I did this about 12 years ago with my parents. Or I should say they did this to me. I can't tell you how much easier it made the last few years. My mother passed away last year and it made a hugh differednce. I could take care of everything for my father. It took almost a year to get through all the trust attornies, accountants, apraisers,and banks, ect. My parents had everything set up in advance. Pre paid funeral, cemetary, trusts, everything. The one thing I learned is what a great gift it was to me and I have set up everything for our daughter in the last few months. Hard to talk about but such a great gift to give your child.

"Overall, I am concerned that this plan doesn't really reflect what a large family might need on a farm. I don't see space for a large chest freezer, or a utility shower by the garage (or whichever door would be the main entrance from working outside.) The workshop seems very inadequate unless there's another freestanding workshop. You don't have good cross-ventilation in the house, so it may get stuffy." Okay, please talk to me about what would be needed for better cross-ventilation! I don't want a stuffy house. As far as a chest freezer, that would go either in the mudroom upstairs, or, more likely, in the downstairs laundry/utility room. Utility shower--DH and I originally had a shower off of the mudroom, and actually removed it. Dh really feels he does not need it. He does get dusty at times, and his boots can get muddy depending on the season, but those get left outside. Never have I known him to come home covered in mud or anything like that. If he did need to do a little washing up before going downstairs, he can do so in the sink. I guess I am just trusting his judgment on that one. We haven't had a utility shower up until this point and he says he hasn't missed it. He says he would like to shower and dress in one place--in the master suite. Lastly, workshop--that little area is just for bikes, bats, balls, etc. The farm has 19 outbuildings total and they will be building a new shop in the next 2-4 years, so workshop space is not a concern, hee hee! "You've got a playroom and closet on the ground that can be used as a bedroom in the event someone gets injured or you have an aging relative visiting, but I think you also at least need a shower on the ground floor. Even if it's in the garage! I do think you need one more bathroom. Many families get by without more than one or two, but they aren't building a custom home." Point definitely taken. We've planned that if needed, we will remodel the large mudroom to include a 3/4 attached bathroom, if we have need to turn that room into a bedroom one day. I kind of addressed the utility shower thing above, but I, too, was concerned about the lack of a second "family bath" downstairs. When we decided to excavate a full basement beneath the garage office and include a guest suite, that alleviated my fears, since it will include a full bath that can be used by our kids anytime a guest is not in the house. When we have guests, I am sure we'll manage for a short period of time with two full baths. Also, since my husband is self-employed and we plan to homeschool our kids through high school, we can avoid some of the early-morning bathroom bottleneck that occurs with families who are trying to leave out the door at the same time daily. "The stairs feature prominently in the entrance, but when guests come in the front door, it doesn't lead to areas you usually want them to go. I think the stairs should be accessible from the family areas." Do you have a suggestion of where you might locate the stairs if you were in our shoes? Maybe you'd just be tossing the plan altogether. Sometimes I feel like doing just that!!! I do think we're going to be flipping the entry closet with the powder room, and then scooting over the double door all the way, so that you open the door into the hallway instead of the stairs. Do you think that will help? "If you widen the pantry by at least another 6", you'll have room for shelves on each side which will dramatically increase your linear wall storage capacity for not much more square footage." I LOVE this idea! I am going to do ask for that to be changed. I can easily give up 6" of great room space without being bothered. "I agree with bigkahuna about the closet space, especially in the master. At a minimum you could have closet storage on the left and using the space under the stairs, with the bath on the right." On our little car trip today I brought some graph paper and played around a little. I couldn't come up with anything I really loved! I am not married to the master bedroom floorplan right now at ALL, but I think I will need some direction in how to change it! If anyone wants to play with a plan, go for it! Otherwise I guess I will talk with our designer this week and see if he can suggest something better. "If you plan on having more kids, a small room adjacent to the master will help in the early years and can be used as a sitting room later." We actually co-sleep until around a year old, so for our family we won't need this. I love the idea in theory, though! "Having said all the bad stuff... To make room for the extra closets and stuff downstairs, you could make those bedrooms an smidgen smaller and the master really doesn't need to be that long. If you are planning on encouraging the country lifestyle where life is lived outside, small bedrooms won't be an issue for the kids. I think your laundry/utility room might be a little larger than it needs to be, too. You could steal a foot or two in width and then would have room for two bathrooms." Can you clarify a little more on what you would suggest doing to increase closet space? We may end up doubling some kids up in bedrooms, so I don't want to go too small, but you can never have too much closet space. "I don't understand the pocket door in the mudroom. It's the only pocket door in the house, so it seems out of place." I am not in love with it myself. I think I'll request for it to be changed to a normal door. The pocket design is actually a remnant from a previous mudroom plan, and kind of just got left in there for no reason. "If you leave the stairs where they are, a single front door plus sidelights would give you a little more breathing room in the front foyer." If we scoot the double doors over all the way to the left wall, I think this will be eliminated or at least helped. Additionally, DH and I talked about it, and we'd like to talk to our GC about what it would require cost-wise for us to push out the entry a couple feet. It's already excavated underneath, so there will be trusses there anyway--why not, right? So we'll see what he says on that one. "The elevation looks like it might be a little odd. I think I would set the columns to flank the door. Right now the front of the house, the door and the columns are all on different spacing and I think it will look disordered instead of deliberate." Yep, that is just a boo-boo in the version of the plans I have. It will be centered. "For your virtual hallway, you could consider a strip of stone or tile. It would help absorb some of the damage from dirty boots and such in a way that a wood floor would not." You are so right, but at the same time, we are planning on all hardwoods, so it might look awkward to have one floating strip of tile, don't you think? Also, we are a sockfoot family when indoors, so anyone who walks into the house with dirty shoes will incur mama's wrath!!! :) "Have you considered moving the kitchen to the center? You could still have it open to either side, but this would leave room for a dining table on one side and the family area on the other. For large gatherings, it's nice to have different spaces. Without them, everyone ends up sitting in the circle in the same large room while grandpa can't hear what people are saying on the other side and the kids are totally uncomfortable. You you'll have 3 distinct areas (dining, LR, GR) with the kitchen in the heart of things. If you build that dining area more like a large eat-in kitchen, you could still have the deck off to the side and the same feel." I really LOVE this idea in theory. Help me out a bit. How would you design the kitchen? It seems like it would just have one wall and an island? I am worried that won't be enough cabinet space for me. Unless, of course, you create a wall, but then we lose the open concept, which I really would like to keep. Also, when you come into the entry, wouldn't you see right into the kitchen? I want to avoid that if possible! Right now you look into the dining area/table, and there is a wall behind the stairs blocking the kitchen. I don't want my baking shenanigans to be the first thing a guest dropping by would see! If you have a smart design idea on this one, send it my way, because I definitely am intrigued by this idea. "Okay, I'll shut up now." Please don't; you have been very helpful!

My good friend's daughter is battling brain cancer. She is trying to continue in her 4th grade classes. She is very interested in butterflies. Since I have 30+ new Monarch cats that are all about the same age, I "assume" that they will all emerge around the same day. I plan on tagging them all and am wondering if anyone has done a mass release at an elementary school and how you presented it. Did you combine any "teaching moments" to help the children learn about the migration, turn them on to Learner.org or Monarch Watch? That site has an entire module on the migration for elementary school children. I think this would be great and could get a whole new generation interested in helping the Monarchs in the Gulf Coast area. THOUGHTS?? You can reply here on message me via my Houzz profile. THANKS! Kristi

morpheuspa: I asked to get clarification from somebody was, well, not you (I threw you two red herrings in my latest post; you found one, you didn't find the other and it was pretty blatant. When I sent your reply off to a friend of mine who's a physics professor, he had some rather unkind things to say that I didn't, of course, post because I'm not some other posters around here. I have no idea what you are talking about. morpheuspa: When I sent your reply off to a friend of mine who's a physics professor, he had some rather unkind things to say that I didn't, of course, post because I'm not some other posters around here. Please do not hold back. I want to see a nasty response from a Physics professor. If you have the courage please name him and his university too. You know full disclosure is important. morpheuspa: To me, it's increasingly clear that you are still confused about the water retention curves above and what they mean. Remember, that's also a force retaining the water in the soil. Of course, there is a force retaining the water in the soil. That is the whole point here. If you water a medium to complete saturation to the top and let it drain and let it come to equilibrium then you will have two zones in the soil. A lower zone that is completely saturated - a zone where all air space is filled with water. And an upper zone that is not 100% saturated. The boundary is the )Kpa tension. The height of this boundary is the height of PWT. If undisturbed then this saturated zone will remain saturated for ever. Above this zone water is still present within the particles and as a film surrounding the particles. But it is not 100% saturated - meaning there is some air space also between the particles. As go up towards the surface the film of water keeps reducing and air space keeps increasing. This is what is captured in the water release curves. Depending how tightly soil particles hold on to water, the release curves are different. Peat has a higher affinity for water and so a larger (taller really) zone above the PWT that can hold substantial water but not fully saturated. Bark on the other hand has a lesser affinity for water so holds much less water at the surface and rapidly comes close to being dry as move up from the 0Kpa boundary. Water release curves, in short, describe how easy or difficult it is to extract that water from the soil particles. Below the 0Kpa boundary there is a lot of free water (unbound and bound) and above it is only bound water. Adding a wick to the bottom of the pot moves the bottom soil/air boundary lower. Water above the wick is under positive pressure to move away from the soil. The wick extends the soil bottom boundary causing a reduction in pressure in the water column above. Thus it moves the 0Kpa boundary lower. If the wick is long enough this boundary can be moved below the pot. Thus effectively removing the saturated zone in the soil medium. The water release curves do not directly address this but does so indirectly. The key is that the wick extends the bottom boundary to a lower point. Many of the subtleties of what I am saying has been presented by Dale in this thread with good diagrams and explanations. I encourage you to go through them again. I welcome and encourage you to send this entire thread including my explanation to your Physics professor friend. In many threads you have boasted about your scientific prowess. I do not doubt that. I tend not to do that but instead try to explain the best I can. But do not under estimate my background. So keep it to logical explanations and if I am wrong I will gladly admit it.