Marcia, I don't live/garden in zone 6 so I can't give you an answer that is as complete as I'd like it to be. In zone 7, my elephant ears overwinter in the ground and survive most, but not all, winters. The only time they don't survive is if the weather is really, really wet at the same time that the temperatures are really cold. So, here in southern OK, the elephant ears can, for example, handle really wet weather in Nov. and Dec. when we are still pretty warm, but really wet weather in the Jan.-Mar. (and sometimes April, if it is a cold April) time frame can sometimes kill them. A lot depends on the type of soil you have and how well it drains. If your soil has a high clay content and drains very slowly, and stays very wet and soggy, the elephant ear bulbs are at risk of rotting. If your soil has a high sandy or sandy loam content and drains well, the bulbs have a higher chance of survival. Mulching the bulbs well helps protect them from the cold, but also helps the soil retain moisture which would be a problem if your soil stays wet for a prolonged period of time and drains slowly. I don't know many people who have success overwintering the bulbs indoors in peat moss. It can be done, but you have to make sure they have enough moisture and humidity that they don't dry out too much, shrivel up and die....and yet, not so much moisture that they are too damp and rot. Some people overwinter them indoors in a pot of soil set in a cool dry location like an unheated closet and don't water them at all until the soil almost completely dries out. Even then, you would only water enough to keep the soil a little moist, but not wet. If you happen to have an unheated basement or a tornado shelter, either of those places might be a good place to overwinter tender bulbs and tubers either in pots of soil or in peat moss. I use lots of chopped-up leaves for mulch (and use bark mulch as well) and have never had disease issues because of it, but I am in a dry area that has only 30-34" of rain in a good year, and as little as 18-26" of rain in a bad year. I think that the likelihood of fungal and bacterial diseases overwintering in the leaves increases in areas with higher rainfall. But, if your leaves came from trees that didn't have foliar disease issues, I wouldn't worry about it. And, here's a tip about buying elephant ears the next time you need/want some. You can go into an Oriental grocery store or a higher end natural or organic grocery store (like Wild Oats, Central Market, Whole Foods, etc.) and go to the produce section and purchase tubers/bulbs there. They are sold under several names including taro and malanga. I bought a bag of them, sold under the name 'malanga' at a Whole Foods store in Arlington, Texas, several years ago for maybe $3.00 or $4.00 a pound. I got 20 or 30 small (each about the size of a small plum) tubers, planted them, and figured I'd have big plants in a few years. I had huge plants with huge leaves the very first year, which was a very pleasant surprise. So, there's no need to pay $5 each for the larger bulbs unless you just want to. Here in southern OK, the ones I have in sandier loam in raised beds survive all but the wettest winters. The ones in heavier clay may or may not survive a very wet winter, but we only get a winter like that once or twice a decade here. And, one very, very dry winter, I lost some of them to exceptional drought because it didn't rain and I didn't water that part of the yard. Hopefully someone who's actually grown these in zone 6 will respond and let you know if they overwinter theirs in the ground or indoors, because my experience is of limited benefit to you since I garden in an area a full zone warmer. Good luck, Dawn

Howdy, y'all. Native westerner, I now live in a Vermont village, just two blocks from the village green, in a 1300 sq foot house. This is the largest house I've ever lived in. It's also the first not in the country (or in the wilderness) in a good few decades! This house began as a 14 by 18 foot post-and-beam two-story cottage sometime in the mid-1800s built from trees on the property on a native dressed marble foundation. One room down with cooking porch, one room up. Over the years it has accreted 7 additions (which is why my kitchen has 8 doors and no window). It was neglected and in sad condition when I bought it, and is gradually recovering. Dayle Ann Here is a link that might be useful: Pics of my house when I bought it...

I think what happened with recessed lighting is that people went a little crazy with it and now there is a bit of a backlash. My personal feeling is that it is fine in kitchens, baths and hallways, in whatever amount is needed. (Which I sometimes think is overestimated but I put dimmers on it all anyway). But I always lay it out in a grid rather than put it all at "point of service". So technically, it may be a little off from being centered over a work area, or the front of the fridge, but it prevents it from being random all over the ceiling, in what people call "swiss cheese" or "ceiling acne". I think it tends to disappear more when placed in a regular pattern. I will use it in addition to a central fixture in a dining room, but I would rather use sconces, personally. I think the light is more flattering. I don't care for it at all in Living Rooms or Bedrooms, I think these are much better lit with portable lamps. I will design it when asked, but I try to keep it at a minimum. I don't think it's particularly flattering compared to lamps. But I have been in a number of new constructions lately where there may be a dozen or more recessed cans in the living room ceiling and six in a small bedroom ceiling. I have been in a couple where the lighting makes the house so Hot I doubt you need to turn the heat on unless it's bitter cold. I think that is too much lighting. There is nothing the matter with uneven lighting and shadows in the corner of a typical living room. I noticed in a couple of these real estate open houses that people who were probably not design-oriented, but typical house hunters noted the excessive lighting. I was in one (heated up) house, where one guy asked the RE agent "What's with all this lighting? Is this supposed to be a house or are they going to open a jewelry store?"

Sundance, We bought a starter home in 1991 -- and stayed there for 21 years. I had great neighbors and a nice yard. The house was livable and the longer we stayed there the more we learned about how to make it work. We updated the kitchen a few years ago and, like you, we knew we couldn't justify a full renovation with quality cabinets and stone counters. The home values in our much loved but not very pricey neighborhood wouldn't support it. I thought about painting or staining our golden oak cabinets too. But, the truth is, I knew I was too lazy to really do it right. Instead, I cleaned them and repaired the finish in a few places, then went looking for inspiration photos. That's when I hit the motherlode that was the Design Around This Keeping the Golden Oak challenge that I mentioned to you in your earlier thread. I embraced the oak. We painted the walls a complimentary neutral (Glidden's natural linen color matched in Behr). My brother installed inexpensive Allure vinyl plank in, um, red oak, I think? We put in a new Formica countertop that kind of blended in with the cabinets and hammered some sheet copper for a backsplash. We introduced some pretty copper accessories too. You know what? When we got a hankering to move to the lake a couple of years later and had to put our house up for sale -- that golden oak kitchen was actually a selling point! The new owners (a young couple like you) really like it and have no plans to change anything. I am the queen of really awful photos. This one doesn't do that old kitchen justice.