Chris, when I started reading your post for a second there I thought it was mine.....lol! ! I too started when I got a job at a nursery and collected what few hostas we sold. Yes, about 8 varieties, but it was closer to 25 yrs ago. I didn't go on to start my own plant business, however, I retired after 16 years and went into the bead business, taking a hiatus from plants, even though I still bought some hostas and other plants on a casual basis. I didn't get into really collecting hostas until about 2003, when I got married to my former boss and best friend, the garden center owner, who had by that time sold the business and went to work in the garden center of a local big box store. And I was retired by then, also. When he sold his house and we moved his small hosta collection to my garden, we started making more beds and developing the rest of our wooded acre, collecting more and more hostas along the way, dividing the ones we had already. We are still at it, ripping out that godawful Japanese honeysuckle and replacing it with hostas! As I am an artist, a garden is just another medium to explore, and I haven't finished with it, yet. I have to create, and I have to have my hands in the soil. I've actually been a gardener since about age 3, following my dad's heels when he worked our farm when I was growing up. There were always huge vegetable gardens and flowers. Two new big beds last year and one smaller one this year have been added, and I still get that little tingle when I see an awesome new hosta, so I guess the honeymoon continues! In spite of the deer, and the voles, and the groundhogs, drought, cutworms, pillbugs and the heat, I'm still making wish lists, checking every garden center, planting seeds, yanking out more honeysuckle, looking at online catalogs and reading every post on here. Hope springs eternal, I KNOW next year is gonna be wonderful! Sandy

Candy, I tried to start a 'family album' along with our Inspiration ones, last year or two ago. But didn't get co-operation from these camera-shy gals (or JIM!). just 3 of us did pix. So I asked again recently and am getting some. Thanks Lynne...its just wonderful to SEE you. I sure hope more of you join in. We are such close-knit gang and I think its really neat if we know what one another looks like. hugs, Karen Here is a link that might be useful: our Holiday gang album

Welcome to the club and like everyone has said, don't lose heart. I'm in the same boat and there are days where I wonder why I bought this old house with decades of problems. Then I go outside and look at it from my meadow and something just clicks, and I smile. I have a colonial 1911 house with a 1930's addition. The original house was built very, very well. The addition, not so well. It is where my little galley kitchen is, my laundry room, and a small mud room is located - all used everyday. I just had it gutted and I can't tell you what an amazing adverture it has been. I've resigned myself to doing laundry at my brother's house for the next month, cooking off a hotplate in the dining room, and using the main entrance instead of the mudroom entrance. Luckily for me, the workers who are gutting it are taking the time to show me the progression of work and re-work through the years that was done to that addition...old paneling ripped out to reveal beautiful old wallpaper, and older wall paper behind that; a time capsule of old newspapers from the 1930's that are in mint condition that someone stuffed in the walls; a pile of coal near the fireplace that indicated at some point, there was a chute to the basement and coal was burned for fuel, etc. They are just as giddy with excitement of finding the next "clue" to how the room was used over the last 80 years as I am. Not everyone can do this. It takes alot of patience, and I wouldn't advise having people over that don't get it while you are doing big projects such as what I'm doing, unless you can deal with being met by sour faces that say "You must be crazy, this is a mess!". And there are days (since I'm taking this slow and as money allows), that I look into my ripped up, gutted addition and cringe at how much work it will take to do it right, to bring it back to a functional, but period-correct room again. Lots of money. But, luckily I'm working with craftsmen that do this on the side and agree to work slow as money allows. Then I see all the wires that were buried in the wall (as well as a cast iron (working) radiator and think "thank God I have unvielded these potential catastrophes." So, we all go through the range of emotions from shock to fear to "how am I going to pay for this?!" to "wow, this is mine and it is great." It is an emotional rollercoaster. But, when it all comes together, you will treasure - beyond your wildest dreams - how you preserved a piece of history and it is yours to add to its legendary testament of time. Best wishes for you! We are always here to listen! :)

I think there is a lack of focus. Everything is equally important. Gotta decide what deserves to be special and play that up. Also think about serenity issues--because your house has a triple set of connected rooms, you need to keep them playing nicely together yet make each one special. As you look into each room you need to feel Ahhhh! not Arrgh! Does the desk area have a sufficiently large lip of wall on the left of it to accept a cork board for child art? Or could there be a bulletin board over the desk? Then when seen from the next room, the kid art is not the center of the long view. Similarly, the magnets on the garbage can have too much importance within that long view. A single kid-centered area is fair play; multiple ones are an intrusion into the serenity, therefore the stuff needs to return there when it migrates elsewhere. So, where is the kid area at this point in your lives--under the dining room windows, right? Or under the desk? Can you restrict to only one, even if it's a bigger jumble? Currently the orchid leaves, the orange refrig art, the other colored items, the hardware, and the towels are the biggest grabbers of my attention. Why? Because everything else is so neutral, although my eye eventually comes around to focus on the warm tones in the natural wood floor and countertop. Although you deleted so much wood look, you might still want some of that wood, which softens and mitigates harshness. The allure of your inspiration photo is its discipline; your kitchen has more open shelving and more stuff and your own habits will fight the discipline. If you can put a color behind your stuff that does not emphasize contrasts, that would help a lot. Don't paint yet. Try adding some big warm wooden items which bring out those wood tones--a separate cutting board, a turned wooden salad bowl, a splint basket at floor level, a wooden item over that far door. Bring home a sink rug, some towels or flower pots, and/or fabric for the tops of the stools which all coordinate either in a single solid color or in a small print or stripe. No large prints! Lay them out, look hard, then keep or return. [Notice how others with white kitchens on the GW have had to focus on an accent color which can be changed out.] You might find that because of your warm browns, your best paint color might be closer to chocolate brown than to grey. And you might consider a second paint color for accent, perhaps to use to highlight the area surrounding the sink window. You could also paint the secondary color on the stools and on the apron below the shelving on the left and behind the open shelves on the hutch or on the countertop area of the hutch. Carmel brown perhaps? Mustard yellow? or walnut brown? Consider putting an interesting matte or rippled glass into your dining area upper cabs to play down the humps on the cabs. The items at the top of the hutch are in too small in scale. Find something big and dramatic, or use potted green plants like pothos in matched pots of your accent color or wood and let the plant arms crawl around on the upper shelf and hang down both sides. Large doses of a single color and texture up there will give the spot importance and add height and drama. Move the clock up or put it into the kitchen above the sink so that you can put a big piece of art on that dining room wall. You need something to balance the big window that is opposite and to make eating at the table an exciting thing to do. Save up for a big rug for the dining area--something that camouflages kid spills and draws attention to this important area between t.v. and refrig. [Our dining table is the nerve center of our house. We got an estate sale Belgian style carpet when our kids were little--fabulous idea. The thing looked clean even when an entire chow mein dinner was spilled on it. It finally wore out completely but it was sure fun while it lasted. Meals in that room remain very important in our girls' memories of childhood.] If you must have a backsplash, choose something that does not add entropy. Yet if you add more white, you are only adding to the overall whiteness of that room. Do not use a shiny tile if the backsplash is of any size--think serenity when seen from next room. I think I would prefer the existing countertop color to more white. When you went white you got as excited about white as the former owner did about wood. Consider painting the door the same color as the walls or the floor so that you defuse the large am't of white and give the eye a place to rest on that back wall. Have fun stormin' the castle!