Your links: 1 It would help knowing what zone you are in, and where you are. You can find your zone here. Adding it to your profile will cause it to appear next to your name automatically when you say something on these forums. I'm not sure what you have there, but compare your weeds to variegated phytolacca (pokeweed.)

The reason you're responsible is that you are also allowed to remove any dangerous branches or offensive leaf droppers :) A neighbor does not have the ability to go onto your property to trim their trees. Think about it...say you have the neighbor from hell who won't allow you to trim branches, even if they're an obvious risk to their property, do you want to face being sued for their lack of cooperation? I myself would not be excited about allowing just anyone over on my property to trim limbs if my neighbor wanted them trimmed. I'm putting in a complicated (but easier LOL) garden and I don't want some joe blow tree trimmer over on my property with equiptment or to trip over a brick and sue me because he's trimming my neighbor's tree. We require anyone who works on our home or yard to be insured...if the neighbor calls them how would I know? My neighbors are lovely, so it's not an issue, but that does not mean that a new neighbor would be the same. I'm actually trimming limbs off of my neighbors trees right now (legally allowed but we discuss any major changes because we're friends). She's for anything I do because we're improving the property on the line, but still, thank god she's not a busy body who wants to control every branch. I'd trim your "offending" tree if it offended me :) I'm trimming pretty trees now, but while they're pretty, they don't fit the future garden's goals and they block my view. If I had a yard with too much shade and a neighbor's tree was over it...I'd cut the limb off because an ugly stub is in fact less ugly than me sitting in the yard in one square foot of sunshine :oP And as to the lawn guy trimming the tree....don't judge a book by it's cover. My lawn guy trims the trees here. He's an arborist as well as a lawn mower and very qualified to handle something like a limb being cut off. I'm sorry your neighbor sucks. In cases like this there should be a goverment fund that allows us to buy the house of any annoying neighbors to get rid of them :oP I would buy six townhouses in my other neighborhood LOL

I hadn't even thought of the direction that the light is going. That is good to know. I will start looking around. I would love to have overhead but we have an upstairs above this room so I don't think it is possible. Yes I plan to install sconces on the fireplace. I have been having so much fun collection ides for it. Of course, some of my inspiration pictures were on this site, so I am hoping they get restored. We have been waiting to spend money on the room, wanting to be certain that hubby's job is solid. Lots of rumors at his job of closings, and lots of layoffs. So we have waited. However, the longer I wait, the more I think of that I want to do. We have hardwood in the entry and I would LOVE to take out the carpet in the room and match the entry hardwood if that is possible and continue it into this room. Then I could get a pretty rug. We usually take our shoes off at the door but sometimes don't when we're in a hurry. One can use the foyer to go to the kitchen, or cut through this room. So it sees alot of foot traffic, and the dog loves to roll around on it. Arranging the furniture around the vision in my head has been difficult to say the least. I like things to be symetrical and would like the couch directly below the window. However, that doesn't make for nice conversation. We've had it there before. What I hope will work is to scooch the piano down to the end of the wall - where the doorway is, and squeeze a chair in that corner, have another chair in the other corner, then have the sofa under the window, but not centered under it. It makes that end heavy but I want a nice conversation set up. The piano really can't go anywhere else. I've thought of putting the sofa facing the fireplace to come, but I think it is too big. I could scoot it closer to the fireplace and angle a chair beside it, that may work. Not sure. If someone has another idea, I'm all ears ( and eyes). So glad you don't think bedroom when you see the drapes. They do look brighter. I have another set of panels. Perhaps I should double up and hang them too for fullness?

As joan754 says, it's a Northern Flicker, and it looks like the yellow-shafted eastern bird. The western birds are usually red-shafted. see AllAbout Bird's Northern Flicker page. Very pretty pic! Claire