The first thing that I would do is put a nice sharp edge on the bed along the grass side. A good edge makes a bed look neat and carefully planned. Next, I would seriously think about edging the whole bed with a low hedge. It's a box - play that up. As the hedge grows and fills in it also covers/hides/detracts attention from a lot of problems. Since height is the basic issue, I would use a perennial that can be sheared, something like Santolina, Teucrium, Germander, Iberis (Candytuft), or Aurinia (Basket of Gold). I have had good luck in my zone 5 garden with Santolina (only marginally hardy for me) on the outside edges of raised beds with the corners done in Candytuft and Aurinia. If your garden conditions are right, short sedums might be an inexpensive edging/hedging choice, since almost any stem would root for you and shearing would not be necessary. You could check out ones like the blue/grey Sedum sieboldii (6-12in), reddish Vera Jamison (1 foot, but sometimes flops open), or the warm yellow variegated Sedum alboroseum Mediovariegatum (listed as a 2 footer, but only growing about a foot in my clay, forms a nice rounded upright plant for me). There are lots of taller sedums, but my Autumn Joys and the newer Maestro (a sport of Matrona) get really tall in good garden soil. Also, it's just a guess, but I think that a shorter edge will make the other plants look taller than they are, somewhat hiding your height restriction problem. This sedum idea really depends on how much you like sedum and how much sedum you like. You might try mixing and matching some of the shearing plants up with some sedums at your local nursery and see if you get a combo you like, then using the sedums in shorter runs or for structural impact in certain areas. I would stick with just a few types of edging plants to make the area more unified. If you wanted to, expecially since it's a large area, you could also divide the inside of your garden into sections or shapes. Lots of Parterre ideas are available online and in books. Remember though, that even relatively informal hedges, such as I have suggested, are WORK. You could start with a perennial hedge on just the grass side towards the center and see if you like the effect, before spending a lot of time, effort and money on the idea. You can then divide or take cuttings from you existing plants and spread them across and down the sides over several seasons. Also you could easily incorporate the Dianthus that you mentioned into this garden. They are nice low plants that like good drainage. I am especially fond of the Chedder Pinks like Firewitch which form dense mats of bluish foliage. There are lots of other varieties, but the matting forms (versus the grassy ones) also plays into that guess/idea of mine that you need layers. A caution though - keep the Dianthus away from your grass - I have a really bad infestation of grass in some of mine along my grass path, which I just can't seem to eliminate. In fact I would keep your entire edging/hedging planting at least a foot away from the grass edge and keep that area heavily mulched. Some of the sedum groundcover ones such as Dragon's Blood or Angelina are pretty short( 4-6 inches), very colorful in bloom, and spread easily. They could be used to carpet the interior of the bed, lessening the too much mulch look. Another possibility are Thymes. I'm especially fond of wooly thyme, a very low blue-green mat forming thyme. This can take some moderate amount of stepping on which might be nice along a driveway. Lots of other steppables out there in the marketplace, even one using the term as a brandname. When I want to plant a larger-growing new plant in my garden I do not hesitate to simply dig a somewhat larger than usual hole (to give the new plant some breathing room)in the middle of my thyme or tear out a bunch of Dragon's Blood sedum and plant directly into these groundcovers. The removed bits can be patted into the ground somewhere else and usually take well with no extra care. A good edge and some strategically placed pots of creepers might give your garden a finished look and play well with your hot color scheme.

I typed out a whole response for you yesterday, but then lost it somehow. I was going to recommend the same thing as forbamblues. Is this powder room the bathroom that your guests will be using? If so, I'd much rather have the door off the kitchen than having them traipse through my mudroom. For one thing, I wouldn't want my guests having to see that clutter, and for another, they will then be walking all the way through your kitchen rather than just utilizing the top corner of the space (outside your work triangle). I'm also going to be the oddball here and say I'd actually prefer my W/D to be on the first floor b/c that's where I spend all my time. Right now, my laundry is in our basement. Aside from the obvious walk up/down two flights of stairs, the other reason I don't like it there is because I hate having to go up and down the stairs all the time (from the kitchen/family room) to switch out loads of laundry. The same thing would happen if I had the laundry upstairs near the bedrooms - constantly having to go upstairs to switch out the loads. Perhaps my viewpoint is a bit jaded by the amount of laundry I do as a family of six, but I'd rather have the laundry nearby so when a load is done, I can more quickly get to it. That said, I do see the benefits of having the W/D near the hampers upstairs! If, however, you find that you don't have it in your budget to move the W/D, this would be my suggestion. Close off the door from the mudroom to the powder room and move your W/D over to that wall where the door is now. You'd have to also take out the closet on the side wall, but then you could add cabinetry above the W/D to store what is in that closet. Then in the space where the W/D is currently you could put cubby/lockers. As for shoe storage, we have a cubby system that dh built in our mudroom for our four kids. It looks very similar to the second photo that Melissa posted with the open storage underneath. I bought baskets from IKEA that my kids use for their shoes, but we don't' have an issue much with mud/rain/etc as they typically leave their boots or sports cleats in the garage. However, if you have to deal with that often, I'd suggest just buying an indoor/outdoor rug and put it underneath the cubby space to catch the dirt and water. They are very easy to keep clean (I have one in my entryway). In my own space, I just pull the baskets out every once in a while and vacuum with a handheld vacuum underneath the cubbies to get up all the dirt/dust/etc. BTW, am I the only one who has this nice divided space for my kids to leave their backpacks/coats/shoes but they still manage to leave their crap all over? There are days I walk in the mudroom, and despite having a basket RIGHT THERE for their shoes, they still leave them all over the floor b/c they are too lazy to pull out their basket! Or they leave their sweatshirts/jackets/etc on the bench instead of hanging them up. Drives me nuts! Good luck with your remodel - you have a great space to work with!

This is a response to the post by lee676 Excuse Me!? You sound like a cheating husband to me. This IS the WHOLE story. At first, I wasn't snooping. But once I saw that he was having conversations with one of my friends, OF COURSE I AM GOING TO LOOK FURTHER INTO IT!!! I bought him the computer! Then fixed it up for him!! HE ALSO has access to my computer and information as well!!! I wouldn't blame him if he wanted to look into my archives!!! If I'm not doing anything wrong, then who cares!!! It should have been the same for him!! I TRUSTED him!!! With all of my heart!! Oh and by the way, if you have the hard drive, you have the information!! I had two different people telling me that they can extract the information that I need off of that Hard Drive!!! You need to think about what you say before you say it!! ( * Posted by lee676 (My Page) on Sun, Jun 4, 06 at 6:17 So let's see, you snooped on your husband's computer ("without even thinking"), and found a short letter he wrote to an ex-friend of yours, whom you don't like in part because of her overactive sex life and in part because she doesn't look pretty enough (why else would "not being the prettiest thing in this world" be relevant?). You say you "totally trusted him", yet you continued to snoop in his sent email box even after "accidently" opening the first message. Then you downloaded a program that would hack into his Yahoo archives. If there is lack of trust in your marriage, I'd have to say it goes both ways. So your hubby wrote a letter to someone you once thought enough of to be friends with. So he finds her good-looking. Are you so insecure in your relationship that you can't stand the thought that he might find other women attractive? I don't think you've told the whole story here, but I can't blame him for being upset at what you did. I certainly would be too if I found my wife installing software on my computer for surreptiously reading my private correspondence, even if I was completely innocent. (I don't understand what the point of trashing the computer but saving the hard drive is, though.) That said, this isn't about you being lazy in bed or anywhere else. This is about a breakdown in trust, and lack of responsive listening. Something had to have led up to this.

I can’t tell you how much this feedback is helping! I’ll have to wait to give those exact dimensions as we are not in the house just yet. We close May 11th and have to be out of our current home June 4th. We are trying to complete this entire renovation in that short amount of time! Rip out walls, take out all the carpet upstairs, put hardwood floors in the kitchen, dining room, living room, stairwell, and hallway, paint, build island and pantry. We are kinda crazy. We also have a 2 year old and 8 month old. This will hopefully be something we laugh about someday! We just feel so fortunate to have some overlap with our houses to be able to renovate while living in our current home. No furniture...just a clean slate!