Just looking through some of the tips to cover a garden wall. Can anyone help with this? We live in Spain - long hot summers and very dry. We have a 100 meter retaining wall which is sloping from 2 meters to about 5 meters end to end. We live on a hillside and this wall is behind us mostly below ground level and there is a road behind it. The wall is concrete bricks covered with a white paint and suffers really badly from efflorescence. Its incredibly ugly and paint lasts about 2 months before it comes off. The only solution I can think of is to stone clad it - quite expensive and lots of work. I like the idea of planting climbing plants from the other side to grow up and over the wall and hang down our side but worry about the possibility of the plants taking over(100 meters is a lot to maintain) also a bit worried about the reference to dangerous spiders. At this stage any advice would be gratefully received... Thanks in advance.

Suzi- Wow! Misery loving company? I am actually excited about our project, but I can tell I'm stressed about finding the way to do it well and within an amount of money that makes sense. Michelle- Thank you for the quick review of process. That's what I needed. Our home isn't much to right home about. Nice neighborhood, mid-range home in a cookie cutter housing development in downstate Illinois. It's a raised ranch with that "welcome to my garage" front. All the work that needs to be done will add up to a hefty price tag--at least for us. I do read here a lot and always have paid attention to the wall / hardscape / driveway discussions. Keeping things on the plainest of plain approaches will shoot the heck out of $25,000. The bids on the driveway are all coming in pretty close to each other, averaging $7,000. And that's the easy part. The lower patio iz connected to the steps up to grade; The steps up to grade connected to the sidewalk; the sidewalk connected to the upper back patio; the upper back patio connected to a gravel mess and gravel path on the east side of the house; the gravel path connected to the driveway in front; the driveway in front connected to the always-too-skimpy concrete pad at the front entry . Throw in two flower beds - one in front, one in back, 9' x 20', each enclosed in current hardscape -- and you've got the basic pieces of this puzzle. As to getting my husband to see the need for a designer? I have talked to him. Geez. I think his idea of a plan is just let's put concrete over it. It'll be up to me to figure out a how and a who on getting a plan. After reading here so much, I can't believe I forgot about the design part. Mental block, I guess, because I knew how it would go over with my husband in real time. So, that's my stress. Not the project, which will eventually be, I hope, something to enjoy, but the relational dynamic! I'm holding on to the hope that at some point my husband will realise that this is too big to work by just talking out loud. I only sat in on one of the chats with a contracter. It was immediately clear that the discussion was ... um ... theoretical. We might do this. We might do that. Oh, remember the rail on those steps. What if we throw in a deck? That 10' x 12' space is awkwardly small. What'll happen if we make it bigger? Where are the exterior water faucets? What material ... Yep. Need a plan. So ... my Twilight Zone episode: Woman reads forum threads on landscape design for years. Over and over again people write in and look for shortcut on landscape projects. These projects make or break the look of the home and the outdoor functionality, and they cost what they cost, but no one gets it that a plan is needed. Woman understands, but then wakes up one day and finds out she's married to one of those people who will plan to spend more than 10% of the property value on a project but plan to do it without a plan. I'm now living in a Landscape Design forum thread! Catkim- Oh, Kim, nice of you to say. Lanai? I've got lanai envy. My memories of Hawaii go back to my childhood. My dad worked for an Australian company and en famille we went back and forth through Hawaii several times. And Fiji. And Tahiti. And New Zealand. I love oceans and now live so far from their sound. My last Guide Dog died quite suddenly in November. I haven't yet scheduled to go to San Rafael to get the next ... but that'll be when I get my ocean proximity fix.

Laura12, I have looked heavily at many of the floorplans, our builder we will likely go with already has it and lucky us my really cool sister in law is an architect. We plan on trying for a solid LEED certification as well "sola tubes, green foam, new roof sealing technology, stained concrete etc" I am stoked about adding the folding rear doors to the pool, think it will make the house. A floor drain is a pretty cool idea for the mudroom. You could almost have a "Italian style" shower drain if you have the room to wash off boots etc, people with reef saltwater aquariums use these a lot and plumb skimmers directly to them. I want to have a large cabinet under the center island for all of the appliances, the only caveat I will have to add is a way to run the cables up the top and close the door still for things like a crockpot or breadmaker. This is a basic DJ control panel, would create stickers for the switches to label them, and probably wire a manual switch underneath to turn the unit on, so two switches and go. http://www.amazon.com/American-Pc-100A-Mount-Power-Switcher/dp/B0002GL50Q Cheap vampire timer http://cableorganizer.com/belkin/conserve-socket/ http://www.igo.com/other-power/power-smart-tower-with-igo-greenr-technology/invt/pm000110004/?source=165_75 Things like this should in theory allow me to plug in nearly all my appliances and just about cut vampire wattage. Thank you for the option on the sinks, I am checking them out vs dark copper. I am thinking of the eletrostatic non replaceable air filters that are washable, any thoughts? If so I could wash it monthly and that would cut down on dust etc. I am also thinking green foam insulation and ceiling up the attic totally, as we have more of a heat issue and leaving the attic floor wo insulation resulting in heat rising "all our cost are in cooling here in Texas". Have talked to an owner that did that and his attic is amazingly cool/home.

Running NM from the interior of the house through the brick/stucco/mortar/concrete/volcanic pumice/whatever is fine. You'll need a box connector on the rear of the box where the NM enters. You can put a bead of silicone along the rear top of the box if you want. I'd fill the hole in the wall at the rear of the box with good old Duxseal, the same stuff you'd use on service entrance.