Wow, WOW, wow to all the seating areas here! Can't pick a favorite- they are all so amazing! Great thread idea LL ;-) -goldenpond, is all of your pond man-made? It is really incredible. That paddle boat looks like such fun! -Mary_lu, Speechless. If you put a little coffee pot in that porch I would PAY RENT to stay there! What a neat idea to put the church window-like frames in it! -Susan, love the colors! I know your DH picked out the plummy color, did he pick out the rest of them too? Love em'! My two (not counting the front steps ;-) seating areas are in the backyard. Here is the big table and chairs under the flame maples. This pic is taken from the back pathway. Took it from this angle because I couldn't bear having you guys see the horrible mess I in the side garden!! Lol. Here is the patio/shade garden area. What a great thread. Reminds me I need to get a little bench or something for by the arbor garden! CMK

Minnie, I'm using a Joan Moshimer medium hook. Her hooks look like this: My wool strips are 1/8" (actually 5/32"), which is considered to be pretty narrow. Many hookers use these for shading flowers, or other realistic work. My designs are more primitive, but worked with narrow stips. One of these days I'll try using the 1/4" strips that most people use for primitive rugs. I have a larger hook to accommodate the wider strips. How does one learn to do that? Is it hard to learn? Is it an expensive hobby? I learned from reading books and subscribing to a rug hooking newsletter years ago. As a child, I watched my dad's cousin Peggy hook on a huge frame in Massachusetts. I was interested, but didn't try it until I was in my 30s and had inherited her rug hooking supplies. I still use her strip cutter and some of her wool. The pink strips in Mickey's photo above are part of Peggy's stash. I think it's easy to learn. It should be even easier today because beginners can go to rug hooking websites--and even find rug hooking demonstrations on YouTube. Trust me, I would never undertake an expensive hobby! Like anything else, it can become expensive depending on what you buy. Lots of rug hookers buy new wool fabric, some of it hand-dyed. That can get pricey. I use only used woolen clothing from thrift shops, plus some of Peggy's. This is fine with me, as I love the hunt. Also, dyeing wool can be fun. I was lucky to have inherited Peggy's strip cutter......to buy a new one today would cost $175. They come with one cutter head, which cuts one width strips. Extra cutter heads for cutting different widths cost $15 apiece. You definitely need a frame. Peggy worked on large rugs, so she used a big frame that stood on the floor. My pieces are smaller. I've used an oval hoop floor frame, and I've used an Erica Wilson "fanny frame." These days I mostly hook on a homemade wooden lap frame that I bought for $10 from the man who made them. Most hookers I know online use commercial lap frames that run anywhere from $90 all the way up to the Snapdragon frames at $395. My guess is that more of them use the Puritan frame, which is around $150. So the initial outlay might be a bit high, but it's like buying a digital camera: All the expense is up front. I would love to join a real life hooking group, but I still don't know any rug hookers. I'm thinking of giving a hooking demonstration at the library.....maybe I can create some people to hook with. :-)

Thanks everyone for the nice compliments. As I said , it isn't *up to date* on colors or styles and I just had the bath built 2 years ago. I could have put anything in there I wanted and I knew what was in style but this is me. My bedroom is soft soft off white , cherry 4 poster bed and furniture , off wht bedding and gauzy drapes with a very small amount of pink & green but that is mostly pics on wall. Even my upholstered chair and bench at the foot of bed is moire off white. Like floating on clouds. Well, so much for whimsical. Haven't heard from Premier ( guess he/she got a migrain just looking at all the stuff every where)lol.

Thank you all, again! Les-I love your idea...it was one of the first plans that I tried when we got the new furniture. The EC was a bit large for that corner unfortunately. (It's been in both corners and along the couch wall already!) I also tried the couch on the wall where the EC is, but that wall is shorter and the couch pretty much went from end to end (from what I remember), so no room for a table. But I'll measure and try again. While this is the room that we do watch tv, I agree with you...I do not like it looking as though it's the center of our lives, b/c it's not! I'm wondering if maybe I put the tv on a smaller table (I have one or two that may work) and put it in the corner you said, then move the couch, either to the windows or the back wall, if it works. Thanks for your help! kswl: I love your idea about chairs with legs, for a more roomy look. That never occurred to me. I like the idea of a slipper chair as well. I'm considering turning our DR into a reading room, since with small kids, we don't use that room much at all! We have a morning room with a table large enough for us and more, so losing the DR is not really an issue. So if we change the DR, the overstuffed chair would go in that room. I don't love the EC...it's a Sauder piece that we bought years ago. The *only* nice thing about it is that is has great storage for dvds/cds/kids puzzles & games and even the sides have tons of storage for books etc. Our plan is to send it to the basement, if and when we ever finish it. In this market, we don't want to do it, b/c we may move in the next few years and would never recover the $$. One more question?? Can I do decorative curtains on the two far ends of the windows? So the middle window would be open? I do want to add some color, softness, coziness, but it seems like curtains on all 3 windows is way too much. I've tried valances on all three, but they did nothing for the room and made it seem very choppy to me, if that makes sense? Thank you again, everyone...I wish I knew what I was doing...this is really helpful. At least I know for sure to measure next time before I make a purchase this big. :)