees and all the turf so we need to start from scratch. We'll get a least one fairly mature tree since there's nothing back there now and that will add instant appeal. I'm hitting the nursery next weekend for ground cover for the sides of the house, sod for the upper terrace level, shrubs and trees. This being the landscaping forum I will take any and all advice on that as well. Hopefully I have answered your questions. Thanks for taking the time to read them.

Thanks guys! Mtn, feel free to steal any ideas! I'm absolutely looking to create something natural and appropriate to the woodland setting. I'm limited somewhat on what I can plant on the septic field, plus I should probably have some of the relatively flat areas behind the patio planted in something kids can walk and play on - there isn't much flat land on this property, other than the driveway and patio. I didn't show a picture of the terraced rock garden / retaining wall at the front of the house, complete with all rock stairs carved out of the ground - it is awesome. We used all the rock (about $10k worth apparently) from our excavation. Literally used every last one. Anyway, this terraced rock garden ranges from full shade to nearly fully sun when it reaches up to the patio area. I will definitely have a moss garden plus a fern garden there - exactly what is growing all over the forest floor out in the woods. Some existing rocks in the terrace are still covered with moss and I will try using Moss Milkshake (see link) to encourage moss growth on the rocks dug out of the ground. Each terraced level up the side of the hill has a long narrow bed to plant, should be fun. I also want to do something like this right under the cantilever - it is a perfect spot to sit quietly on rainy days: Here is a link that might be useful: Moss Milkshake

For landscaping, you'll need to supply more pictures. Starting at just left of the mailbox, with camera in hand, walk straight toward the house until you're even with the flower pot in the circle island. (The bank of 5 windows will be straight ahead.) Take 3 SLIGHTLY OVERLAPPING pictures from that location, panning from left to right. (In addition to the home itself, need to see the far left and far right surroundings of your house from that viewpoint.) Similar to this:

Please look into Permaculture / food forests or forest gardening. Plants and trees can provide beauty and function, and the idea is that you plant things that are perennial and will give you food. You could plant some evergreens that will give you pine nuts, some paw paw trees, persimmon trees and understory ones like Asian pears, serviceberries, figs and hazelnuts; bushes could be Cornelian cherries or bush cherries, blueberries or honey berries, currants; the list is endless. Even asparagus can be used, and it will resemble tall grasses. You could have rhubarb for their amazing color and leaf size, and strawberries as a ground cover...you could have a large pergola or arbor with kiwi or grapes...all of these plants are beautiful, many provide seasonal color and fragrance along with delicious fruit. I started a food forest last year, and along with what I had planted, I have well over 30 kinds of fruit that I'm growing and I plan to add more. I will have fresh fruit from May through November / December. I live in a zone 4-5 climate in Vermont. Watch a few videos by "Canadian Permaculture Legacy" to get the idea. It does not have to look like an orchard or vegetable garden, but instead, an integrated and verdant oasis of interesting plant shapes, heights and colors intermingled . Personally, I love raspberries, but I won't grow them because I don't want to deal with the canes which get unruly and are kind of labor intensive. All of my choices are tidy and low-maintenance. Right next to the sidewalk, for example, I have planted a 120' hedge of Regent serviceberries which will serve a number of purposes: all of the leaves from the neighborhood won't end up in my front yard, it will offer privacy in the summer but still be of a friendly height, it will feed the birds, act as a sound buffer for the constant traffic and will help with the dirt and dust that gets in the house from the highway. The hedge will explode in blossom in the spring; it will offer tons of food for me and it will offer fall color. Plants should provide more than a single purpose! With your upstairs windows, I was wondering if you could replace the existing ones with somewhat bigger/taller windows and add a second and third one on the left and right windows to help align with the downstairs and to let in more light.