I've overwintered trachies several times indoors, and not always in ideal conditions in terms of light, and they come through like the troopers they are, continuing to grow slowly. IMO, they would actually make excellent indoor palms. Trachies and European Fans are the only two palms species I've seen that don't seem to be bothered by spider mites. I don't know if they are completely resistant to them by any means, but I've never seen mites on either one of these. Which, in my book, makes them good candidates for indoor use, since spider mites are, IMO, the biggest bane of indoor palms in terms of pests.

I like the idea of painting ceiling same as walls. Hosenemesis, there would be less strips than you described. BUT, I agree that with white tile, than color, than white ceiling, it might be stripy. That has been my thought too. I tried white trim and color walls as a sample in my kitchen remodel last year and it looked like a circus tent! My rooms are small and one can never get far enough away or between the door frames to have a nice ratio of trim vs wall color. I solved the problem in the kitchen by painting the trim as the walls and I love it. Prairiegirlz5, you illustrate a very glamourous bath! Sounds lovely. This bath will have a bit of glam but overall it has to function as a frequently used toilet for my farmer husband and others that may be working or visiting. I do want it to look sort of like the early 20th century and similar to my kitchen as it is just off from the kitchen. Now, I think I may have to alter the color plan. I yanked a bit of my remnent soapstone out of the shed to take a look and " :O these colors aren't going to work!" Tile pattern will stay the basic pattern but the listello may be tiny running bond so I can get a good matched white and stay in budget. I could go with a Ming green listello but I don't want a strip of color. The slate floor will stay, as will the soapstone. But what color do I paint the walls? Did someone above say light green? I may have to go that direction because the veining in the soapstone is green! I was thinking that there was more white veining. It pays to keep your materials close at hand throughout the process, not hidden away and counting on memory. The paint that I used in my kitchen was BM Titanium and it looks fabulous with another soapstone I have there. I just wanted a more ocean-y feel to the colors in the BR. Any thoughts are welcome.

OK More experiences of 2/3 loft over lower floor. Just tossing these experiences out there. We had new carpet put in the whole house and when the guy was repairing the floors upstairs all the hammering brought down scads dust and grit from all the years seeping into the cracks. There was tongue and groove two by 6's or 8's for flooring. The lower floor did feel a bit closed in by the ceiling above. I believe the ceiling was a bit short of the norm. There were no side walls as ML suggested to give better ceiling height in loft. There was no way to hang pictures on the loft walls except the one end wall. They slanted too much. Since we did not have to worry about heating with the hot spring water available I have no idea on the added energy costs. A person could always hang a heavy draw curtain across the loft opening when not in use to control heat loss from below. Would have to be custom made but us sewers could figure out how to do it. I am terrified of heights but planes do not bother me other then now all the bother to board. I have pretty much given up flying. Not to mention the 90 mile drive each way to and from airport. The only place to fly to for me would be to see my Mom and it is also a 90 mile drive to airport and back on her end. I might as well drive the whole way. LOL I went through exactly what you are going through Sandy. I had some more limitations because once we chose the manufactured home that would fit our lot I had to work within that floor plan and only had the options of adding stretches and moving windows and the closet thing I explained before. then the master bath switching it up from glamor bath to half glamor bath. I really would have liked a larger laundry room. but this one works fine. I just fold laundry wherever it lands and I do use the line to dry the clothes most of the time so they come off the line and end up in master bedroom on bed to fold. We had another model house chosen at first in fact there were two other models and one I liked better but the added 20K put the bite in things. And there were issues with it in the living room arrangement. There just seems to be give and take. I think you have already written down all the things you want. I just do not think you can ever make it all perfect. What is pretty funny is the house we built took us one evening, a couple of hours, to draw up the plans. Was totally simple. We later decided if we had moved the master bedroom door over to the other end of the room it would have been so much better and still could have been done with out too much trouble. But we never bothered to do it. We were so happy in that house. Was a small house too. We built exactly what we drew up. That house would not work for me now. I am really happy with this house plan. We both are. It is a very comfortable house to live in for us. I do not remember what your SQ FT was going to be. Was it 1200? If so that was a little too small for me as we had it in the last house. Just the lay out here and the added 100 SQ FT helped to make this house work. AND at the last 1200 SQ FT house I had an added out side pantry of 8 by 6 and then my shed space of 10 by 16 and that would add up to more than we have here and it did not work. So it is not always the size that matters. I think it is the lay out. There used to be manufactured home sites on line with scads of floor plans. I looked at them for weeks taking things I liked and things I did not like. One place we chose we had to make so many changes to it it turned out we were better off not getting it at all. Add in we had a special roof snow load we had to adjust for. There were restrictions on how open we could go. I do not think you have that there. Here it is required 85 pound roof load. We have 120 on the house and 100 on the shop just so we do not have to shovel the roofs. You might want to back off just for a few days on this thought process. Like trying to balance the check book that is off 15 cents and you can not find it. Step away from it and when you come back a day or three later you see the mistake right away. Just a thought. You have my sympathy this is so stressful. Chris

Love to see all these beautiful homes! Our family room is where we spend all our free time. In the moments that I'm not running around the house or chasing the small person seen in the picture, I am watching HGTV or using my laptop while sprawled on the couch. I can't seem to get my act together to take new pics for this post. I have rearranged and changed things quite a bit lately, but this is what it looked like a few months ago: Lo Jen