"I don't think it's fair for you to use my little joke to try to discredit the entire thread." I'm not. I'm just trying to piggyback on your joke to extend it. Woo internet. We wouldn't have this issue if we were face to face, but it's hard to convey everything in text alone. Being a huge bad movie, horror, gore fan...I'm very in tune to the various coming zombie apocalypses. I'm not in the pocket of big agriculture, nor do I use/promote GM crops or chemical culture. I don't use either on my own vegetable garden aside from a light chemical fertilizer (aka, Miracle Grow). I just work in/around some of the "evil" (very indirectly, mostly end-user farmers), but most of the research and work I've done involve how to use less resources...that's where agriculture research is. Less water, less pesticides, less chemicals...part of this, unfortunately, is the role GM crops play in putting less of these other inputs into the soil. For us managing a few dozen to a few hundred rows of crops we don't need it, but when a person is planting/managing 100 acres+ things get a little harder. I'm not happy where GM is going or the companies pushing it or the governments that can't even get patent law under control approving most of it and letting judges with limited knowledge battle it's roll-out. I walk in both worlds, but I know where I stand.

Oh, I totally, totally agree with the average (new house) size being much larger than it was. That is really obvious with the mcMansions and even watching one evening of HGTV where engaged folks look at a five bedroom home and shreik......It's soooooo small! LOL. But, when I was a kid, a young married, it wasn't the norm to walk straight from the altar into a brand new house. It wasn't the norm to have your first babies in a brand new house. A brand new house was often the culmination of years of equity building......and many families never really had a brand new house. My folks lived in some modest and some swell homes, but not a single one of them was built brand new. So, the average sized home, according to home builders, were the average sized NEW BUILT. And it was indeed a cycle, because even my 200 year old "old" home is larger than the average new home of today. As were many Victorians. There was a small middle class in that era, and the rich had BIG homes, and the poor little ones. The middle class just got richer, is all. I loved it when my kids came home to roost for awhile. I was in my glory and it worked well......suppose it was a carryover from single motherhood, where we had to learn to function as a unit to survive. Also 'moved' back with my folks for a very short while when I first moved here and I know they were in their glory too. I had 'independence' issues, however. LOL. Baggage like that, even normal baggage can make the experience harrowing. If you can move past it or endure it cheerfully for the short term, it can work.

Thanks T-head. I think I may have mentioned earlier, these were repotted not long ago and at the time I was unaware of why these were growing this way and tried very hard to straighten them when repotted.(unaware of the habit) It was really obvious prior to that and made me think something was wrong, so I repotted and relocated. But almost all have done gone back to the "creeping" already, but kind of starting to add some height now.

Thanks all for the responses so far. rwiegand: Good suggestions. Yeah the staircase is a little overkill and taking up a lot of room. I'm definitely open to making the great room just 1 story. Great idea. mrsfireman: It is one large staircase going up to a landing, and then two smaller staircases going up in opposite directions from there. You can see more detail on the plan page. It is pretty, but uses a lot of space. Greendesigns: Right I can see where taking that out could help a little here at there. I'm in rural TX and custom home prices are $120 at the high end. We built ours 5 years ago with high end finishes, granite, crown in every room, 10 and 11 ft ceilings, and it came out to less than $90 per sq ft. However, that house didn't have as many cuts in the roof and foundation as you mentioned. Again, we're still in the long term planning stages (probably 12-18 months out if not longer). But I really do appreciate the advise so far. So I guess most of the wasted LA is the hallways, foyer and staircase? Otherwise, it doesn't seem to have a ton of wasted rooms (an office, a library, a living room, a wine room) etc. Seems like mostly usable rooms and not giant sized rooms...for 4800 sq feet. When I think of a 4800 sq ft house, I picture a Mediterranean McMansion!