Thought you might like to know what the size of the house layout will be.

and for those of you who don’t know how to use a rational logical measurement system (and you know who you are “colonies in rebellion”)

Information added for Espaso Verde Landscaping

Today’s blog is about landscaping.  First thing I have to tell you is that while I have generally been very happy with the Punch! Home Architecture 5000 for designing my house, for landscaping, it doesn’t really do well with a “real world” example.  Meaning if you build up the landscape from an imaginary perfectly level section, it can look pretty amazing, and in theory, it is supposed to have the tools and capabilities to handle a Survey map; but let’s be honest, it’s kludgy and not easy to make it look good.  So please take the follow screen scrape shots with a grain of salt, (and scrunch up your eyes, and make them a bit out of focus).

Behind my house is a berm of land that is about a meter and half higher then my house (A meter is 3+ feet for you living in the Colonies in Rebellion).  That berm runs all along the back of my site, and on the point farthest from the road, I’m planning a Japanese Style Garden.  It will be the only section of our land that will require significant maintenance.  I intend for it to be a quiet meditation spot, where you can sit and relax, have a cup of iced tea on a hot summer day, looking out over the lake in dappled shade.  On a sadder note, it will also serve as our Pet Cemetery, though I am sure it will be YEARS before anyone needs those services.

I should add that we are working with a landscape architect that we both REALLY like:

Anyways, So I have this conceptual plan with a formal Japanese Garden (with entrance gate that is evocative of these

The garden will have a reflecting pool (that I want to put Koi in but Matthew is really against Koi, he thinks I will neglect them and they will suffer… he may have a point). 

So I’m thinking that from there we will have a small stream (if there are Koi, we will need to make it so they can’t get into the stream by accident), that stream will meander thru / along the edge of the berm until it reaches the “wall” at the side of our house. 

Then it will go over a water fall, and continue out from the catch pool to another minor small stream that will lead to a more “formal” water feature pond on our front stone patio area (with it’s own fountain setup)

So putting it all together in my software, it looks like this