Thanks guys. The Wall Background Not quite sure where I got the idea of the wall. It sort of popped into my head as a way to breakdown the scale of the front yard. I've always liked landscapes that offered bit of mystery to them. Things that were concealed and hinted at that would pique my curiosity. This is more common in the city where people have garden screens or trellises set back from the front edge of the yard. There's some landscaping on display for the public but the front of the house is somewhat concealed from direct view and/or there's a front court / patio area that's somewhat hidden. Perhaps not as friendly or neighborly but interesting. The general concept for the front yard was to have this public / semi-private progression up to the front door of our house. The wall seemed like a good way to go. It'd have a mass and presence and delineate a clear boundary between the public area of the front yard and the more semi-public/private area near the front door. But it wouldn't completely block the views and close off the front yard. The public area of the yard (outside the wall) would have low-growing vinca (so I wouldn't have to mow that area) and have a more spartan, zen-like quality. The wall was purposely placed so that it broke on either side of the path and the path then went through an opening in the wall. This creates a threshold to mark progression into the semi-private precinct of the inner garden. Inside the wall I wanted an overgrowth of plants and an explosion of color. A visual treat for anyone walking through the wall toward the front door. I also liked the idea of having some over head cover and trees to provide a sense of being in the woods. It's not quite there yet but to this end I transplanted a number of vine maples from my aunt's woods. They are planted along the wall and give some verticle height tot he front yard. There are also about 10-12 rhododenderons (of various projected sizes and heights) planted throughout the yard with most within the wall. I also used some sword ferns as green in-fill plants. My aunt has thousands of them in the 11 acres of forest hill side she has. So those were free filler plants. As for the material cost, the wall was almost free: it's built of broken concrete that I found around the area. Most of the time stacked concrete rubble is used in retaining walls. But I wanted to have this wall free standing since the yard was flat. The construction is based on millennia-old rubble wall construction techniques dating back to Roman times and beyond. The outer courses are of course the big chunks of concrete. But the interior core (space between the outer pieces) is packed tight with smaller chunks of concrete and 5/8"- crushed rock. The angular facets of the crushed rock lock in and compact in a very stable manner. As you can see, the top of each course is pretty smooth and flat and ready for the next layer. When I finished, the wall was strong enough that I can run and jump on the top. I can pound and stomp my feet and jump up and down as much as I want but it's doesn't move. Eco-Lawn As for the "eco-lawn". Growing up as a young boy it was my task to mow our lawns at home. I got paid for it but it was still a chore. As I got older I still had to mow our lawns but then I started doing the grounds upkeep at my dad's warehouse which also included mowing. Suffice to say, I got pretty tired of mowing. Its mind numbing. I'm much more interested in lushly planted gardens and such. Not to mention the water resources that lawns drinkup. Wow. Oh, and around the Seattle area they do brown out a lot in the summer if not watered. When I stumbled across the idea of an eco-lawn it caught my eye (I think a news paper article). The idea is this: An eco-lawn is a mix of slow growing grasses and broadleaf plants like clover, yarrow, english daisies and some other stuff. There are a number of environmental benefits such as 1/3 to 1/4 the watering requirements. And with the clover which produces nitrogen the "lawn" is self-fertilizing. But the BIG winner for me was the 1/3 to 1/4 mowing requirements. Since the eco-lawn grows so slowly you don't need to mow as much. And in spring time all those other plants produce flowers so the lawn looks like a big meadow. Very pretty. But it's a lot of effort to install one. You need to first kill your existing lawn. Then roto-till it up, rake up and remove the sod clumps, then you can spread the eco-lawn seed mix. Then make sure it stays moist until established. The seed is a bit pricey at about $30 / 1000 sf of lawn. Then there is the rototiller rental and old sod disposal fees. I bit off a bit more than I was expecting. I though I'd be able to just till the old sod into the ground. Nope, too lumpy. With the ideal sowing time fast approaching I ended up just piling up the sod in my driveway for later disposal. In the end that 7000 sf of lawn area yielded about 20 cubic yards of piled up sod (about two dump trucks worth). It took me a few months and about 15+ trips with my little utility trailer to drop it off in my aunt's pastures. It cut the disposal costs to just gas money instead of dump or landfill/recycling fees, or about 1/3 the cost of normal disposal. Sorry to high-jack this thread but here are some photos of the ecolawn. The flowers have stopped coming up the end of summer but the lawn has filled out more. I expect this spring will be amazing. For what it's worth, I haven't mowed my yard since October as the eco-lawn has gone a bit dormant. I'd do it again but would be more prepared for a lot of effort. Click the link below for more eco-lawn photos as it progressed over the last year+. This is in April of '08. The lawn was planted in mid-to-late September of '07. So this is about 7 months after planting. The lawn is still somewhat sparse but all the ground is mostly covered and the flowers are coming up. . . . . . Same time of year, April '08. Zoe is playing with her toy in the eco-lawn. . . . . . . This is almost exactly a year after planting, October '08. This photo shows a more mature eco-lawn with a mowed area and an un-mowed area. The un-mowed area represents about 4 weeks without mowing. Note the lush green and chartruse colors. I like the mottled look. Surprisingly, this lawn hasn't been watered since August at the height of summer. . . . . . Front yard with some eco-lawn. About 4 weeks since last mowing. . . . . . . . And some of the work it took to get the new eco-lawn in. This yard project really kicked my behind. And it all started with wrestling with a 9hp rototiller, then the raking (seen above), then the stock piling to the driveway, then hand loading / unloading 20 cy of sod to my aunts house. . . . . . . For what it's worth I went with the Fleur-de-lawn seed mix. It was designed for the NW. One of the guys who came up with this concept was a research professor at the Oregon State University I believe. There's also some info on the Washington State University website. WSU Eco-lawn info Here is a link that might be useful: My Eco-lawn page showing a DIY progress shots

The look I was aiming for was transitional, sort of casual traditional with maybe a little eclecticism. I'm not sure if I'll be able to pull that off. Yes, you can, and are well on the way. But, IMO, it is hard to fit the Queen Anne furniture pieces in. And you need to move the accessories from formal to contemporary. Btw, if the rug is part of the contemporary look, I did have a more busy, sort of persian-looking rug in the room, but I didn't think it looked too good, so I went for something more graphic. I like the rug a lot. But since it is going to set the stage for the room, if you dont like it, then make that the next thing to switch out, because it is going to drive the color scheme. Does the plant behind the chair look ok? I like it, and I think fake plants are just fine as long as they are clean and not covered with dust. Buy an uplight ($15) and set it in the pot shooting the light up at and through the leaves. Use a timer so it comes on automatically. You might raise the plant slightly so more of the greenery shows - try placing it on some books or a box. I will get a nice matte and frame for my dog drawing in chalk pastel, done by my brother. What color frame do you think I should get, goldish? I'm thinking of pairing it with two other pictures of my dogs in similar frames above the chair. I like the idea of pairing with two other pictures. I would stay away from gold. You could do three identical black frames. Another issue is the leather chair. I think the leather chair looks great. I will remove the candle sconces and maybe put sconces by the mirror. Maybe hold off on this area until you do some other things. In a perfect world, I would replace the Queen Anne console with something more in the style of the TV cabinet. For now, I would remove the sconces and try a couple things. Move the rectangular mirror over there, or just for the heck of it, see what the oval mirror would look like turned on its side. To me, a mirror + sconces is a formal look you are moving away from. However, if that is in a hallway to the dining room and not really part of this room, then maybe keep it formal. I thought light sconces might be a good solution above the sectional at one time, but when I used my planter things (holding my artificial plants) to sort of help me get an idea where they should go and how they might look, it never seemed right. But maybe I should just put one on the far right and far left end of the sectional, like MJLB said if I understood. Decorating above a sofa or sectional is difficult. You might consider this: Leave one of the two walls above the sofa empty. Decorate only the wall above the longer end of the sofa and use one large picture. Measure the length of the longer section lets say it is 80 inches long. Find one picture that measures in width somewhere between 3/4 and 7/8 of that length. Using the 80 inch example, the width of your picture would be between 60 and 70 inches. Now, go shopping for artwork with that width. You could even do that as you think about a new area rug, and whichever comes along first becomes the building block for the other. I'll look at lamps at a lamp store. Perhaps I'll buy a lamp on a pole by the leather chair. And maybe add a tiny table? Or a pole lamp with a little table built in? Pole lamps with built in tables are so practical, but I never see them in the better stores. Wodkas is really nice. It's funny, I was looking for squarish looking lampshades the other day, thinking they would look good above my mantle. Instead, I got the two lamps you see on the mantel. It's not too late to return them; they even still have the plastic on the shades. Personally, yes, I would return them and look for something more interesting. I like the idea of lamps on the fireplace, but another option would be to offset the picture to one side and put a blue vase or one lamp or something else next to it. Now the big issue of whether to paint the fireplace wall . . . what I visualize is probably too formal to work in my house though. The painted fireplace and all the other items in Ingrids room are gorgeous. But that is a more formal style than you seem to be going for. I would leave the brick alone, but give a good cleaning to the brass surround and then spray paint it with black paint (we can give you more info on how to do that - it is easy and cheap). It looks like you use the fireplace, so maybe shop the internet for new fireplace tools that are more showy. Down the road, replace the mantle with something a little bigger, and replace the country looking corbels with something more striking. It is all in the details.

Great idea for early Christmas tree !! Looks good, Jim. I don't put mine up until the last minute, since my kid likes to jump rope everywhere. Then her friends come over and want to jump rope, so we always have empty space. I gave away a sofa to make room for their exercises. I'm breaking out in rash from using fish oil. It was fine for the first few weeks, then I developed an allergic reaction after repeated using. Sam's club sells Barlean's Omega-Swirl liquid fish oil really cheap .. $4 for a huge bottle, 24 OZ. It tastes like sorbet. Regular price is over $30, but Sam's club sells it for $4 since it's end of season, plus there's the news that fish oil raised the risk of prostrate cancer. Dairy & calcium also raise prostate cancer risk. The late rosarian Karl Bapst had prostate cancer. From WebMD: " The researchers reviewed 12 studies, conducted between 1966 and 2005, which examined dairy and calcium intake and prostate cancer incidence. They report that men who ate the most dairy products had an 11% increase in prostate cancer risk compared with men who ate the fewest. Men with the highest intake of calcium were 39% more likely to develop prostate cancer than men with the lowest. The risk increases reported in the studies were modest. But an author of the latest work tells WebMD that it is potentially significant because prostate cancer is so common. Prostate cancer is the most widely diagnosed cancer among American men. According to the American Cancer Society, one out of six men will develop the disease. One out of 34 men will die from the disease." http://www.webmd.com/prostate-cancer/news/20051206/lots-of-dairy-linked-to-prostate-cancer From Straw: Omega-3 in fish oil raises prostate cancer risk even more. Fish oil capsule is quite stinky once I poke it to sniff. The fish oil liquid I take is stinky compared to eating FRESH fish. Anything stinky & concentrated isn't good for health. The book "The China Study" written by Dr. Campbell tested fish-protein, cow-milk protein and induced cancer in rats with BOTH. But vegetables and plant-protein shrank tumor in rats. " Mercury is not the only toxin found in fish and fish oil. Polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, are commonly found, in high levels, in fish Oil supplements. PCBs are considered carcinogens, or cancer causing, and are also known to cause headaches, cough, fatigue, skin sores and more. There is currently a lawsuit against fish oil companies because they are not disclosing the levels of PCBs and other chemicals present in their products." http://ezinearticles.com/?3-Reasons-Fish-Oil-is-Bad-For-You&id=4371461 "These anti-inflammatory omega-3s were associated with a 43 percent increased risk for prostate cancer overall, and a 71 percent increased risk in aggressive prostate cancer," said study lead author Theodore Brasky, a research assistant professor at Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center in Columbus, who was at Hutchinson at the time of the study." http://www.webmd.com/prostate-cancer/news/20130710/too-much-fish-oil-might-boost-prostate-cancer-risk-study-says?page=2

@l pinkmountain, I feel you! Your rock mulch and plastic! My property is similar, 1/3 acre of mature trees and the bare ground covered with layers of rock and plastic since 1962. The prior owner (the only other owner besides me) dealt with weeds growing in the rocks by dumping MORE rocks. As I'm removing it, slowly, I'm discovering original flagstone stepping stones covered up by 6 inches of rock, and the flagstone itself is in the original rock, which was just gravel and would have been so much better to deal with than the heavier river stones. The prior owner loved roses, and grew them by digging many very deep holes for big plastic buckets that stuck out of the ground a bit. I am trying to remove them, it is not the look I want, but they just break off in bits so I think I'm going to have to dig up the whole area to get them out. The property was an estate sale so it came "as is" and most of the roses had been dead for awhile but the buckets remain. It's all so much work! At the moment, where I want to put a rose, I scrape away the rocks and make a raised bed, the bottom, in contact with the native soil, lined with wood chips. Right now I'm using what I have. I just today made a raised bed for a miniature rose (Bees Knees) with logs from a tree I removed. Eventually I will replace the logs with nice larger desert rocks. I am planting many native perennials and cactus and yuccas, these do go into the native soil, and I buy small plants so I don't have to injure the extensive tree roots with a big hole. My goal is a desert cottage garden, where there is little need for mulch because native plants cover and shade the ground. And I'm finding I can use some of the rocks as paths. I also just remove the rock and plastic little by little, and any place I do, I mulch heavily with wood chips that I keep damp. This starts to improve the dead soil almost immediately! I do have a lot of pots, although this year I transitioned some of them to a raised bed (new retaining wall). My "secret sauce" to pots is to use the root pouch bags. Sometimes just alone but most of the time, I put the bag inside a pot as a liner. Sometimes if the pot is deep I cut out the bottom of the root pouch bag. I buy them from Greenhousemegastore. The roses don't ever get root bound and their roots stay an even temperature. I had a Julie Child rose in a pot for 4 years, which I just transplanted to the retaining wall, and the root system was amazing, and transplanted incredible easy without breaking a single root, because of how the plant grows in the bag. What I love about the bags is that it also can give you a temporary raised bed! Even just sitting on your rock mulch. But If you scrape away a bag-size area of the rock and plastic, put some organic matter on the soil, and then a bag, with the bottom cut out or intact, depending on your goals, you will already be nurturing soil life with the watering and nutrients that you provide the rose. You can disguise the bag with stacked rocks if you have them, or if you're like me and want something temporary and cheap, just cut bamboo fencing to the right height and cover it. I'm sure there's lots of ways to disguise it. But it will let you easily, temporarily, or somewhat permanently, enjoy a rose even while your property floor is so imperfect per your aesthetic and dreams.. If not roses now, then when?! :D