"...when you look from the top of the plant, you can see a distinct circular shape of faded green leaves; as if it did not produce ample amount of chlorophyll, so the leaves on that circular area is lighter in color than the normal darker green leaf...." I'm going suggest the likelyhood that those plants in question are harboring leaf miners. You may see squiggly light/white colored (sometimes "halo" looking) areas on leaves. Common host plants are tomato, pepper, spinach, squash and pumpkin. Leaf miners are small caterpillars that burrow in between the leaf layers so they can't be reached with a regular insecticide. Although difficult to control w/ pesticides, Rotenone and Pyrethrum have been known to help in control but will also affect the fruit to some degree.. The best defense is to cut away and completely destroy infested leaves. Biological control would be to introduce parasitic wasps. If it is the case where you definately have leaf miners, control is a must. Several generations of this insect will develop in a summer. It is said that approx. 60% of the plant leaves must be infested before noticeable affects are seen on fruit and yield. Paul B.

Solar tubes and sun tunnels are the same thing, just different brand names. We actually have a sun tunnel although I called it a solar tube in my post. Sun tunnels and solar tubes let in diffused light and the amount of light depends upon the size of the solar tube. We have a sun tunnel in a very small interior bathroom and one sun tunnel lets in enough light so that you can use the bathroom during the day without turning the light on. You should go and see for yourself the amount and type of light that you get from a sun tunnel/tube. If you want sunny light, you should go with a traditional sky light. If you want general background light during the day so that you can use an area during the day without turning on a light, then a sun tunnel/tube works well. As for the windows on the south that look out to a covered deck, I recommend that you find a house with the arrangement and see for yourself--go to open houses in your area. It's hard to tell from your floor plan how big/tall the windows are in your great room, and that will make a difference. However, the light that comes in from windows facing south is much different than the light that you are used to from your current west facing windows and then having those windows look at at a covered deck makes a difference too--you really need to see it for yourself to see if it works for you. The color of your covered deck will make a difference too--if the decking, railings,etcs. are white, it will reflect light and you'll get more light into your great room through the deck. If it's dark brown, it will absorb light and less light will make in into the great room. Also, the height of the roof over the deck will make a big difference too. I have seen covered decks/porches with skylights like another poster suggested, and they work great. It looks like your breakfast nook has lots of windows and they will bring in a lot of light to your kitchen. Good luck!

I can't answer all your questions, but I can tell you that the 2nd and 3rd photographs are not C. comosum. There are many species of Chlorophytum, and that looks like it probably is one, but it isn't comosum. The first photo certainly looks like C. comosum. I can even see stolons connecting plantlets. The 3rd photo could be C. comosum, but then, it could also just be grass. The quality isn't good enough for proper identification on my small screen, but I doubt that is a photo of it in habitat, or even in Africa. I see what look like Birch leaves on the ground around it - not native to Africa, and I can't be sure, but I think that's a little bit of Virginia Creeper growing behind it - also not African. I'm less sure of the photos above it, but the fern looks alarmingly similar to Western Sword Fern, and the downed tree also looks like Birch. I suspect all those photos were taken in the US, but I'd need larger images for better ID of adjacent plants. Photographs aside, you will find that growing conditions make a big difference in how C. comosum looks. It can have very skinny leaves, relatively wide leaves, various shades of green (or white/cream in variegated varieties), and be anything from small to very large, flat to upright. It makes it difficult to distinguish between cultivars. To further the difficulty, people often call any species of Chlorophyrum a spider plant, but they shouldn't. Chlorophytum amansiense 'Fireflash' is one common houseplant often called a spider plant when it isn't. It's growth habit is something like that of your first two photos, but wider, and of course, orange. Only C. comosum should be called a spider plant because it was named for all its "legs" (stolons with plantlets). I think it is the only species that reproduces this way. Yes, C. comosum still grows wild in Africa (Zimbabwe is in Southern Africa; it shares a border with the country of South Africa). And no, you can't tell the entire genome of your plant by looking at it. Even if you could, you likely still wouldn't know its ancestry because variegated spider plants are chimeras, that is to say they carry more than one set of genes. The variegation isn't carried over into seedlings. Seedlings are green even if they come from variegated cultivars. This is true of many variegated plants, not just Chlorophytum. You won't ever know if your plant came from a variegated cultivar or if it's heredity is directly from the ancestral form, but I can't imagine why you'd care since they're identical in every way. Many things cause brown tips, including dry roots, so yes, wild c. comosum can get brown tips. Any plant can.

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.