Clare!!! Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Thank you for such a geat Christmas tour at your home!!! Your efforts have made a wonderful Holiday experience for us all. You are the 'Christmas' bomb girl!!!!!!!!!!!! I especially love all kinds of trash to treasure endeavors! Your wheelbarrow is so charming!!!!! We had an old metal wheelbarrow that needed a front wheel. I got a discarded child's small bike wheel (a tricycle wheel would have been even better, but what'a ya gonna do? Free is Free. I couldn't just knock on the door and ask if they had it in a different size.). Then I tore the rubber tire off of the spoked rim. You'll need one of those darned men with his 'Man tools' to help remove the center of the wheel if you do it this way. I spray painted it white, then ran a rod through the middle and attached it to the wheelbarrow cart. I'll post a pic soon because it really made a huge difference to my old metal cart. It would make your wooden cart even nicer. I bet you did work for months on the Venician plaster it looks so rich!!! Great idea to toughen up the heavy traffic areas. Loved the glow when the lights were turned down low. The fresh greenery is wonderful on the door. The ice skates brought back memories of my childhood immediately. It was all so lovely. Susie

The NY Times has an interesting article on the effects of the slump on the retailing sector. Here is a link that might be useful: Retailing Chains & bankrupcies

I know Sue! Oh well. At least I left the wrong man behind with it. No point in living in a great house when you are depressed and do not like the person with whom you are living. Suddenly nothing looks very pretty. BTW, Those colors are distorted... at least in the living room.

I would love to look at some things on my own to get a feel for what I want. It’s always fun to browse stores with wonderful products. In the south, I visited a place called the Painted Tree that was wonderful. I was hoping to find something like that in Phoenix.