Thisd is great timing for this thread LL! Its wonderful to see the beautiful things we are all doing on our little piece of earth. I was feeling insecure about posting my pictures (makes me feel like im posting the before picture of myself in a bathing suit before a diet! :) but hey, were all friends here! lol this is the earliest pic i can find, probly 5 years ago. Before i got it to this stage, it was seriously 6 ft tall weeds, shrubs and jagged thorny row of overgrown mess. there was just the chainlink fence. We had to put up privacy panels because the community pool and tennis courts are on the other side, and there was no privacy from people. I was very proud of my little area then. I had just began my gardening hobby and had no idea it would take over my life! then a few years later we brought home this little guy after our rottie passed away. Who after we fed him turned into this... So i had to build a fence around my garden, because he was crazy and would run through the plants, dig one up and run back to me with it! like a sick game of fetch... i really didnt get much else done last summer.. but this spring ive been busy. It has alot of tweaking needed.. And honestly everytime i go back there i panic and leave! I have so much work to do!! but its coming along. I really want a border of the same plant variety on the edge where all the rocks are, but i cant decide.

donnaj123, did you end up making a decision. My 3 1/4 Engineered Brazilian Cherry Floors from Triangulo have arrived. They are replacing the water damaged 5" wide engineered Brazilian Cherry floors from the same company but then they were being sold by BR-111 and installed in September 2009. My installer then put one 72" long board on top of another and the very long wide dark board really stuck out getting me upset. I decided I just prefer the less wide board for my townhouse and any short boards can be made long by putting a similar color on top. I will let you know how the floor install looks next week. My wood was delivered today and I was surprised on the box to see it only has a 30% sheen. I could not get any samples of the Indusparquet that was $1/sq ft more but I see now based on finally having time to look at their website and figure out how to use it that they have a Urethane sheen over their aluminum oxide wood so it will be shinier. I hope I made the right decision. If I want shinier, I can do that for my bedroom I guess. I thought they were the exact same product so why pay more. So far in the cartons from opening the sides, it looks like many of the boards are long but I will know on Wednesday next week. Matt is in style right now and shows less smudges but I still prefer more of a satin finish. But the wood is here and I get a lot of traffic in my home office during my tax season so maybe it is best to not have too much of a sheen here. I just wish I had gotten a sample but the insurance company was rushing me to get a contract signed.

witmom-- The first place I check for many things is JCPenny. They have several 4 poster beds in various darker woods as you said you are looking for. (Link below). I know Pottery Barn has a canopy bed as well, if you like that look. I'm not sure what Home Decorators Collection (online as well) has, but you may want to look there too. I've linked to one of their pages that has several 4 poster beds on it. Hope it helps! Here is a link that might be useful: 4 poster beds

Just thought I would chime back in... I can hardly remember my thoughts from this thread-LOL but I ended up with Indusparquet Brazilian teak. On the upper 2 floors we did solid wood 3 inch boards or so? They look like Steve's just a narrower plank and in the basement I have the same look with engineered wood. I love them and get so many compliments on my floor-