Thanks Cameron, before we dozed the back yard away from the house, that ground came up on the house about a foot, and was rotting some of the wood siding. As you can tell, we dozed the area about 60 feet long, down about 5-6 ft deep, and terraced the wall. it made this area usable, as before it was all fairly steep slope. All of these stones were layed by my husband. I think he said they weighed about 80 lb each. We really didnt have a problem with run off tho. The yard at the upper wall is about 150 feet wide, narrowing to about 100 feet wide at the far back. Your place looks beautiful Cameron. The Thyme walk sounds interesting. I would love to see a photo if anyone finds it. tammy

Here's our exterior & the corresponding interior photos of our window/door combination using beige/tan windows-- FWIW, similar to you, I thought it would bother me, but it really doesn't. Having all the grids match in color certainly helps. Do note that if you're having transoms over the doors/windows that they are sized different as you can see in my photo--both are 12" transoms by the manufacturer specs, but you can see the obvious difference. The transom window height differential does still bother me & is one of the things I would gladly pay to change--but that's another story. Hope this helps!

I spent ages looking for something i liked, i haven't got a picture of mine but there are a few sites out there that match fireplaces up with the surrounds etc. Searched on google there were a few like www.britainsheritage.co.uk its how i worked out what i wanted :) Here is a link that might be useful: Fireplaces

Your kitchens look awesome with red. I REALLY wish I could use that color, but because of the open floor plan, I can't. I do think the kitchens look warm and inviting. Alywa, your yellow is very pretty - it is bolder than mine and more golden!! I'm going to meet with a painter today and see what he says. I have bought soooo many samples of paint and just can't find the right color - creamy colors beige out and turn shades khaki, mushroom, peach, etc., tans turn green, and on it goes. I may just stick with the yellow at this point - "better the devil you know than the one you don't!" My cabinets are Canac - I live in Sacramento, CA and there just happened to be a showroom in a nearby town. Here is their link: http://www.canackitchens.com/index.cnc There prices were very good and they have a beautiful selection of cabinets. My cabinets have an interesting cut in each of the four corners that looks really sharp when two sets of cabinets are together - it forms a diamond shape. I don't have a picture of two sets together, but here is one set of cabinets with fairly good detail to view. The colors are more uniform than this picture looks, probably caused by using a BlackBerry instead of a real camera!! :-) Here is a link that might be useful: