Okay, so very sorry. I really love this forum and I don't want to upset or confuse anyone. My father, wife, and myself are Romanian, my mother is British( but now an American citizen). I live in her house in Connecticut. She got the house from a cousin whose great great, had moved here from England in the 1800's. Anyway, lets set this thread straight. I've now owned the house for three years. the fist year I left the gardens as is, meadow like, very overgrown to the point that statues were obscured by a screen of weeds and vines in a rather post apocalyptic style. The second year, having thinned it all out in the early spring, I laid a brick edging and took back the beds. that same summer I started with perennials. This the third year, I see not everything took, and I left one back walled bed to do as it pleased. A thistle, and some stringy plant along with four cosmos popped up. So early in the summer I planted my tomatoes and peppers there. This looks odd in the very formal walled garden but it worked freeing up time for me to spend on defining the remaining beds. I really know next to nothing of gardening. My property is very shaded and I'm always trying to force sun plants to thrive there with very little success (go figure). You people really have been helpful and I hope to rely on you greatly in the future. I haven't really identified much in my garden because I'm not sure what it all is. The things I buy in the garden center that look amazing on the shelf always look lost in my beds. Weeds seem to like me but if I pull them I lose flowers because I couldn't tell them apart. Sierra, Annette, and Nell, you are wonderful people who cared enough for a fellow gardener to lend a helpful hint. You didn't have all the facts and for that I apologize. My wife once joined a recipe site but left it finding the people were rude and ignoring her questions, passing her over as a novice. The one thing I bragged to her about is how friendly everyone here is. I started this project in honor of my mother who is now in long-term care. I even left her Union jack waving on the flag pole in the back garden. My dream is to have a party for her birthday on the lawn in her old garden all up to date next year. Something for her to sit and relax in. I love coming in and checking this forum, looking at the responses, its now a part of my routine. I'm learning a great deal from the entrees. I only put water on my plants, I do nothing to the soil and I rarely use miracle-gro. This always worked for my mother but she seemed to have a talent for these things. I do recall her adding fresh cow manure and a white powder called rabbits blood, I think? But to what, and when, I'm not sure. I don't do annuals because I'm too cheap and nothing from seed ever grown much for me. I love my cone flowers and my black-eyed-susans but I'd be grateful for some red in the garden too. My lavender never grows as it did for her and my bee-balm puts on a good show only in parts of the garden. So you see. I enjoy this place immensely and I not only want to, but need to learn from you all. Thanks, Mihai

Good gloomy GEORGIA morning to anyone still musing on the ridiculous lengths someone will go to to find just the right paint color! A shout-out to ttodd, amysrq, patricianat,, kitchendetective, and postano for All your help & understaning Lo these many years. Do you realize it’s been just a smidge over Ten years since I was boring people with my insane search for the “one right color” (Ha!) for my entryway? And the Dry Sage stayed for the next few years though every other room got a makeover until we sold that house in late 2012! We bought a new house and had to choose a color from the builders very limited palette though the light taupe we picked looked really nice. Then, 3 years into that new life in a nearby California city I cracked and painted all the open living spaces Gray Owl by Ben Moore. (Except For Benjamin Moore Titanium that went up on the master bedroom walls the first day we moved in) Then we sold and moved to Georgia. Yes. North Georgia. Very chilly winters. I didn’t even own enough socks! (My listing photo of Ca house two Yrs ago in Gray Owl) im not here on Houzz a lot because this Georgia house is small and I’ve made most of the changes I’m going to...Still deciding on a color to paint the mismatched kitchen cabinets...Revere Pewter may be the winner. Yes. I am still psycho about color sampling as 9 different paint shades ranging from the expected (BM White Dove) to the moody (BM Hale Navy) to the reigning Grays (BM Kendall Charcoal, Chelsea Gray, and aforementioned Revere Pewter) have been painted on my 3 test cabinet doors that live in my garage. BM Dark Olive is wonderful if I went with the tuxedo kitchen look using White Dove for the uppers, but it’s hard to pull off that style when your kitchen is the size of the interior of a Honda Odyssey. I cant help but wonder what each of you has been up to? Still painting and rearranging furniture or moved on to the more grownup concerns of life in this changing world? Have you moved onto Instagram or simply saying no to Home magazines and internet Influencers in favor of...what? Love to know. Red

Thanks everyone for your suggestions! I know the vintage (late 1940s) and value of the knotty pine. The essence of "cottage" will indeed remain, but I do sometimes wish for a "pickled" brighter look -- influenced by much time spent on beach/cottage blogs linked from earlier posts. i think w/a few thoughtful decor changes (the fireplace surround and improved bookshelf visuals) I can brighten the room up w/o making major changes. As this is a summer home for us, it tends to get second-hand extras and lots of beloved cast-offs that I have no idea what to do with otherwise. Your input here makes sense...lots to condense and clean up. Yay! Another excuse to spend even MORE time here and on other forums than i already do. On another note, Sweeby: I'm so impressed by your astute memory, but it's a strange coincidence re: the urns. I picked them up at an estate sale years ago, and have often wondered about them. Mine are almost identical to the ones posted, but are extremely heavy (are ashes that heavy?). Makes me think maybe something is inside them...never thought to look. I'll be down at the house shortly, and will look more closely. If there's a treasure inside, maybe I'll be able to afford a decorator to come fix up the fireplace. Stay tuned here, and I'll post back.

Again, no one can answer your questions about your local code and permitting authority without at least knowing where it is. Building codes vary by location, even when the codes don't vary, building departments will differ in responsiveness, prescription of codes and remedy for violations. There are 89,004 different coding districts in the U.S. and while there may be a lot of commonalities there are distinct differences. For example, the fence analogy would not work in my community as any fence under 8ft and without anti-intrusion measures (barbed wire or electrification) doesn't require a permit. Whether you are replacing, repairing, or making it taller doesn't matter. Also, in our city, the building department is easy going, and while there are fairly strict zoning and code rules here, our building department is incredibly responsive and helpful to homeowners. The city we are building in, which is only 1.2 miles from my current home, has fewer codes but the building department isn't responsive and tends to be very adversarial. The city my wife grew up in has no zoning ordinances at all. You can construct an office building in your backyard (and yes, people have), there is a 10 year debate running on the council whether or not a building permit is even required as long as all the individual inspections are done and the CO is obtained. One last time. We can give you general advice, some things are easy - new electric and new plumbing almost always require a permit. Some things are much harder, installing a fence for example. Your only options are either talk to your permitting authority, or an expert in your area (a local contractor). You can be on here all day long, loving some advice, hating some advice and becoming much more informed only to find that much of what you learned here doesn't apply to you.