***"A leaf blower pulls in a fairly large mass of leaves and discharges it as mulched leaves. The particulate is fairly concentrated in the discharge volume. The limitation is the volume of the bag."**** While the leaf blower/vacuum volume may be adequate for transporting leaves into the collection bag, you still have to accept a few facts. Leaves are fairly lightweight objects when dry, grass is heavy by comparison because is is water laden. The collection bag is often only a few inches from the blower impeller/chopper/shredder, so the leaf mulch only needs to be moved a few inches to the bag and then they fall out of the air stream. The trailer by comprison will have a long hose that runs up hill, and this means that the clippings will have to remain "airborne" in a weakening stream of air. The great distance of the hose will cause the air to lose velocity, and so the clippings will simply "drop out" and begin collecting along the length of the hose and quickly clog the hose. In order to carry that much weight of material, it will require much more power than is availed by a typical, handheld leaf blower/vac. The last thing to accept is the very slow rate at which a leak blower/vac actually collects the material. The leaf blower/vac normally picks up the leaves directly off the ground through the large diameter vacuum attachment tube. Think about how relatively slow the blower/vac moves in picking up leaves in an area of 100 square ft (10' X 10'). It pretty much will take someone around 15 to 20 minutes or more to vacuum 100 sq ft. Now consider how long it takes a lawn tractor with 46 inch cut deck to cover 100 sq ft. A 46 " deck only has to mow about 26 linear feet of lawn to reach the 100 square feet of area. A lawn tractor traveling at 1 MPH will mow 26 linear feet in about 1.5 SECONDS. Do you think that the leaf blower vac that typically takes 15 to 20 minutes to vacuum 100 sq ft.......will handle the material output of a machine that is producing a much heavier product from the same area in 1.5 seconds? The LIMITING factor is actually the rate at which the blower/vac can process the material and it cannot process fast enough to handle the volume that a lawn tracor can produce in 1.5 seconds.

Thank you all! That was great advice! I pulled the chairs out and used my handy-dandy tape measure. Actually, 8' would be fine for the width according to that...but since I have 12' to work with...I am thinking about going with 9'. As far as standard rug sizes go...I think 8' x 10' is the standard size for the 8' width, and I just think that would look too small. And, I occasionally use the leaves in the table, so the extra 2' feet in length would come in handy (9' x 12' size.) I might be able to do a custom size, though, depending on where I get the rug from...would you recommend going a bit longer (9' x 13'?) or sticking with a 9' x 12' if any size were possible? Again, thanks so much!!

There are very strict laws governing tie downs and tornado straps and even earthquake measures for them. Some states are more stringent than others of course due to the types of weather they normally have. My best friend lived in a neighborhood of new nice expensive homes on the South Side of Oklahoma City, when the big tornado hit Moore and the South Side her entire neighborhood was wiped away. I mean literally gone from the earth. Just a pile of rubble here and there and every tree that survived was just a bare stick and of course died. So with the power of that kind of storm it does not matter what you live in that kind of storm will take it out. As Gary England, long time weather man in OKC said about that storm when he was broadcasting live during the storm, If you are not underground for this one you will not make it. My friend and her family had enough warning time to get in the car and go to his place of business which is a solid concrete building with a pit where cars drive over it to have their oil changed etc I am sure you have seen those. They got in the pit. They were not able to go back home for many days because the damage was so bad. Gas lines and electric lines damaged. Living in Oklahoma was great I loved it and have wonderful friends there but I have to admit I am glad not to be in the path as much as I was. We still have them here but not nearly as much as there. I watched one go right over my house, hit my big tree and take the top out of it, jump over my neighbors house go across the street and drop down and proceed to destroy everything in it's path for a few miles. Just sheer luck that we were skipped over. I personally today would not live there again with out a solid concrete reinforced safe room in my home. I really wish we had one here! There are dangers everywhere! Different dangers for different locations.

Oooooh, I like that!! We had window benches in our last home and that was a favorite spot for the kids. This one won't have the lovely window light, but I could see it being a good use of space! The only tricky thing is that I had tentatively planned to put 2 barn doors here... my thinking is if the room happens to be a little messy or we need quiet from the rest of the house we could close it off. (Please ignore the mess that is there at the moment!!) But if we did the built in, obviously we couldn't do barn doors. That might be fine though. I really like that bench you posted! But how would we recess the shelves? I guess you just build out and it creates the recess? I need to show my husband that picture. Do you think there's enough room for it? The wall that you see there to the right of the opening is 42" from the back wall to where the trim begins. And the length of the wall is 76". A chaise was one of my choices... this one that I like is out of stock, and I'm debating how useful it would be for more than one person. Whereas the built-in you showed could easily fit both my younger. Thanks so much for your ideas!! Do you think there's space for the built in nook idea? I really love that!