The college is not a secret, its SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, where I am currently finishing my undergrad. I've gotten to know some of the professors working on this project over the years and they have been working very hard on getting this to be a success and are very friendly people. I took a tissue culture course that was taught by some of the people working on the project and got to see firsthand some of the laboratory difficulties and challenges that had to be overcome to make it work. Elm grows like a weed in terms of micropropagation but chestnut is an absolute nightmare! Resin- I beleive the gene used in the chestnut project came from a species of Wheat that just happened to have some sort of natural mechanism for fighting a similar pathogen, and it happened to work. There may in fact be a group of genes being used, I have no formal training in genetics and was never introduced to that aspect of the project. For the elms I beleive this is the case, as there are several different diseases attacking them that needed to be addressed (i.e. elmy yellows, blight). I don't know too much about that project, although as part of the field trials several of the "immune" plants were planted in a group with "baseline" american elms in front of our campus library. they are monitored 24 hours a day for both security and to compare their growth to the normal seedling elms. Only the professors know which is which. Some of the biogengineered elms come from a few plants that were found thriving in the nearby solvay wastebeds in absolutely atrocious, dry, polluted, compacted conditions- the idea being that our trees should be quite urban-tolerant!

All of your inswing toilet room doors should be changed for safety, but esp in bd 1, where you can clearly see you'll have to stand atop the toilet to close the door. Outswing or pocket is the way to go. I still don't understand your back hall. Is there a reason to have 2 doors going to the outside within 5 feet there that I just don't know? I think I'd rather salvage that little space between the garage and the backhall (where a door enters the hall by the bathroom) and recover it as bathroom space or more mudroom, or more office. As it is, it just seems weird (and like a potential wind alley) to have 2 doors to the exterior right there. Has your architect maybe drawn in 2 DW? There appears to be another Dw to the right of the sink. Bedroom 2's closet, without dimentions, but just estimating, doesn't appear to function the way the "clothes" are drawn in, and I expect will function much smaller than as large as it appears. The back left corner will be dead space/difficult to get things into/out of. I'd rather have that corner occupied by the "s" in the bathroom than the front corner to keep things more accessible. (what is the "s"?) I like the feature of the seating area with railing on the front side, but do you think you'll use it? Right now, it kind of reads as wasted space and creates a really awkward entrance to bedroom 3 because of the limitation to keep the hallway to get to it. Just a thought. Finally, I think bedroom 3's entrance is very awkward. I think I'd try to rearrange the MB bath and closet spaces so that bedroom 3 has a nicer and more separated (from sound of MBath) bedroom and entrance. If you have a separated WC, you may not need to enter the closet from the bedroom, for example. And, that would open up some possibilities for a better arrangement of that mid-space between Bd 1 and 3.

We have the Victoria + Albert York. It is very deep. I can't imagine it being any deeper or else it would be so hard to get in and out of. At first I really, really wanted the MTI Linda tub, was just in love with that tub plus you could get radiant heat in it along the back where you lean. I sat in it at Ferguson's and it was nice but honestly, it was sooo expensive and it's just crazy to spend $6-7K on a bathtub. I think the lowest I found it without the heat was in the mid $3K range. Still out of reach with all the other stuff to buy, too. That is what led me to the Victoria + Albert York because it looked the most like the MTI Linda. Since I have the York now I never think about the Linda tub anymore except to wonder if the wider tub would feel more roomy. The York is fairly narrow but it's still comfortable. I have the 68 1/2" size. It fits perfectly in the space we removed the deck jacuzzi tub out of just doesn't extend into the room as far, a plus. Good riddance to that thing!!! I love the freestanding tub, makes the bathroom look so much bigger and I have already used it more since May than I used the jacuzzi tub in the previous 13 years! That is a very good price, you can get the tub and the faucets for $2800? That's a good deal. I got the floor mounted faucet that is freestanding, the faucet hangs up like a telephone. Very British looking. With all the component pieces plus the drain I think we paid more like $3200. If you live in Atlanta I believe they ship from somewhere not too far south of Atlanta. The saleslady told us the lava ash that the V+A's are made of help to retain heat. I don't think I would ever have any sort of power feature on a tub again. Just something else to worry about and it's not as heavenly as it seems it would be. For me I love being able to use bath salts and bubble bath to abandon and while they say you can with the air bath I wonder if it's really ok. I never could do that with the whirlpool tub as it was a no no. Happy hunting!

Amy, old academics and new tricks... we can do somewhat of a decluttering effort, but when all's said and done, we'll both have piles of books and magazines again. It's just how we roll. I like the silver swing-arm lamp suggestion -- have considered modern sconces on either side of the headboard to leave the nightstands more free. New nightstand suggestion below... Dressers, anyone? And thank you so much for sticking with me on this. I really have trouble with it on my own! Here is a link that might be useful: light, leggy, breaks up the clunkiness of the bed?