I had a couple of similar euonymous in the bed on the north side of my old house. They never did get direct sunlight at all, but it was a very bright area in general--and they did just fine. As to whether or not you'll be sorry for putting it there... I have no idea! :)

I grew ivies for a few years on a north-facing windowsill facing out on a covered porch -- so basically, no natural light whatsoever. Instead, I had electric lights on timers set to 16 hrs/day year round. During the summer, that meant daytime temperatures in the 80s or even the 90s and night-time temps in the 70s, and I never saw much growth. In the winter, with freezing north winds beating on the window, the lights would still heat the windowsill up into the 70s when they were on, but the temperature would plummet into the 50s or lower as soon as the lights turned off -- and the ivies grew like crazy. So... These are very much cool-weather growers. If the west-facing window is much warmer than the east-facing window, then I'd say that's why the ivy there is growing more slowly. (I only have one of those ivies now, and am debating whether to keep it... It's never quite recovered from the spider mite plague that went through a couple years back. FWIW: I've found that the key to keeping mites off ivy is to give the plant a shower every couple of weeks whenever the weather is warm but the humidity is low -- which for me translates to most of the spring. Related trick: Put the ivy under a ceiling fan after the shower to dry the leaves off quickly, otherwise you'll get leaf blight.)

An extremely high % of inquiries about how much light plants grown indoors can tolerate are being misdirected, this, because the main determining factor is usually to what degree heat from passive solar gain raises leaf temperatures. We all know that a portion of the energy contained in light waves turns to heat when it strikes an object. In the glass/glazing world, this light-to-heat change is called passive solar gain, and the leaves that do so well at capturing photons and turning their energy into carbohydrates (the plant's real food) are also capable solar collectors that turn light energy into heat, and therein lies the rub. Almost all homes now use IGUs (insulating glass units) with at least 2 lites (a 'lite' is a piece of glass) of glass. With the sun at 30* to the horizon, an IGU with no special features (plain glass) will transmit about 79% of the visible light that strikes the IGU's surface, and 70% of the light that strikes the window will be turned to heat energy. That's a lot of heat. Just for comparison, IGUs with pyrolytic coatings like low-e, might transmit 69% of visible light and turn only 27% of the light that strikes the IGU into heat energy. Add a tint to the IGU with a low-e coating, and the visible light transmittance changes to only 48% while the light-to-heat change rises to 50%, which seems an anomaly, but isn't. If there is interest, I'll explain. What you should take away from the comparative numbers is that window features can have a profound impact on your plants' well being, and heat build-up is actually a larger problem than photo loads (light levels) in most cases. We know that light energy striking leaves creates heat which is absorbed by the leaves. surrounding leaves is a layer of still air called the boundary layer. It's primary job is to raise humidity and slow evaporative water loss from leaves. Unfortunately, dead air, which is essentially what the boundary layer is, is an excellent insulator that very effectively acts to trap heat within its boundaries. This can quickly raise leaf temperatures high enough that severe death or damage to the leaf is inevitable. Heat damage is much different than damage from high light loads. Light loads that are too high actually produce H2O2 peroxidase. H2O2 is hydrogen peroxide, which destroys/oxidizes chlorophyll and any other organic molecule it contacts. What we've learned: * Almost all plants are capable of withstanding the photo load that passes through windows without suffering photo-oxidation (sunburn). * The problem is more often heat build-up in leaves than damage from light (but plants do need to be acclimated to significant increases in photo loads). What you're going to learn if you stuck it out this far: There's a fix for heat buildup. Put a fan in the room during the brightest part of the day. The moving air disrupts the boundary layer and allows heat to escape the leaf and be lost to the surrounding air. Al

"I designed the layout to have the kitchen at the front of the house......." What you might find helpful here is for you and any other decision maker(s) to sit down with a person of design talent and explore/brainstorm not only your ideas but look at other directions you may not have thought of. I do these all the time and call them "charrettes". They're highly interactive "nose to nose" design sessions that last a few hours where sometimes the client commands the pen more than I do. At the end we have dozens if not a hundred overlays and sketches, some great, others not so great but we've looked at a large range of ideas. I take a clients ideas seriously but at the same time they tend to be preconceived and centered on the obvious. These ideas, or parts of them, may in fact turn out to be perfectly valid but it's my job to weigh them against against other approaches. You don't know how many times a client has said "Wow! We never thought of that!". And when it comes to preconceived ideas, I've quoted these two creative people here before regarding those: Henry Ford observed "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have told me 'A faster horse'" and Steve Jobs mused "Often, people don't know what they want until they see it. Nobody could describe the Iphone before it came out but when they saw it, everybody wanted one". I think you would benefit sitting down with a creative someone for some "outside the box" thinking and to look at a range of alternate ideas. After all you're in an endeavor involving a healthy six figures of your hard earned money where there's no "do overs". So, with that said, I don't know where you are in Illinois (it's a big state!) but there's a talented designer I know that's based in Clarendon Hills, outside of Chicago. If you're a reasonable distance away, he might be willing to have a sit down charrette with you to do exactly what I described above. If you wish PM me and I'll provide his contact info and you all can take it from there. In any event, the best of luck with your build. Exciting times ahead!