I'm REALLY interested... it's just that my pocketbook is REALLY empty! If some miracle occurs between now and then, I'm in! I would love to travel and get some culture! And traveling with you guys would be the cats pajamas! :-) Lizalily, I absolutely LIVE on coffee! I don't own a double burner Bunn because it looks cool on my counter top! LOL! We'd have to figure out some way of always having a pot on! I'm a Folgers freak... how about you? Kristi... the diamond tour sounds very interesting and educational! I'd be very much into doing that! We never buy jewelry retail, either... my wedding set was designed by Larry, and made by our gemologist friend in Canada. It's platinum, rather plain by anyone's standards, but I love it... and the stone is gloriously clear and sparkly! Larry won't tell me what it appraised at, and he won't tell me how much he paid... all he'll say is, "You don't want to know!" It's probably better this way... or I'd never wear it! Your ring sounds gorgeous... champagne diamonds are so beautiful! The mixed metal colors must really show it off! White and yellow gold look so expensive together! Good jewelry is a nice investment. I'm not quite the party girl I used to be, so I'm all for absorbing a bit of daytime culture! One evening to see the night life sights would be more than enough for me! With our svelte new figures, we'd HAVE to do some fashion shopping while there! :-) I think it sounds like the trip of a lifetime! I can't even imagine the time we'd have, the fun, the beauty of the flower fields, the bulbs, the architecture, the people, the everything! I've never even been on a big plane! Honestly, I doubt I can save the required amount of cash to make the trip a reality... but you never know. Life has a funny way of working out for the best. If it's meant to happen, it'll happen. But, pray for me, anyway! :-)

Thanks again for the great comments! The decking was done by Wright Brothers per my design/request, and really turned out even better than I hoped. The pattern itself is not scored - they just snapped lines and applied two different color finishes to the pattern. airborne101 - I'm right by Black Mountain in Madeira Canyon. BND did a great job for me as well! Tile work for the bathroom/shower should be wrapping up today, followed by final plumbing and electrical in the next week or two, so I hope to post some completed photos soon!

Well that wasn't very hard, you gals are just way too smart. Pattico you are right, found these little gems yesterday in a suite that is used as a storage facility. Underground sprinkler system leaking into the suite - not sure if I am going to clear it/dry it or just start a water garden...lol. Suzan J

Rnmomof2, in lieu of graph paper, I did a mockup in my photo program because I don't have a drawing program... and if I did it right I can get that long left side panel out of two pieces, totalling about three yards, maybe 4 to be safe. That means that panel on the left would require a whopping 6+ yards! I should double-check that on paper, though. At work we used to have huge rolls of graph paper on vellum, which would have been perfect. But in the real world those are very hard to find and cost a ridiculous amount. But I do have big plain paper and a ruler. I'll just have to figure out a scale. If I did it right, that would mean one diagonal seam in each of the sides of that panel and the entire panel would take six yards. There would be a lot of "waste" on that and I'm hoping I could get out at least some of those upper pointies out of that. Clt3 -- Thanks about the needle! You're right, the ideal and easy solution would be to find fabric that was printed with diagonal stripes. I looked on both eBay and Fabric Guru sites tonight, plus just tried to Google it. Does anyone have any other suggestions for good places to look online? Sherrmann, thanks for letting me know you appreciate that treatment like I do. I agree, it's stunning. I'm going with you and Sippi on that the panel is a rectangle. Good point about puddling -- I can just see the vacuum sucking those babies up! I found a double rod that is long enough here: http://www5.jcpenney.com/jcp/ProductsHOM.aspx?GrpTyp=SIZ&ItemID=117adfc&RefPage=ProductsHOM&CmCatId=25437:28415:50246&cmOrigID=104f2d9&cmPosID=1 Your tip about sewing natural fabrics prompted me to look up sewing on the bias and the fabrics I found recommended were "cotton, linen, silk broadcloth, and wool challis." EBay does have some striped linens. They won't shine, but I think it could still be pretty. I'm thinking about it. The article I read said stay away from "most rayons (stretches like crazy), silkies and polyester (slippery and hard to handle), twills (lose definition), and fabrics that are heavy or stiff, like duck or poplin. Silks and sheers like crepe de chine, charmeuse, and georgette are beautiful on the bias, but these hard-to-handle fabrics aren't a good place to begin. Move up to silky fabrics once you've conquered the stable ones." No particular fabric in mind yet. I've determined that it must be a symmetrical stripe -- otherwise if you turn it the other direction your stripes can't match up. I'm a little tight on color selection to go with my furniture, too. My couch and chair should return from the upholsterer in a couple of days (we held off today because of incessant heavy rain) and then I'll get a better feel for if I have to re-cover another piece (I can do that one myself), and if I want to use what I've already got or find something else... and I'm a bit limited there too, as it needs to warm the wood, not chill it. Anyway, that's why no I haven't zeroed in on a fabric yet. I wish you lived nearby too! Are you in the Seattle area? Daisyadair, thanks for the link. It won't help me on yardage, because of the bias, but I did determine from reading it that 5 pointies is a good ballpark for what would look good in the valance. Now I have to see if I can make that work out aesthetically. Sippi, you're right, it would not be hard to just make the valance parts, and it would be much easier to cop out on the panels, and cheaper too. But I personally think the charm is in the entire look of it, not particularly in the valances. I have a favorite site for valance patterns and I think some of those are much prettier. (Southern Living) So depending on what I find out are the yardage requirements, this is still an option... another treatment entirely. I'll be looking those over again before I make a final decision. That's an interesting theory about seaming the two 54" pieces together -- but don't I end up with an extra seam in the panels that way? I don't know if this will make sense to anyone else, but here is what I made in my photo program. I left a wee bit of the red corners (the red being the 1/2 of the entire panel shape including seam allowances) sticking out just so I could see where they were, then added the dotted lines, and here's what I came up with: The blue edged white squares represent the yardage (54" square, IOW 1 yard). The arrows show which direction the fabric could be longer and also indicate the direction of the stripes. The 1/2 yard was just a visual guess -- seems it would be less on the lower piece and more on the higher piece. Naturally, when I'm done ballparking the entire yardage I'll add some just to be safe. I've tackled a lot of tough sewing projects too, and I think this is doable. But the burning question is how bad would that diagonal seam look in the panel? In its defense, it does travel the same way as the stripes, which might make it harder for the eye to pick up... but it's easy to imagine hitting it with an iron and having it define itself. If it wouldn't look good, the only answers are either hold out for a piece of fabric printed on the diagonal that is the right color and pattern (good luck!) or give it up, at least somewhat smug that I've mostly figured it out. lol! I did see one piece on eBay that was tons of yardage and 54" wide, but the color was wrong for my living room unless I change the color of my fainting couch to something I haven't yet found. I'm hemmed in by two things: 1.) The couch and chair are about to return from the upholsterer all rebuilt and covered in deep tomato red mohair velvet, and 2.) the fainting couch wood sings with warm earth tones, but dies with blues and greens or grey tones on it. Bringing a room together sure is a bear in the planning stages, isn't it? Again, thanks everyone! If I build these I will for sure post a picture here for you all to see. At this point my next plan is to mock this out on paper, and try to get the remainer of it included so I can make an educated guestimate at the amount of yardage I need. But I'm still interested in everyone's opinion on if that seam could be pulled off in each half of the panel without looking crummy. I'd hate to go to all that expense and work and then have a bad result. What do you think? I'm thinking it might depend on the type of fabric I use, but I don't know which type would be better or worse. If nothing else, if I cop out and do a different valance and plain panels, I'll be appreciating how easy it is compared to this! :-)