A number of years ago, something similar happened in an office I worked in. The people left town without letting the agency know (this was before scheduling companies). They had 2 indoor cats & they had had a big dog, but it had...something. died, kid took it to his new place, something. In-house agent shows the house one day & there's the cutest little dust mop of a dog inside, friendly as all get out, bouncing off the walls, wagging, etc. Cats are under the bed. Agent notices the water bowl is empty, so she fills it & writes owners a note, something like: "Congratulations on your new dog! showed house, filled water bowl, picked up pillows off floor." Homeowner returns, flies into a rage, demands agency pay for the damage caused by... somebody else's dog. That's right. The dog was a "neighborhood" dog, & of course after this nobody was claiming it. Broker declined, said homeowner hadn't even told her they were going out of town, & agent did not let the dog in. There was no way to find out who had let the dog in. Homeowner said her insurance company told her "they're gonna make you pay for it", especially since agent had written a note "admitting" that the dog was in the house. Broker contacts liability carrier who says: no dice. Brokerage had no way of knowing that a dog inside the house was not the homeowner's dog. Adjuster said it would have been worse had the dog belonged there & the agent had let it out. What you have to do, I think, is communicate *everything*, even if it seems like you're overcommunicating. Tell agent you're going out of town, post placards on doors ("Dog in backyard is friendly but jumps on people" etc). & realize that sometimes stuff just happens, & nobody's going to pay you for it. The cats walked in like they lived there. The dog walked in (probably) like it lived there. Everybody lived over it. & we did sell that house.

On Friday, my SO called and said, "The Smiths are having an estate sale." The Smiths found themselves in a position of needing to move to a smaller home near one of their grown children. The house was full of half-hearted collections of random stuff: two dozen teapots, Beanie Babies, three sewing machines, 50-year-old children's books and toys that had never been passed on or jettisoned. it was depressing and enlightening. I got rid of a bunch of things 25 year ago: bagged up things in garbage bags, when I hadn't looked at or for them in a year, put them out with the trash without looking at them. A few years later, we moved, and another batch was gone. Two summers ago, a 'friend of a friend' needed a place to stay, and ended up at my house. To make room, some things had to be cleared out. The problem: the 'friend' portion (my consort) had moved in with me, and brought almost the entire contents of his 2500 sf house with him. He did find a junk dealer who brought a trailer over for us to fill, but other than that, pretty much refused to participate in any way. That left me to decide what stuff of his got pitched. He's a fine man in many ways. But as an example: he has six Rubbermaid-type totes of photographs of people he doesn't know. They had belonged to his mother. I can only guess: His mom thought these were important, so he feels he *ought to* feel they're important. After the estate sale, I took a seventh tote, full of pictures of his kids, his parents, holiday cards, newspaper clippings; threw out the duplicates and cheap frames, and put what was left in one average photo album. No kidding, I didn't even have to buy the album. It was already part of the stuff.

Thank you all for your help. I can explain the odd location. The area that I'm working on turning into a garden has been used for discarding garden waste for years. Most of it has composted over time and the soil is gorgeous, but as I'm cleaning it out, I have come across various bulbs. Most I have been able to identify, but this one has me stumped. I guess I'll put in a pot and see what happens. This old compost pile may also explain why I have an archangel problem as well. Also, for the record, we just bought this house and I'm discovering all sorts of plants that I haven't seen before. Now that the old composting area is pretty much cleaned up, I plan to start a new one, but I'll be careful what I put in it.

-All the random jigs, jogs and bump outs on the exterior walls will add to cost and create a complicated roofline. -The secondary bedrooms, bathrooms, closets are too small to accommodate five children total and their storage needs. -The pathway from the mud room to these secondary bedrooms forces the kids to navigate around a lot of furniture in both the family room and game room to get to their own rooms. The constant in and out of kids going to and from their rooms will also be disruptive to those in the family room. -The kids have to walk through the game room/study room to go to another part of the house, which leaves them little privacy and is disruptive to the people using the game room/study room. -The exterior door through the powder room and so near the kids' rooms causes concern for security (and you may not like it when the kids' are teenagers too...trust me). -The sitting room is very small once you accommodate the clearance for the French doors. -The mud room is very small for such a large family. There is no closed closet space that I think you will want for overflow storage, especially considering how small the closets are in the kids' rooms. In the custom homes I design, we try to always include a walk-in closet in the mud room. This is important especially if you live in a climate with a change of seasons. -The master bedroom and bathroom and so large they are inefficient with a ton of wasted space. -All of the built-ins shown on the plan will create a lot of extra expense and are not the most efficient use of the space. There are enough negative issues with the plan, mainly as it relates to flow, privacy and storage, that I think you should scrap it all together. Do you have a builder yet? If so, ask them for architect referrals. Instead of telling the architect how you want to lay out your home, or showing them a stock plan you like, tell them all of your requirements...give them a list of wants and needs. All of the new build homes I work on (I'm currently designing seven) are from custom-designed architectural plans. Given the size and grandeur of the home you want to build, I think it's a necessary investment.