Ok, so back to the plan, first two seasons getting the basic lab, and then going forward adding the desired features of the magical anvil and the forge. I'll check in the Covenants book when I get home to figure out how long those should take.
Don't help! I want to do this myself! 
lipzip
It's all cost:benefit ratio.
The cottage is too small for Halie's existing lab, which Corvus commissioned for her. Portia of Verditius (a covenantmate and amica of Eule's, not to mention the maga Corvus commissioned the graduation gift from) has offered to move her lab from Fengheld "as a gesture of goodwill" (though Halie knows there will be strings attached). With no space to move it into, though, she hasn't taken her up on the offer. Two seasons is an awfully long time to spend establishing a base 0 size 0 lab in a poor aura, when you have better elsewhere. Halie doesn't spend much time in a lab at all, and given the poor facilities at Insula Canaria she's decided not to have a lab. Her cottage is her sanctum, but her +2 GQ lab is in storage in a Fengheld basement, and the Fengheld aura is +5. If Halie needs a lab, she'll try to use the Common Lab on Eilean Chon, and if she can't get in to use the Common Lab, she'll request hospitality from Fengheld and spend a season working in her own lab, in a windowless Fengheld basement (Faerie Eyes ftw!).
OK, so Spring and Summer, Aodhan sets up and gets a basic lab.
Autumn he works on Refining it, his Magic Theory is 4, he gets a +1 Refinement and +1 Safety, possible chance of getting Highly Organized and Spotless.
Next Season he adds the Lesser Feature Virtue and puts in the Forge lesser Feature for +1 Aesthetics and +1 Specialty (I'll go with Items for this).
After the Forge is added, we go to the magical Anvil:
Now...it says he can use it immediately and if the Item effectively duplicates the effects of a Virtue, just mimic the Virtue. If it doesn't truly mimic a virtue, we have to look at the levels of the effects so far in the anvil. In this case an anvil is not included in the Features virtue and I didn't really see anything else that matched, so I'd have to say that we go with comparing the levels of the effects. I'd like some input on these suggestions with the effects so far:
Vulcan's Anvil has 50 levels of effects so far. Every 10 levels could potentially go to Specializations and every 20 can go to a lab Characteristic.
The Anvil prevents the need for doing manual labour as well as basically casts a spell flawlessly, and both effects are Terram based. I humbly offer Specialties of +1 Items, +2 Terram, +1 Safety.
Then, at minimum he wants to add a Studio which would add +1 to +3 Aesthetics, but according to what I saw, the number depends on the items presented. Perhaps he can build the adjoining room over a season, would it require the whole Refinement process, or adding to the Size (which would then reduce the Safety?)
Either way the Studio can wait.
Let me know if this works, it looks like it would take a year to get the lab with a forge and addition of the Anvil.
So would that lab work with stat improvements and specialties, do you agree on what the Anvil of Vulcan provides? I still have to roll during Refinement, I might get some other goodies
Does his aptitude for Magic Theory and/or Inventive genius help out for further Refining, or does he have to have a base MT higher than the current Refinement?
OK, if that's a 10 with a quality dice then I made 17, or 18 if my magic speciality kicks in. (I love having perception +5 for the first time!)
With his current MT score of 4+2, he can increase his lab's Refinement to 3, one season at a time. (One season to go from 0 to +1, another season to go from +1 to +2, and a third to go from +2 to +3. On top of the two seasons it takes to get it to a standard +0.) As far as the stuff that can happen when increasing Refinement, whatever specializations or what have you would apply.
The +2 you get for a Puissant Ability counts as part of your "base" Magic Theory Score, as would any bonuses you would get from an Affinity.
And I have no problem with the Vulcan's Anvil providing the bonuses, once it gets situated. I would say that it can be installed in one of your seasons of Refinement, as a Virtue. It's more than just "Eh, just put it over by the window," it actually takes time to figure out the exact place to put it to get the best Hermetic optimization. So,maybe Season 1, set up basic lab; Season 2, improve lab to Standard; Season 3, improve lab to Refinement +1 and install Vulcan's Forge.
If you want, you can either put your lab sheet in your Character thread or the Character Sheets thread, and I'll link to it on the Character Sheets first post.
Hey, it looks like we have our first booking conflict for the Common Lab.
Trimalchio has requested it for his Longevity Ritual, and Talia has requested it for spell invention.
I'll let you two work it out.
I need the Longevity ritual doing before winter. If you definitely only need it for the one season and Eilid agrees to work in summer I can delay.
Eilid (or, for that matter, any of the Elders) have wide-open schedules. I don't schedule anything for them until after everything else is set, although that might change a little for Eilid after she officially takes Ezio as an apprentice.
Well I only "need" it if it is sufficiently large enough to allow the teacher and Ezio to be taught while Talia works? If not her need for it disappears. I can assume it is possible based on your mentioning the conflict. Just confirming.
I was thinking just stick them in the corner...just two people on stools facing each other shouldn't take up that much space. And if they're in the way, she can ask them to move to another corner for a while.
At the end of the season, just before the arrival of autumn, Trimalchio winds up his exploration of the Loch area and begins to journey home. He pitches camp in a clearing a little west of the northern part of the loch, but notices signs that it had been used as a campsite not too long before (a few days, maybe a week).
Whoever they were did a decent job of cleaning up after themselves, but they missed a couple of shards of pottery. Shards which have signs of some kind of runic writing on them.
Trimalchio carefully gathers up the shards, and is overjoyed to have found evidence of non-hermetic magic so close to the covenant. Of course, his intellego is dire so he doesn't bother investigating that way. He attempts Comprehend Magic on them, and then skips back to the covenant happily.
He tries to find the Quaesitor, and is excited,"Look! I found remnants of something strange! I've tried my analysis on it, but is this an arcane connection to anything? I wonder if I should fix it?"
Trimalchio will deny any suggestion that it is the work of the Order of Odin, because the magi of Orkney have done such a fine job keeping them out for the past two hundred years.
I roll a 9 on the Comprehend magic roll
invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3558368/
Halie first casts Impression of the Faded Sigil to see if there is any active magics on it, or traces thereof.
Halie fatigues herself to spont a momentary Terram version of "The Whole from the Part" (Target level 15) and succeeds.
If she gets nothing, she'll take a moment to catch her breath and then do a momentary Corpus version of it (same target level, I assume, and same CS because her Terram and Corpus are the same), which also succeeds.
There had been some kind of magic cast upon whatever the shard was a part of, but it's not a type of magic that she's familiar with. Definitely not Hermetic. If she had to hazard a guess, she's say something akin to Creo and Corpus.
The Corpus version gives her a view of a large, probably Giant-blood man, quite homely, with a squashed-looking face, large uneven ears, a distinct overbite, long dark hair, stubble, hairy, and definitely something that Talia might take an interest in.
"Yes, it's an Arcane Connection to some kind of giantish creature. I would definitely fix it, given the troubles this place has had recently."
I'm presuming that the Intellego text Haile had goes with her...? So the vim Q15L15 book was the only duplicate before Talia traded it.
Screw it. You know how, every time you move, you always leave something behind? Dish drainer, half a six-pack in the fridge? She left the [strike]vim[/strike] intellego book behind (she had put it in the library for the covenant to use and just forgot about it. She owes us that much 
)
I've never left half a six pack anywhere. 
So I said Intellego. The Vim text Talia just traded was Haile's, too?