Deeby, I appreciate your concern and your passion. But I have had coons shred my chickens to bits, doing nothing more than ripping their heads off and leaving them dead. So, I haven't much sympathy for them. I don't know where you live, but here they are exceedingly plentiful, and have plenty of space and plenty of food. They come after people space and food because it's there and it's easy pickings, not because they need it. When I had problems with coons, I trapped them and then dumped them in the outback, as far as I could get them from my garden/chickens. Once they start, they'll keep coming back. I found that it was usually one. It seems based on the damage, it is a herd, but one can wreak havoc. Once I trapped it (tuna fish in a live trap seems irresistible) then I would be coon free for a while, until another moved in.

Moongardengirl, Here is what we're happily living with. Our house is about 1300 sf. with no basement and some attic storage. DH & I have one 9-yo son. #1 Four Kids Bed Rooms We only have one kid room at 10.5 x 12. It's more than fine for one child as a combo sleep/play room, but I'd probably go up to about 12 x 12 for 2 kids. #2 Kids Full Bath Ours is 6.5 x 6.5. Again great for combination kid bath and general guest bath, but I'd go just a bit larger to accomodate a double sink with counter area if more kids were sharing. #3 Master Bed 12 x 16... very comfortable with queen size bed, even includes a small sitting space. #4 Master Full Bath 5 x 10 - perfect with huge walk-in shower, no tub. I love it. Only one sink. DH & I don't need to get ready at the same time for work. #5 Master Closet Ours is opposite the master bath in the hall to the MBR area and is not a walk-in, it's 12' long, standard 2' depth. More than adequate, and easy to see everything. #6 Office I work from home, so I use a 10 x 10 space (part of the living room). It's more than I need. DH uses a tiny 6 x 3 nook that is also the throughway to the MBR... that's too small. A general purpose home office that would be just right for me would be about 6 x 8, not in a main pathway, but not closed off completely, yet close to the kitchen and laundry. #7 Powder Room/Half Bath We don't have one and I don't find a need for one. #8 No Dining Room but the "Eat In" part of the Kitchen #9 Kitchen Our combined kitchen/eatin area/tv&music room is 16 x 24. I would have liked it just a bit wider to about 18 x 24 to accommodate a bigger table as we often have about 8 people for dinner and it's a bit tight. #10 Mudroom/Clutter Room/Back Hall/Landry Room/Pantry Ours is 6 x 6 (pantry is in the kitchen). For more kids, I'd definitely go larger. We're tight with that space. #11 Living Room Our living room/dining room combo is about 12 x 20. I use part for my office and the other part is the quiet sitting area. It's more than adequate. Between the LR/DR and the Kitchen/Family Room, we have two large, open areas that allow for many different uses and make the home feel much larger than it is. People always seem surprised the house is as small sq. footage as it is. Three times a year we have between 50-150 people over and the large spaces work great. #12 Play Room/Homework Room We have a small separate 8 x 8 hobby room off the garage. I think it's important to have one messy hobby space, but not really in the main living space... your unfinished bonus room sounds ideal. I like DS doing homework at the kitchen table. I can check his work while I'm getting dinner ready or cleaning up after dinner, so I wouldn't really like a separate homework room. When DS is older, he'll probably just replace his toy area with more desk space in his bedroom. My personal preference for home spaces is compact bedrooms and baths with larger multi-purpose public spaces. One thing I'd be concerned about in your plan is by having so many rooms, they're all going to end up being small. It's nice to have generous space somewhere in the house. Also, one thought is to build it in such a way that you could in the future add a master wing. So for now build 4 bedrooms (including master) and 2 baths but if you had more kids, add a nice master br and additional bath. I've noticed on this forum, many people are building houses that are much, much larger. You might want to also post this question on the small house forum. To put things in perspective, I like space and luxury, but am not willing to live for my house or my "stuff". I prefer smaller houses. When you're ready, this forum is a great place for posting your floorplan. Folks here are so creative and helpful.

When Blaze was in Puppy Kindergarten, the owners of the smaller dogs really bothered me. Blaze is a Golden, and so is Ricky, his brother. Ricky is about 90 pounds, and plays with Blaze all the time. Blaze is a puppy, and has no sense as far as I am concerned. I don't believe that a dog naturally knows to be protective of smaller dogs. Blaze really only knows the rough play he has at home. In the Puppy Kindergarten I watched Blaze so carefully, but people would come over, tell me that Blaze is so cute, and put their puppies practically in his face. If the smaller puppy tried to play with him, he might take his paw and foot and put them on the smaller dog. His paws are big, and that worried me. When they played off the leash, I did not let Blaze off the leash. It is my responsibility to know my dog, and to know his limitations. If I don't take care of him nobody else can. So many things happened when those 20 puppies were off the leash, and most of the people laughed and thought the dogs were cute. I saw danger. The yard was large and there was no way of getting to the dogs in time when there were problems. There were problems, and she stopped giving the off the leash time outside. It is really ok to be protective. Later after the dog is more trained, you may want to trust him and the others more. But had I not been protective, and had I allowed Blaze to race around and jump and play with all those little dogs, we could have had a dangerous situation. After all, if the tail of the dog can easily knock down another dog, the little dog is not automatically safe. This is why in my new class, I am so happy that they have divided the class, and Blaze is in a class with large dogs. There are only 6 or 8 of us instead of 20 plus. Sammy

Right now we are in a 1923 square foot condo. 3 BR/2Bth. It's just a bit too small for us. The third bedroom doubles as DH's office so when we have guests (and we have plenty since we're in FL for 1/2 the year) he loses his office. The third bedroom is my studio and it's just about the right size. Our living room/dining room/ kitchen could all be a bit bigger and when we have guests it would be nice to have an extra 1/2 bathroom. We also have 4 balconies; three of which are never used. We are building a new house that will greatly increase our living space because we intend to live much of our time outdoors. Our new house will be 2600 sq feet on a 65 x 93 lot. DH will now have his own study downstairs and we'll have a separate guest bedroom with a murphy bed which will double as our gym. We will have a much larger living/dining/kitchen area for entertaining; something we don't have room to do right now. While the majority of our time is spent in our offices, we do use all our condo now and expect to use all of our new build too. Anything that wouldn't be used, I got rid of.