I'm not much help. We have a similar set up but we have casement windows so all we did was have the upper ones match the lower windows but be fixed (i.e., not open). My one comment though is that I think the upper windows should have the same number (and size) of divided lights as the lower windows (i.e., squares of glass--you have 8 in the lower window (which I think they call 4 over 4 in double hungs) and I would get an 8 divided light fixed window for the uppers and then add the arched top if you want it).

Normally I don't open the sheers, but thinking I might like to on occassion. So if I put the sheers on a decorative rod, how do I hang the drapery panels? My old drapes had a swag valance - very formal - that covered the top of the sheers where the pleats are. Now that would be exposed if I don't do a valance and not sure how that would look with a rod over it that the drapery panels go on. Hope this makes sense.

birdlover6--I just always thought neutrals were boring. Now I see them as tranquil, and as great backdrops for colorful furniture, paintings, etc. Also I moved from an old house with lots of character to a new one. I had it painted before we moved in (big mistake--I should have waited, even though it's more of a hassle) and I guess I thought bright colors would give it personality. I do like some of the colors. A small study is apple green with white molding and built-in bookcases. My bedroom is C2 silk which is a gorgeous blue grey and my bathroom is C2 Mistral a deep greyish purple, and another bedroom is aquarium, a gorgeous C2 green. I wouldn't change any of those rooms. But living room, dining room, foyer, kitchen, and maybe family room (currently yellow) could use a beautiful gray palette.

yes, eastautumn, I was sure hoping the blood wouldn't be so..blood. It can be mistaken for something else. I was hoping, because of that, that even though the story is very recognizable, it's also not in your face so to say. Enough to make you look longer. Not enough to make people highly disturbed. Sheeisback, it's Judith. From the Book of Judith. nosoccermom, my DD who's in college and comes for weekends sometimes, and breaks, told me to treat her room like my own. "don't you want your own special space, Mommy?" -You're silly girl, I told her. My happiness is for her having her room whenever she needs it. Also, while she, after some rebel teenage years, asks me to design her room for her, says she trusts me completely, and loves art(even though she's more into modern art)I'm not sure she'd appreciate the painting hanging there. She's very sensitive. It's pretty big too. It will be very pronounced even in our living..her bedroom is small. Everything you'll see will be the painting. It will turn her room into mine. I don't want that. We payed two mortgages for two years and poured so much into that idiotic general remodel, precisely for everyone to have their own room, and feel like it's their own. The room already has a small wall sculpture (graduation present from us) and a portrait of a little girl that remind me my DD when she was about three or four..the resemblance is striking. that was a gift for one of her birthdays. I feel like I'm imposing with art that I choose..even out of the best intentions, and when she loves it. Fori, no..he's not like that:) I've decided to wait..both of us didn't say a word about the portrait since then. I wait. She waits. Maybe he waits too. He's an incredible person, my husband. It's often that we discuss ..it's rarely that we don't. I can't take other portraits away..first, I love them too. Second, he'll be offended rather than rejoiced. we usually buy art together. He got sad even when I wanted to take a figurative painting into the guest room. I wanted to take it there since it reminded me of one of my friends-we were very close once but got estranged, and it became harder for me to give it central spot. I explained why, and it didn't help. That the painting reminded me more of my estranged friend than of the happy sunny day we bought it together. Luckily we got two paintings then..by the same artist. So having one of them still central balances out my desire to put the other one on a back burner so too say. I think. Olychik, yes..growing experience. It's good..not every experience can be called growing . Here, I should have listened to my head though. My head told me not to do that:) My heart was: he'll understand. My husband spoiled me into becoming somebody else..frankly, somebody better. It's because of him that I became a person who can handle a dark portrait, because the inside is not that dark anymore. I've tried to tell him that. When he saw the box. I told him: -it's a portrait, and I'm not sure you'll like it, since it's not a happy one, but it's because of our marriage that I could dare to get it. I don't know whether he remembered it..he was in a hurry then. I could have opened that old photo album of mine, and share what I feel and why..which i understood thanks to you guys actually..thanks to this conversation. But I feel it's too early to do so. Maybe he'll ask himself.."why do you want her so, what do you see in her?" Then I'll tell hem what. I thought for a moment to cut it by the way. With a knife. The portrait. But I can't even tear somebody's printed face out of newspaper..:) I've no right to do so. I'm not the artist. And I don't want to kill her. Then I thought to send it back..to sell it..I don't know. But I can't bring myself to do that. I talk to stupid Roomba..reprimanded it now for knocking something off the floor..:) If Roomba is tiny bit alive to me-you can imagine what happens when I look at the portrait. I really really want her to stay. The more she stays the more I understand why I got her. We'll work it out, for sure. I don't know how, at this point. Just to add something non-related-gosh I'm so so envious of you all that you can express your thoughts in a more or less normal length posts, you know?