STOP! You are flinging money, plants and pavers at a problem before you know what the problem is. And you can't move plants like you do furniture - every time you dig them up and move them, you set back their growth a few years. Before you do anything else, draw up a plan of the back yard, to scale and with measurements. See the link below for detailed how-to. On one copy of it, put is what is already there. On a second copy, draw up your final plan. Where do you live (city/state)? All zone 7s are not created equal when it comes to rainfall and summer temps. The brickwork is GREAT! Don't mess with it unless you absolutely have to. 1 - The fastest way to make the parking lot vanish is with a trellis or two and some vines, or some bamboo in raised bed or beds ... a privacy screen. 2 - Learn to plant trees ... a 3 1/2 foot deep hole in clay soil, filled with the best planting mix in the world, is just a big flower pot. It won't drain and the tree's roots will not leave the hole. Recommended practice is to dig a hole as deep as the tree's existing root ball and several times wider than the root ball. Do not amend the soil, just put the tree in and backfill, then mulch. 3 - Instead of a magpie collection of plants, repeat plant material ... several repetitions of the bamboo along the fence can block undesireable sights and please the eye. Part of a landscape plan is to identify the needed plants by what the landscape NEEDS in that area: think function first, not "ooooh look at the purty tree". If you want all-year blocking of that parking lot, a deciduous tree won't do it as well as something evergreen 4 - Don't use sod in a tiny back yard. It's almost as much work to care for a tiny patch as a whole lawn, and it chops up the area visually, making it smaller. I'd treat the area like a Manhattan roof garden or a Mexican or New Orleans interior garden, with pavement, raised beds with seating around the edges, using the plants as accessories and problem solvers. treat it like an outdoor great room and entertainment area: cooking and eating zone, lounging and talking zone. Here is a link that might be useful: DIY Landscape design

i have an antique brass bed, in a guest room, with the same kind of side rails. i think they might be put in upside down (in the photo) and, therefore, are on the wrong side of the bed. my bed was put together like that by my last mover and was recently discovered by my daughter when she was here visiting. she wasn't able to get the mattress and springs off so just put short boards at the corners to keep them from falling off. i got new carpet since then and i asked the installers to put the rails on correctly when they reassembled the bed. sorry this is so long!..... i don't know if that was done or not and the bedroom is on a different level of the house than i am on and i am in a wheelchair so i can't go check. regarding the length of the mattress, yes, today's mattresses are too long. i bought a used one about 25 years ago, when i bought the bed, since it was shorter than new mattresses at that time. i hope this makes some sense!

DH just informed me that he learned while watching the Congressional Hearings on the auto industry that the auto industry's current debt is also heavily leveraged by credit defaut swaps. So if they go under and stop paying off their debt, we can expect another round of financial industry failures. Why not just keep them in business and let them pay off their debts? Why bail out the financial industry again when they produce nothing material? jkom51: I believe that Buick is the luxury car of choice in China, a huge emerging market. I agree that the Big Three need to get rid of their airline fleets. So shoul all the other business bailed out by the government. In doing a search on "Corporate Jets," I came across a story from 2005 that talked about executives being required to use the coporate jet when on personal travel! "Citigroup's proxy says it spent $309,783 for personal "company transportation" for Chairman Sandy Weill, $108,208 for CEO Chuck Prince and $459,153 for executive committee chair Robert Rubin. Citigroup doesn't break out personal expenses for planes or ground transport." And Jack Welsh, the rumored new Auto Czar: "After reports of heavy personal plane use among disgraced CEOs and negative PR heaped upon former General Electric CEO Jack Welch over his post-retirement use of company jets, "Culturally, you don't want to send a message to the market, employees or customers that CEOs are treated preferentially," notes compensation specialist Mike Kesner of Deloitte Consulting." Yikes! He used the coporate jet after retirement, and he is going to be the guy who gets the Big Three to be frugal? But realistically, here is basic info on coporate jet use from Wikipedia: "There are approximately 11,000 business jets in the worldwide fleet with the vast majority of them based in the United States or owned by US companies. The European market is the next largest, with growing activity in Asia and Central America. There is a pre-owned marketplace in which aircraft are bought and sold based on their immediate deliverability because new aircraft orders often take two to three years for delivery."

I know this sounds odd, but I would remove the final pointy ends from the posts on the bed, as on your first inspiration photo. To me it looks very odd. I would definitely do simple curtain panels reaching to the floor and also a rug to give some softness to this room with so much wood. Perhaps very light blue walls with a green and cream bedspread and cream curtains.