Yes...humidity control is an upgrade. If you are in a DAMP climate then you need to look at a dehumidifier. If you are in a DRY climate you need to add a whole home humidifier. If you have a 4 seasons situation where you experience hot damp summers and cold dry winters than you need BOTH. If you purchase the HVAC unit with all the add-ons included BEFORE it is installed it is cheaper than having to bring in the pros to retrofit a system that already exists. Vinyl floors come with 80% 'wood look' planks. Some have stone-tile looks, but the vast majority have the wood appearance. The form of installation (glue down, float, perimeter glue..aka loose lay) is going to be dependent on the building situation (damp slab? thin slab? cracks, etc) and the homeowner requirements/expectations. And oh yah...budget.

If the lamp (bulb) is too dim, put in a higher lumen lamp. Easy peasy. Your fixture looks wet rated, it's performing fine. A dimmer to lower the lumens when you want it brighter seems to defeat the purpose you set out to do. By looking at the # rings on the CFL, it looks like you have a 13W CFL (equivalent to 60W incandescent) which has a frosted diffuser housing it. So the "light" from the CFL is going through both the lamp diffuser + the wet rated can frosted glass diffuser (lens). You can unscrew the CFL from it's diffuser and just use it plain. Or buy another lamp of higher wattage equivalent to 75Watt incandescent: 19W CFL; or 1100 lumen LED (you can also go with a higher 4000+ Kelvin temp (cooler blue) on the LED to "seem" brighter).

Kaseki - we do have significant issues with snow buildup on the ground as well. The home is ranch style and eaves overhang about 20” but the roof is currently still metal so the occasional roof slide along with accumulation on the ground actually can almost reach the eaves during a heavier snow year, and we actually have to dig out to maintain good egress for some windows. We did consider ducting out the wall but the overhang combined with potential snow buildup could be an issue which put us back to internal blower. My husband is not keen about any remote blower on the roof as snow slide, even with a cricket of sorts, and also occassional very high winds with snow just deters from that option. I do remember the posts regarding duct velocity and determining airflow and then duct determination. i think I even printed that info off and handed to my engineer husband who is working with our contractor to design the system. There is a serious lack of knowledge, or just dont want to be bothered wih complication, among HVAC contractors in our rural area and most, if not all, of them deal with newer homes and new construction that have already ’packaged’ HVAC systems - there is little use or demand for engineering and retrofitting odd custom systems. There is plenty of new construction keeping them busy and we have yet to contact anyone willing to think outside the box right now. We are having to do lots of self educating. With all of that said, I sort of have a big picture now of what all this entails but there are so many choices and variables within the various range hoods themselves and I do want sturdy, easy to clean (baffles, drip), enough cfm’s to keep fumes at a minimum, and as quiet as possible, albeit I am understanding better the variables affecting the sound levels. Thank you again for your help and input. We have read as much as possible the posts from both you, OPA1, and a few others. We also are using the Greenheck guide which I printed off.

I'd probably try to cover most of the floor with the rug. But consider your door swing and the thickness of the rug. Our new house has doors that fit very close, so they can't swing over even a flatwoven rug, which makes the swing the limiting factor in the size of the rug that fits in my bedroom. Really, what I'd focus on is trying to incorporate as many natural/organic materials into the space to bring some warmth to it. Wood, textured textiles, etc. I'd try to look vintage over going to Ikea for a lot of this as Ikea doesn't tend to have much solid wood stuff (no shade, I LOVE a lot of Ikea stuff), but adding vintage/one-off/antique type items to a space helps prevent it from reading as "from the ikea catalog"