Don't store heavy items up on a shelf. You're asking to injure yourself while lifting or lowering your heavy bags of soil, fertilizer, etc. My workbench has a shelf below it about 6" off the ground. This keeps items off the floor, but still low enough for easy access. The height between the shelf and the tabletop is adequate for taller items like bags of dirt etc.

chicagoans - Thanks for posting the pictures for me and the tip regarding the kitchen. I think we are going to turn the island the other way and not 100% sure about the placement of the appliances but I'll post to Kitchens and see what other things I can glean from them. Regarding the powder room off the family room, the main reason is because the back yard will have a pool, terrace and entertaining space, thus having the door to the outside. I have actually seen it more and more in similar styled townhouses recently. I'm not 100% sold on it but our business partner likes the location of them and have received positive feedback from recent home purchasers regarding the placement and ability to get to it from outside. Attached to the powder room outside is going to be a storage area. The area underneath the stairs will be used as a pantry/closet area. cpartist - Technically, it's called a living room but it's going to be more of an office/sitting area. It's a difficult space to utilize well because of the width and the need for a garage at the front. It will open all the way up to the 2nd floor. Thanks for pointing out the front door. Last set of plans had a single door. Not sure why it was changed to a double door on this set. Same on the master. I'm not really concerned about the necessity for another closet downstairs. We have lived in a similar sized townhouse for the past 5 years and haven't ever thought that we needed on there. I'll talk to the wife and see what she thinks. We talked about the lack of linen closet upstairs last night and will try to get one in there somehow. Our master bedroom and WIC are MUCH larger than we are used to or maybe even need so I think we can recover some space there.

You don't need any edging. If you have it, it would be better as a flush, decorative edge to the walk, which adds width to the paving width, such as in Doug's picture, above ... but not as a raised edging (which confines the walk and makes it seem narrower.)

I assume your house is on the right. Right? The most common form of zero lot line is where the edge of the house is on the lot line and your lot goes around the other 3 sides. Each home is set up this way. Looking at the area shown in your pic, it looks like the the home on the left is the one on the lot line (glass block window is a dead giveaway) and the space between the two homes belongs to the home on the right where the a/c compressor is hooked up:) A better way to tell is to look at your survey that you received at closing when you purchased the home. The boundary lines will be clearly marked on the survey. An adequate way to tell is to look at your county property appraisers website where the lot lines are sometimes shown on the aerials. If you are the house on the left, then you probably can't do anything to that side yard since it's not your yard. If you are the house on the right then consider the rocks but install a drain and large enough slabs for the walkway so you can retrieve your lawn mower without difficulty. You will need a professional landscape designer (not the guys that just do maintenance) to get the drainage right. In this insp pic the landscape designer goes into a little detail about the drainage they used for this posted project - click through to see more details