So many good suggestions still coming in--appreciate that. I won't be ordering until after Thanksgiving (or maybe after Xmas), so I'm open to any more beautiful ideas. I'm looking them all up. Some I kinda know. But I don't know much of anything about Mrs. Dudley Cross, cherrykist. Is it hardy in Zone 6? HMF say Zone 7--but I know it is sometimes rather conservative on hardiness. And I'm not sure about its height since HMF says 3-5 ft (or something like that). What is your experience--does it stay around 3 ft? It is a lovely rose, but not a type I have ever seen, so I'm not sure what to think about it. It's really cool looking at all the gorgeous pics--thanks everyone. Kate

In our house we drink Iced Tea with meals, or just as a refreshing drink throughout the day. Don't touch sodas, except perhaps ginger ale every once in a great while! Cloudy tea has been an annoying problem for a long time. Especially when we wanted to serve it to company. I understand the mineral content in your water can be responsible. Anyway, we are not "bugged" with cloudy tea anymore. After trying every which way....here is what we do now; we start with cold water (our water is well water that has quite a bit of iron content). Bring water (on high heat) to the brink of just starting to boil. Little bubbles are forming at the bottom of the pot. Turn off the burner and add your tea bags. We let our tea bags steep until the whole pot cools off. When cooled, remove tea bags, but do not squeeze. We let them drip a bit, but don't squeeze! Then bottle the tea without anything added. DH prefers his tea without any sweetener, and I like "Sweet 'n Low". We add some (to taste) bottled lemon juice and ice to the glass just at serving time. With this method we haven't had cloudy tea in a long time. Not since we stopped boiling and squeezing the tea. Think the lime juice that "ksrogers" uses would also be a very nice addition. Am going to try it! I also drink hot Green Tea and Camomile for health benefits.

funkycamper, i think the contractor is able to work some magic with walls and beams, so most or at least part of the kit/living wall could be removed. and again, he's lifting the ceiling, so he has a lot of choices of where to configure the walls, if I can give him a basic idea of what we need. I think we need to keep the 3rd bedroom, since most of the houses here have at least 3 bedrooms. I can't see rebuilding a wall again down the road for resale. Rather do it all now. Also, keep in mind we DO want to increase the square footage, so sippimom, although your idea is really unique about the northeast sunroom, and I like it a lot, it only gives us a little over 100sf more, where we're really looking for 350 or so. Other potential trickiness of opening up past the fireplace: the town is picky about anything other than back additions we might fit both instruments in there, but they would be isolated from everyone else--good for practice, bad for chamber concert. need it open to some seating, at least for the piano it would get rid of the side front entrance, forcing entry thru the front door or the garage, which is small and tight, so not good for bringing in groceries. Thanks for your responses. it is helping me clarify exactly what the needs are. I guess my real question is, what would a good layout be for a back addition, that would perhaps allow one instrument to stay in the living room and the other to be in the addition WITH an expanded kitchen/seating area. Is this possible? Should I perhaps also post on a different forum?

How should we blend the addition to the current house? Carefully. You have two choices, reimagine the house as all new, or think how it would have been built with your changes incorporated. Your drawing shows a mishmash of new and old which I hope you know does not work at all. Also consider how adding a 40' wide garage will look extending off to the left as you show. Imagine how much better a side entry would be with about 24' of new wall and the addition above. It would look more like a continuation of the house instead of a monster of an addition. You need someone (maybe you) to draw this in a 3D design program so you can see how it will look. See https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/ for some software.