Thanks Greenman28. I'll post more pics as I do stuff to it. Paul3636, I have mine in a large pot too... I'm going to leave it for a while and make sure it's recovered from its uprooting... but I'm thinking of separating all three. I think the tree on the far left of pic #3 would make a nice Literati style. What do you guys think? I used Photoshop to try to show you what I had in mind... Of course the top will need some more work than just bending down and shortening. I may just trim out some smaller branches to thin out the top so more light gets in and I get more back budding. Do you have pics of yours Paul? here's my idea for the right tree

Marlene, your kitchen looked warm and cozy before, but what a wonderful transformation. You added so much more counterspace--you can never have too much of that! And now you have the perfect "work triangle" with the sink stove and fridge too--bet it feels lots more efficient. Love the rope trim and those pretty tiles you chose. Your husband did an amazing job on the cabinets and that hutch! He is obviously very talented. I can't imagine trying to cut that hutch down like that! Have to ask what kind of saw he used--just curious, I'll never tackle a project that big for sure! LOL You have the perfect dishes to display in your pretty hutch, looks like something from a magazine. And you are getting wood floors too--it's all looking just wonderful and those will be the icing on the cake. The big chick--adds a special unexpected "flair". ;o) Luvs

Magpie...Wow! thanks for such wonderful compliments! Now, I think you don't give yourself credit to be able to decorate a hutch - because right now - you Don't Have One! I'll bet once you do...you'll amaze yourself. That time you posted some pics...I loved what you did - and thought you had lovely things and displayed them nicely. I'm looking forward to more from you. As far as those flowered dishes..if you mean the white with the green floral border...they were from a local consignment shop. They only had two...but that's okay.they work in with what I have. I do that alot by just getting two or four sometimes even one. Also, I have years of collecting ..so I have lots to work with. I need YOUR storage space!! jeanne...I know you're right...I have to experiment to find out just what can be done with the photos. I always love how yours look..all like a special presentation. One day, when I can sneak some time...I'm going to give it a try. Thanks again...and anytime you want to share a new technique..I'm interested. jane

Thanks for all the nice comments, everyone. It's nice to get confirmation that we're not crazy! Flowerlady and Shades of Idaho, don't feel too badly about that thing on the patio. I bought it as an unfinished, unassembled furniture thing at Menards about 10 years ago for about $100. I was in a huge hurry to assemble it so I just slapped it together, not realizing that things like drawers are supposed to be checked for square. Then I proceeded to finish it after seeing Martha Stewart do it. I didn't realize I could pick whatever color I wanted so I literally did it exactly like Martha, same colors and everything! Then I waxed it. Ugh, it was ugly. Anyway, the drawers never worked properly because they weren't square. It was irritating. Three people from Freecycle were no-shows (I'm done with Freecycle ... it's too infuriating), so it went off to Goodwill. Maybe someone can redo the drawers to make them work, but I feel for them dealing with that wax. @ Krycek, those little gable doppelgangers (I love that term for them ... wish I had thought of it!) were the bane of our existence. They caused these miserable flat spots in the roof where snow and ice would collect. My husband had to go on the roof every time it snowed or else we'd have major leaking. No roofer or insulation person could overcome the issue. It wasn't a huge problem until we moved in because the house was mostly used as a summer residence until we came along so there wasn't such a temperature difference inside in winter because they had the heat on a minimum setting. For everyone who mentioned that horrific finish. It's all over the house with the exception of the kitchen. We thought we had plaster walls, but it turns out it was plaster applied over drywall. I can tell the room they started in because the swoops are super close together. They did it AROUND all the light fixtures, making them very difficult to change out. We painted the guest bedroom first and in a 10x10 room went through two gallons of paint! It wasn't primed (or painted for that matter) and it just sucked up the paint. And every one of the tops of those swoops had to be done with a brush because even the thickest roller wouldn't cover there. I'll so happy to be rid of it although we'll still have it in the back room, downstairs bathroom and hallway. @ Traceee- We've actually lived in this house for eight years. We always knew that we hoped to stay in the house forever if possible, but at some point we'd need a second bathroom. We thought we'd address that in the future, but having to deal with the leaky roof situation advanced the plan a bit. We're not living in the house right now, although we were planning to. We moved our bedroom downstairs (to what was the master when we moved in, but we preferred to have our bedroom upstairs and additional living space downstairs) and were going to stay there for all other than the one or two weeks when a portion of the roof was missing. But again I was apparently being optimistic, and completely underestimated the disruption to the rest of the house. They had to rip out the back of the pantry to get the abandoned chimney out and now they are going to run all the electrical, HVAC, etc. through there, so the kitchen is a mess. You can't get to the basement from anywhere but outside so you spend a lot of time going in an out of different doors. We are fortunate to have a family cottage nearby that we can stay at so we figured we'd just get out. There is limited heat at the cottage though, so hopefully we won't be out here much past mid-October. Estimated completion date is the first week of November, but one of the last things that is being done is the deck, and certainly we can be in the house while that is being constructed. I think some of our neighbors are surprised that we aren't adding more. In addition to the fact that we are hampered by shoreline and floodplain zoning issues (and therefore it would have been very difficult to add-on out), not to mention budget, we really love our small (1,700 sq. ft. if you include the finished part of the basement) house. We will still have the smallest house in the neighborhood, but I think as far as value goes, we'll be a little more competitive now. The sagging floor thing was not a complete surprise as our contractor sort of suspected it. The fact that there were no headers over the downstairs windows WAS a surprise. I don't think adjusting for that has affected the budget ... just temporarily slowed them down. The scary part comes this week when they try to tie in the new roof to the old roof and we try to correct the sagging roof over the living room. I'll breathe a sigh of relief if we can get through that part without any expensive surprises. With these old houses (built in 1938), you just don't know what you're going to find.