I rip Lily of the Valley out every year as it smothers my more choice perennials but can't get rid of it. It is in dry shade under a Cornus kousa and next to a boxwood hedge. I've even painted leaves with Round Up as I can't spray among the ferns, huecheras, hellebores and everything else and still it lives. I don't mind a small patch as I do love the scent but this one has spread almost ten feet.... My Daphne odora marginata is planted near the front door, under an upright Japanese Maple. House faces south. It survived a renovation of the front stoop and walkway, was stepped on and had chunks of broken concrete on it but thrived. I don't do anything special to it at all. I can't believe it lived through the construction. It was recently planted when that happened. It is about 30" wide and 24" tall now and about to bloom.

Hello all, thank you! Cawaps, I've got a sample of the Formica Grass, and IRL it looks nice with the tile, but only nice. What I'm hoping is that something will really wow me. I would settle for even being somewhat wowed, haha. I wonder if stainless would work, as Jterrilyn suggested? In and of itself it's too cold a color, but maybe if it's surrounded by yellow it would warm up? Does anyone have pictures of stainless counters in warm-colored kitchens? We have stainless right now and functionally speaking it's excellent, particularly with the nautical edges, but I'm so SO not into grey. The only place I like grey is on cats. Or maybe dogs. That's about it. Of course, our stainless looks as grey as possible because our cabinets are grey and the walls are putty-colored. (The whole abomination is due to Tasteless Previous Owners with No Common Sense... see rants on other threads.) Black or charcoal grey I'm fine with, but not dull cloudy-day medium grey. Lavender, the black counters in Mama Goose's kitchen look great. Our first thought for counters was soapstone, but then we got a quote and I realized that my brain refuses to process any sentence that contains both the word "countertop" and the words "six thousand dollars." They just do not compute. :-) It's not about being able to afford it, it's about refusing to pay that much. The ghosts of my grandparents rise up and remind me that they grew up in the Great Depression, and then they say, "It's a COUNTERTOP. It's just a COUNTERTOP! You could lay BARE PLANKS across the cabinets and it'd work just fine! Do you realize what else you could do with $6000 etc. etc. etc." So that's what we're dealing with here... :-) And Lavender, I'm a total sucker for jadeite and also for carnival glass. Colors! Give me colors! Love 'em!

don't like the merge much. I always found GW folks very helpful while Houzz is full of designers and builders modeling their wares (eye candy) and who often have no data on the items in the photos - you see lots of remarks such as "the owners bought it, I didn't keep the file, I don't recall but you could look at color X which is similar, we built that custom so contact us and we'll tell you how many thousands it will cost to have one just like it - - etc" or in most cases don't even bother to answer. I think if they post a photo to advertise themselves they should be required to list the appliances, main fixtures, paint color, and things like countertops that were used. That would reduce a lot of questions on Houzz and make the photos more useful. I depend on the knowledgeable people on GW who actually have experience with these things for reviews and opinions. A bunch of user names got changed in the merge which was not helpful. I'm attempting to use the forums again and I hope it improves. Chickadee I hope your health continues to improve. Welcome back!

I havent seen a color scheme yet that the hound doesnt fit right in - a very versatile accent piece! OP - you have a beautiful house. At the risk of stating the obvious you have a lot of blue and red in your stone and so your interior colors incl the grays need to embrace and relate to those. Agree that that muddy beige rug needs to go! Like the idea of a raw concrete floor, with your elemental elements - your wood and stone. Why not incorporate some vintage MCM colors in your wall color choices - many to be seen if you look up MCM pallettes (google images) and of course there's retrorenovation.com. There were still plenty of grays (if that’s what you want) but usually combined with other colors – the monotone gray of today is a peculiarity of the 20-teens. I think you can take your house in a more decidedly vintage/colorful direction and still have a result that looks fresh and modern. With a house like that you can easily mix up both past and present - a lot of current interior design borrows heavily from this era, so many current furnishings and color schemes will fit right in.