Weight shouldn't be a huge issue; the previous owners had a hot tub up there. I doubt the trees plus dirt - even when recently watered - would be more weight than a hottub full of water. It took up about 1/3 of the space on the deck. Does sound like lots of dwarf trees are wider than tall. I presume that one can prune in order to reduce this, though. I believe that the reason we want trees up there is for wind blocking and privacy, as well as pretty. I will double-check, though! I actually wonder if it might be better to look at some other type of plant for wind/privacy/pretty up there, upon reflection. I know we also wanted to avoid plants that would drop their leaves all over everything come winter. We were in fact thinking cheap conifers this year; probably from Home Depot. Does make sense to try that first, especially since we're not sure if they'd make it through the winter! Dwarf alberta spruce may be one of the ones we were looking at at Home Depot; can't recall. I was actually kind of thinking that this was very similar to bonsai. When I was first investigating, before posting here, I was following the many links relating to trees in containers, which led to soil drainage and the other related posts by Al throughout this site. I haven't yet gotten the courage to try to _find_ the necessary ingredients, though. Bonsai mix would probably be easier to find! Foam insulated planters makes complete sense! I wasn't sure what, but figured that there must be some way to help improve the chances for a plant to survive. :) I figured as far as the snow and the mulch, in terms of reducing heat and moisture loss. Garden: yes, well-established. There's two conifers that I can think of offhand, both the same type. I don't know what they are, but they have yellow-green, fairly short needles, and are soft to touch and kind of... droopy? Not terribly helpful, I know. :) Being well-established, I don't yet know where we might be willing/interested in putting in trees that outgrow their pots. As such, I was hoping to not presume that we would be able to do that. Overwintering in the ground might... actually be possible. Even if we don't leave them there, that does sound potentially work-able! Size, I think probably 4-6' or so. Guessing. I really need to go ping my housemates and get more details, clearly. Thank you all! This is certainly giving me lots of think about, as well as specific ideas of what to try. :) Suzanne

Thanks for the compliment on the hardwood. It's actually bamboo. It's the Java Fossilized bamboo from Calibamboo. I think I'm there first residential install on the east coast. This stuff is absolutely gorgeous and I love it so much so far. We've been in the house a few weeks, just haven't had a chance to update the pics. I can tell you, whatever you decide to go with will be the right thing for your family. Facing the disability with my husband, and having it be very real and in our face forced us to look at some very real issues. We have a 12yo daughter. It spurred us to decided to go 100% handicapped accessible. My husband couldn't stand the thought of a future time when my daughter might need him in some part of the house, and he couldn't get there to help her. The idea of her sick with fever throwing up in the only non-wc accessible bathroom as he sat in the chair outside trying to comfort her...or having a nightmare as he tried to make corners to get to her bedroom. We knew that at age 12 there wouldn't be too many more of those times, but grandchildren will come one day.... He couldn't live with those thoughts... so we made the whole house accessible. Today a paraplegic could move into our house with access to all but the basement, and we are 100% ready to pop in the elevator as the shaft is prebuilt. However, if he did not have MS...and we only had our minor mobility issues and those of guests to think of...our decision might have been totally different. My inlaws built 100 feet from us on the same 17acres. They both have serious mobility issues. They lowered the switches, raised the toilets, raised the outlets and made the master wc accessible. The other bedrooms and second bath however are not accessible at all. At their age, and with their only surviving child and grandchild living next door...the money just wasn't justified. My grandparents, both just shy of 90 on the other hand are living quite happily in their 2 story home. Nana is blind, Grampa has COPD and a heart condition and needs oxygen frequently. They both can still walk, if a bit unsteadily and refuse any changes. On bad days Grampa sleeps on the sofa downstairs instead of heading up. I just wanted to give you a bit of generational prospective from my family....thought it might help. Laney Here is a link that might be useful: Calibamboo for flooring

Most important is to prevent the ground below the deck from becoming saturated in the first place. Water draining through the gaps in the decking is the only water that should be entering the space under the deck. The roof must have gutters, and the rain downspouts must drain well away from the deck. The grade must slope away from the house to prevent runoff from backing up under the deck space. You may need to add some french drains if the grade can not be corrected. After these conditions are satisfied, then you may proceed with improving the ventilation.

A structural engineer could design a floor system that is only 8" thick. Some possibilities are: a flat plate slab floor, a metal deck and concrete composite floor, or light weight steel. Or a 10" thick floor with 1 3/4 x 7 1/4 LVL's and a 7'-10 ceiling height. But if you check the zoning ordinance I suspect you will find a 2 1/2 story limit unless you are in a multi-family zone but then the building height would probably be higher.