Just a few thoughts, which I am sure are redundant but here goes... 1 - I can't see location but make sure you keep any woody mulches well away from your house. AZ termites are nasty (Lived in PHX for 5 years and I remember the horror stories!) 2 - Natural mulch is what you want, it breaks down and helps your soil. Second best, I'd guess, is chipped rubber product, the white sort, since it will hold moisture and reflect heat. If you do decorative gravel...well I'd say don't. Even white gravel will add heat to your soil in AZ. Plus in order to stop the rock from working its way into your soil you need landscape fabric which adds a whole new level of ugh to tilling etc next year. Plus when monsoon season hits the stuff will often float and if you have any hilliness on your property you will spend a fair bit of time raking it back into place... Just a few thoughts...

Hi Jane! Former New Yorker here! :) My bedroom is SS and I'm in the process of putting it back together. I'll try to post some pics for you later this morning after DH gets up-don't think you want to see him snoozing:P Anyway, I have natural colored woven wood blinds and will be adding panels in a cream or very soft gold as soon as I find a fabric I like that doesn't cost thousands of dollars-I need 35 yards! Furniture is dark mahogany, antique, carved deco style. Bedding is a mix of gold, cream, brown, and an aqua-ey blue. I have black and cream transferware plates on the wall over the bed (still need something else up there), antique prints in heavy distressed black frames, a sunburst mirror and I'm in the process of putting some antique fabric panels on canvas to hang. Nothing is too matchy. It all seems to work. The basic color scheme is cream, brown, blue, and gold with a little silver thrown in. This is a close up of my duvet: This is the furniture with the wall color: I'll try to post more later Pattie

They do tend to look a lot alike but the fur seems to be different frequently. Sage is pretty curly, like a poodle. I love when his hair gets long (although it's SOOO hard to keep from getting matted). We've had many many people mistake him for a sheepdog when it's long. I know someone else with a goldendoodle and his fur is only slightly wavy, much more like a golden but his head and face are shaped just like Sage and your doodle. Go figure! Oh, and the mohawk is new, just did it yesterday just for fun. LOL, what can I say...I was bored! Here he is during shaggier times...with his best bud, Rover.

Thank you for your response. The AC guy thought he was smelling creosote and ask where my furnace was, which I don't have. I have an air handler up in the attic. I had all the ductwork cleaned last week. Not much was in there. When I first smelled this odor back in April when I bought the house, it smelled like "a swimming pool" to me. Above this tar waterproofing on the outside of the house (because this is in the basement below the stairs) is a 1987 central air conditioner that still runs. I suspected they had water leaking from that unit at some point..because the copper pipes go into the closet and because when I removed the mulch from around the air conditioning unit outside THE MULCH SMELLED OF THE ODOR THAT I AM DETECTING. 3 Air conditioning repairmen later, and they all said the unit is not leaking and is running fine with no cost out of my pocket except for the service call. The windows are open every day and the bulkhead doors too. I am guessing it will not dissipate. I can smell it in my clothing if I leave my laundry to hang there near the washer. I would like to paint over this dry-feeling tar with something like a KILZ ODOR BLOCKER, but I am not sure which one I should use. Sadly, if I cannot overcome this I will literally have to sell the house. I have also removed the drop ceiling tiles in that area and the insulation- that ALL smelled of this odor. I will just have to cover it up, I guess. Any ideas what I can use? The Baxter Group out of Chambersburg, PA said they could sand the tar off the wall in January. Not sure I want to remove the waterproofing tar material, though, without a back up plan. And after all this, WHAT IF it is not even the tar being the culprit sickening odor? LOL OMG. Thank you for your information! Stay safe, Sir.