Everyone has been most helpful. Thank you for all the suggestions. I think gayle brought up a good point about having both lamps on the fireplace wall. I tried some different arrangements and decided I did not like the ginger jar lamp on the drapery wall though as it competes/clashes with my drapes. I feel it works best to the right of the fireplace. However, I swapped the floor lamp and the drum table, moved some of the items closer together plus took down some of the wall decor and would like feedback to see if I'm on the right track. Galye's idea of moving the curio to the left side does not work. There is no pic yet in the little red frame, but that is the plan. Here it is with the gold shade back. Perhaps it does not look so off now that the floor lamp has moved. I'm going to go back to Lamps Plus tomorrow and look at some different shapes in gold. I haven't been able to find a black one in the size I need and even with the excellent virtuals squirrel has provided, I'm a bit leary of ordering one online. squirrel: I really appreciate all of your PS virtuals. I know I've said it before, but it bears repeating. You are incredibly talented. If I could please ask (when life settles down) if you could PS the sconces on either side of the painting in the above picture. I am not quite decided it I want the sconces there or elsewhere. I did try the floor lamp where you placed it and from that perspective I really like it, but from the other angle it blocks the view more than I would like of my drapery. While I do love the virtuals of the pics to either side of the fireplace IRL it just feels like the pictures are competing with one another as the room is not that large. With the taller table top decor to either side of the fireplace (which I still need to work on), I'm thinking perhaps I don't need so many pics on the wall. I also liked Les' idea of putting some greenery/plants in the sconces instead of the candles. Les, can you suggest any particular plants or place to shop for them? Do you see it as more upright or cascading? Here is a close up of my corner curio: It was not a deal and I paid more than I wanted to. I spied it some months ago at an antique store, but didn't get it since I was not far enough along with this room. When I decided a few months later I still wanted it and had not seen anything on CL for sale, I decided to go back to the antique store and bought it. They didn't want to haggle on the price, though it was on a 10% off sale. I still need to work on items for the center shelf. I just love the little key that I need to use to open the cabinets. squirrel, did you notice the fern on top like you had added (though yours does cascade better than mine)? Do you even realize how much influence you've had on this room? You picked out my floor lamp too.

Wow if you could find the breccia aurora or afyon sugar marbles those are pretty spectacular! I've read that the harder/best marbles for kitchens are the Danby/domestically mined varieties, followed by carrerra and calacatta. I've seen slabs of the Valley Vein Gold you mentioned (that is mined in the US) and was told that it was a very hard stone. I think if you like it, you can't go wrong! (You have played with marble samples to test how much a particular variety etches/stains, yes? They do seem to vary.) I've also seen slabs of the French Vanilla marble, gorgeous, but I'd be worried about its durability using it for a kitchen countertop that gets a lot of hard use. (I'm not an expert, so it may be that etching is etching and the strength/durability of the stone is the same, but that was not my understanding.) Where are you? I'm in Portland, but the Pental in Seattle had the best selection of white marbles that I found. This is outside the box---what about limestone? Limestone is probably NOT the most practical material for kitchen countertops (I guess some argue that neither is marble!) but I've certainly seen several drop dead gorgeous limestones in your brown/cream scheme. I definitely understand your desire for an appropriate old house countertop-we've had the same struggle for the past year!-I'm just thinking with your desired color palette wondering if you'd go further outside the box? You could get your color scheme in dyed concrete, cast concrete, or paperstone and let your cabinets/hardware/lighting or whatever be the stars of your kitchen. For me while these aren't "period appropriate" they are countertops that could quietly just "go" with all your other period choices. I also have a knee jerk reaction against putting a granite in an old house, even a granite that looks like a marble. Mind you, I also looked into this, but I could never find anything that was close enough and I always knew it wasn't the marble I wanted. In fairness I am probably a snob :) FWIW-I'm also doing a period (1913) kitchen and planned marble counters (every single inspiration kitchen I liked had light cabinets/light counters) but in the end decided to go with soapstone (which still shocks me) because I decided that I didn't want to worry about the marble. (I am getting my marble fix-just putting in on the bathroom counter instead of the kitchen!) PS-Is it your bluestar that is getting delivered? You must be so excited! After all my waffling, we're ready to order and I was just told the special order configuration we wanted is potentially 12 weeks out. It would hold up finishing our kitchen until spring. doh!

this is two questions: What can you do to increase winter survival of plants, be they young, zone marginal, whatever. And what would you do? The question of what would you do can only be answered by each individual person, based on their own criteria. Most people I know who have spent their lives lusting after all things chlorophyll go through stages: Early on, they'll go through great effort to try to get things to survive. Then this becomes something they go through only for specific specimens that have great value to them (whatever that value may be). Then they more or less give up and say, eh, it's going to survive or not, whatever happens, so be it. The question of what can you do deserves to be more fully answered. Temperature is by far the most important single factor in a plant's ability to survive any given winter, but it's not the only one. It's also the only one you really can't change, at least without massive dedication and expense. For instance, I know someone in Frazee, MN who built a solar powered radiant heated greenhouse...so he could grow peaches. You can mulch to protect the roots from freeze/thaw cycles, especially on young plants. Certain places, certain conditions, this is more important. The six week above 40 degree rule deserves mention. Wind exposure. I used to live in a place where winters were brutal. Definition of brutal? Diesel freezing in the fuel line. Plants that were supposedly fully hardy would wither and die from wind exposure. For the most part, for me, this means careful placement of plants at the time of planting. For instance, no rhoddies in a wind tunnel. This is also where anti-dessicants come onto play...and yes, I know I just tread upon heresy according to some...not so much with needle-leaved plants, but more so with broadleaved evergreens. The single most important thing you can do to increase a plant's chance's of survival? Adequate water through fall. It's generally simple, and in most cases, it's something you can actually do without a fantastic amount of effort or expense.

If you don't notice mites via magnifying glass or webbing, I see absolutely no reason to get rid of the plant. One month is adequate for quarantine, and you used miticide. As far as your other plants being infected, you never know unless you look. It is quite possible, especially if your cummingiana was asymptomatic, that you never had spider mites to begin with, unless you confirmed via paper test or magnifying glass. I just treated for spider mites on a citrus tree (thankfulky, it is my big one that over-winters in the garage, away from my hoyas) for the first time today. Here is what I observed: There is webbing. This webbing shows up UNDER the leaves and attaches to the petioles. If you look on the undersides of the leaves, the mites ARE visible to the naked eye, but are so tiny that they just appear to be little moving specks. Here is how I treated the tree: I used my thumbs on every single leaf, top and bottom, to smear/squish the mites. I then sprayed each leaf, top and bottom, with a sharp stream of water. I then applied Forbid. Now, it's a waiting game.