I'm curious to any of you who have actually built a DAG home, are you finding them "dark" like everyone seems to assume when they comment on these plans, are they thinking that no light comes in because of the covered porches? I'd love to hear your level of satisfaction with one of these one story homes with the various porches and covered patios in the back.

In the DR, you will probably want a place for a buffet of some sort on the left wall. Since the lighting fixture and DR table are usually centered on the exterior windows, I'd add ~2' to the left side of the DR/K/BF (making it a long alcove in the DR to line up with the utility room), for a buffet or built-ins (for this room to do double duty as a study). Also, I'd want to get rid of the 3 pillars and just put a small corner wall (90 degree corner, with matching short walls going each direction) where the middle pillar is to give a bit more definition to the DR and maintain a little symmetry with large doorways/openings. Our DR is similar, and we put 2 sets of double pocket doors so that this room can be closed off from the noise in the rest of the house, but it still feels open and spacious when they're open. The 8'4" measurement in the BF looks like it includes the bay. I'd want at least 10' so it's easy to move around the table in this dead-end room. The peninsula just encloses the BF more. If you add the 2' to the left side as mentioned above, you'd have room for an island in the K instead of the U-shaped cabinet run. You could also have 2 L-shaped cabinet runs (much better than a U, IMHO) by moving the K door to the L closer to the garage. You could also put more cabinets along the L wall of the BF area for storage, kid's projects, etc. With the door from the GR mentioned in my previous post, the traffic flow of this entire area seems like it would be greatly improved. I'd have to draw it out to see, but don't have time right now. We have 3 elementary age grandkids living with us in our lower level walkout, and ofter my daughter splits them up to tables at opposite ends of the area when doing homework or projects if they need a little quiet, or are tangling with each other. Your BF and DR on opposite ends of the kitchen will make this a great possibility for your 4 kids when you are working in the kitchen and they need to be separated, and places for school papers/projects, art supplies, books, games, etc. in these 2 rooms on this floor will help keep their things organized. Just some suggestions that I think would make this important part of the house more livable, but YMMV. Anne

After a year hiatus on this project, I am resuming planning and hope to install this fall. I am hosting a pair of community collaborative design workshops to get input and teach the neighborhood about rain gardens & stormwater management. Last fall, non-profit group planted river birch in the area, with the plan to design the garden around the tree. The City also cleaned out the catch basin, the results were underwhelming...

The photo labeled "two" with no snow... If you dig a gravel walkway from the driveway down to the rain garden location to force the water to the desired location the water will not affect the basement. Curve the walkway all the way up into the corner by the garage door, or use something very densely rooted as an edging to deflect the water to the walkway. Siberian or Japanese Iris work well for this,or even Liriope which is evergreen.