Hello fellow Tri-leveler!! Ours opens into the LR, too. You come in the front door and the room flows from your right. We have an oriental runner that flows from the front door to the kitchen doorway straight ahead. There is an antique chest of drawers centered on the lefthand wall that has a lamp and a changing display of decorative stuff. There is another oriental in the LR area with bare hardwood floor between the edge of the runner and the larger area one. There is a comfortable wingback chair anchoring each of the two ends of the rug. The sofa is against the far righthand (house end) wall. The wing chairs face the sofa at an angle. Since the room is not huge, the space in the middle of the room is not "lost" looking and the pattern of the oriental can be seen. Under the large pic window is a low ancient wash bench that can be used as additional seating if needed. There are usually a few plants parked here along w/ current reading materials. On the inside wall across from the pic window is a large secretary that is closed when I am not using it as my desk. There is an old chair parked here that can be angled to either wing chair or turned to the sofa... wherever conversation takes place. The arrangement works as a "foyer" because the runner acts as a "hallway" of sorts leading you to the kitchen or the stairs. The backs of the chairs (at angles) helps guide you along the "hall". The opening between the chairs acts as the enterance to the actual LR. The hardwood floor showing between the runner and the larger area one also helps seperate the two areas. I love the open-ness of this space. One fellow tri neighbor actually built a real wall w/ a cased opening into his LR. I hate it! His foyer is a dark tunnel and feels tight and cramped. He lost all the beautiful light coming in from his pic window. I go home and walk thru my front door and feel so relaxed. Part of the reason our arrangement works is that all the furniture fits the scale of the room. The sofa and chairs are of a smaller rather than a massive scale. There is a mix of open legs (chairs, side table, washbench) and solids (secretary base and skirted sofa). It's not a lot of LITTLE pieces (which can be way too busy), but it's not under or over filled w/ too large of pieces. I believe scale is huge in the overall comfort and function of a room. This can be hard to do in our tighter Tri's and Quad's. I think that screens and sofa backs have their places... but to me they are too massive and dismissive feeling. Too solid. Perhaps try something like we have done and see if that helps you achive the desired effect. Sorry that I can't post pics!

I don't know how I double posted at 4:17 PM I wasn't even home!!!!! Good point about the hand tamper Marcinde, I didn't mention the gas tamper because it's not for a first timer without good instruction and experienced supervision, not a toy. I don't want to be too critical here but that patio isn't really a patio, it's a space with some furniture on it. I would get rid of the rock perimeter, they really aren't boulders. To me it's a tripping hazard and doesn't really serve a purpose. I might suggest you go online or to a big box store and get some design ideas for a patio for a natural setting and develop a plan before you do anything. A good design here really won't break the bank. My wife is an interior decorator but has some unique ideas here at our lakeside cottage. I'll show her and we will she if she has a suggestion for you.

I only have 2 small koi, some fancy split tail goldfish (my favorite), and a few plain goldfish. They were all tiny when I got them but have grown a ton. I kept all koi in the past, for 5yrs but then a raccoon broke in (Im in a heavily wooded/farm area) and got them so this time I decided to get cheaper fish lol. If you keep fish, especially koi, get a pump and a filter for your pond You could use lattice (wood or plastic/vinyl) for the sides of your 'zen room' that way you can hang orchids, bromeliads etc on the lattice. Ti plants do okay in shade.

maybe just mix in a few shovel's worth of sand Sand needs to make up more than half of a planting soil before it starts to affect aeration and drainage. So to produce such effects the existing sand content of a soil has to be augmented with enough additional sand to end up with such a final percentage of sand. Otherwise amending of individual planting holes so that a pocket of different soil texture is created within a larger area can often have adverse effects on recently planted stock due to how movement of water into and out of the amended hole is affected by the involved textural differences. This can result in slowed growth, sometimes even failures. With this phenomenon not being generally noticed due to plants growing away normally once they have rooted beyond the amended hole, into the zone of unmodified soil around the hole that they should have been planted in direct contact with in the first place.