I did some more digging; decided to widen her up a bit. I made it 10' wide from the original 8'. I believe I will only have the shelf on one side due to the amount of light available. The shed and trees block a lot of the light from the right side (looking at the shed) of the pond; my potential water feature near the shed will also be in shade for a larger portion of the day than I originally had taken into consideration. The water feature would consist of a fair amount of plants to eat some toxins, but unless I get some that only require 4-5hours of sunlight I will be wasting my time. As you can see from the pics, Brutus has already staked out his spot; maybe I should make a shelf just for him...