Nobody has responded yet so I will give it a try. Go to Garden Junk Forum on this site & look at post called "Unexpected project" They lady is making a spot to sit & enjoy in memory of her mother. She shows before & after she has gotten started & I think it will be nice. She does have a new bench sitting there, most of us are thinking we would find an "old headboard from curbside on trash day, yard sale or thrift shop! We like to reuse things, so everyone recycles. You could put your fire pit out there, plant some native plants from somewhere else on your property so water requirements are low & if you want it cozy put up a branch fence in L shaped maybe 8 ft on each side. Just upright posts & branches attached to them for very rustic look(it is just the look, not a solid fence) since you have some property you should find what you need by looking around. Can wire branches onto posts as it rusts it will look rustic. The "fence" takes away the "sitting out in the middle of "nowhere" feel"! Makes your spot a destination. 1 person suggested to someone planting tree hunks as fence to use 1 near the seat. Good idea, might want to bring along a cold or warm drink & "sit a spell" then you have place to set it. Kirkus just brought up the Inspiration Album that Purplemoon put together for us & if you click on that blue link at bottom you will see many great ideas for great sitting spots. You might go to wooden album(albums listed off to the right side) & there will be bed seats & all things wood, vignettes shows spots people have made in their gardens to enjoy. Hope you get some great ideas from the album- we all love it & saves a lot of time looking for a post that may no longer have the pics. Good Luck

Yeah, pretty sure I'll have to go a different route for privacy/buffer. The area can be fairly bright but has little to no direct sun. i don't see us using the space much in the winter anyway so deciduous will work fine. Until our new neighbors move in I was fine leaving it open, I appreciate any light in there I can get. But these people spend a lot more time outside than the previous owners did and a majority of that time is spent just over the fence. They have a pool table in the garage and a patio just outside of the photos range to the left and, they entertain regularly. They're nice and not loud but if we're all outside it feels like we're right on top of one another. I don't want anything too tall, just enough to give a little screening and noise buffer spring through the end of fall. Thanks for your advice!

Treat it like any other tropical, light regular feeding. Do keep bumping it up in pot size and make sure it has plenty of water in warm weather (but not staying wet). Likes bright light but full sun will burn the leaves. Takes about 5 years to reach blooming and fruiting size. By then you'll want them in at least 30 gallon bins or pots. Blooms are white and fragrant like Jasmine. ;) Mine go outside from spring to autumn on my back deck. They /can/ reach as much as 8 to 12 feet tall but I keep mine trimmed easily at around 5 to 6 foot tall which is typical to keep the beans easy to reach. They tend to flower around June i the hot rainy season, then produce fruit which ripens in late winter through spring. Each coffee 'cherry' holds 2 to 3 beans. Here's a shot of mine growing on my back deck, near right side. I should start some new seedlings for our hoped for greenhouse later. You can get about 1 to 1.5 lbs of beans per mature tree depending on which variety you have. Hmm, I seem to have hijacked the thread. Pardon.

More than the ceiling height being a major factor, is the fact you don't have bedrooms on the right side of the house. If your house is only 1-2 rooms deep that makes all the difference in the world. This house is 4 rooms deep which might be mitigated if the rooms in the other direction were only 1-2 rooms deep. My home is mainly 3 rooms deep depending on area of home. In one area it is four rooms deep. Are your main public rooms deep into the house or near windows? Meaning the living/dining/kitchen rooms? For what it’s worth my last home was only two rooms deep and it faced directly so the back was west. It was the darkest hole I’ve ever lived in hands down. It was miserably dark. After 12 years I couldn’t take it anymore! That too is a problem depending on how the house was designed. A good house has to take in not only the lot, but also where the best light is, what location you're in, etc. For example, I know that in winter in FL, I'm still getting a heck of a lot more sunlight in my south windows than most who are up north do. Also agree IF the OP is unwilling to redo the floor plan. It will help but also it will increase the costs significantly. Good windows are expensive. Adding one more window in family room and increasing size of some existing windows shouldn’t be $30k though ;-) I noticed you put more than one more window. And one more window will not mean significantly more light into the deep recess of the living room. I don't think the bedrooms are the problem in this house. It's the public areas in the middle. The kitchen and the living room. I do agree the bedrooms need more windows but not the transoms. The transoms aren’t to bring light into the bedrooms. The transoms above doors will bring the light from the bedrooms out into the halls and living areas. Since the bedrooms are the south west side of the home that is where the light will be. It’s an option especially if the bedroom doors won’t be open a lot of the time (teenagers come to mind) It will bring light from the bedrooms to the hallways but not to where it's mostly needed. The kitchen and living room. Not possible with where the hallways are in relation to the living/kitchen. The middle of the house WILL be dark. It's not clear but being there's no upstairs shown and there's a door to the staircase, i'm guessing that's the staircase to the basement so a window will not really help. Didn’t catch the door on stairs. Had just assumed transoms on front were to rooms And it was 2 story. Makes more sense now as to stair location. If there is no second story over porch overhangs and areas that maybe dark you could look into doing solatunes to bring in more light. Getting light to your porches will be a huge factor in brightening up interior. So even sky lights on porch roofs will combat potential for dark interior. I do agree it will help somewhat and adding some in the roof in the living room will help.