Cecilia, "The Fantasy zinnias are (or at least were recently)available from a couple of seed companies - Botanical Interests and Fredonia Seeds." First of all, excuse my long delay in responding to your message. The Fantasy zinnias I seek are significantly different from the Fredonia package. I have seen the Renee's Garden "Raggedy Ann" package but its hand painted artwork is not detailed enough to determine whether it is just Cactus Flowered under a different name. The Fredonia packet picture depicts a form of cactus flowered zinnia. I grew the Fantasy zinnias in the forties and fifties (I am, as they say, "no spring chicken") and I have a clear memory of what they looked like. First of all, they were not "giant flowered" but instead ranged from 3 inches to maybe 4 inches in diameter. Their plant was a bit shorter at 18" to 26" than the cactus flowered zinnias of that time, which ranged from 2 to 3½ feet high under normal growing conditions. But their flower form was much more extreme than the cactus flowered zinnias. The petals were down rolled into almost tubes so that you could scarcely see the back side of the petal. And the petals were extremely non-straight. The petals curved and wrapped around in a "fantastic" way that was quite unusual. The ironic thing is that Fantasy Zinnias won several All-Americal Selections awards: Fantasy Mixture in 1935, Fantasy Stardust in 1937 (as I recall, that was an interesting lavendar), and Fantasy White Light in 1939. White zinnias are good for several reasons and I really wish I could get some Fantasy White Light seeds for use in crossing with other zinnias. In a world where we have heirloom seeds of varieties that go back into the 1700s, I am really frustrated that we seem to have lost a bunch of relatively recent by comparison zinnia varieties that won All-America Selections awards. Incidentally, zinnia Black Ruby, which won All-America in 1941, is another remarkable zinnia that seems to have vanished. It was a deep maroon-purple that was almost black. The flowers were small but hybridization and re-selection should have been able to move that "black" color up into the larger flowered forms. Your suggestion to grow a lot of Giant Dahlia Flowered zinnias might work in recovering Crown of Gold. I notice that Burpee has tried to re-invent their Burpeanna zinnias by re-selecting them from cactus flowered mixes. I think it is ironic and a bit sad that Burpee has let so many of their best zinnia varieties pass into extinction. Well, a belated thanks for your response. I didn't have much room for zinnias this year, but planted some Peter Pans and the "new" Burpeannas and they did fine. If I had a lot of space I would try to recover Crown-of-Gold from Dahlia Flowered Mixed, but so far that much space isn't available. But I am continuing to look for a source of those "heirloom" zinnias. MM

Another issue I see with your floor plan is that your access to the back yard through the sliding glass door is very round about from the kitchen. I would try to create an L shaped kitchen with a smaller island so that you have more direct access to the back yard if you will be using the back yard alot. I think if you swap the closet and walk in pantry, you can have an L shaped kitchen.... Another "traffic jam" as you have drawn floor plan is the size of the living room furniture. You have blocked the person into the sitting area. You need to lay it out with smaller pieces of furniture so that people can walk out of the sitting area around both pieces of furniture. Again, this is how you psychologically create spaciousness if you are not building a huge house. You need to use furniture that is scaled right for the room. I think smaller L shaped couch may be a better option for you. When smaller houses are not laid out well, they feel cramped. If you pay attention to how they work, then they can live large. In smaller houses, it is more important to feel that walkways are adequate and traffic flows are not dead ended. You have very generous hallways, ie 5 ft. You need to creat similar spaciousness elsewhere by paying attention to traffic flow. If you have already thought through, then never mind. Good luck.

janjan, right now my fantasy island is just a crude drawing ;-) I do use houzz.com alot for ideas. You can search through thousands of pictures by style and room, etc. Also a great place to start an ideabook. Here is the link to my ideabook with islands with table seating below, but there are many others. Here is a link that might be useful: my island ideabook

hi there! Yes, my main faucet is a Moen Aberdeen in copper that I scored on eBay a few years ago; I don't think they make this copper finish any more? The water filter faucet is also a Moen, in same finish. The prep sink is a Kohler Essex faucet in "Vibrant Brazen Bronze" (...from the Department of Redundant Finish Names Department). The darker color is actually a much better choice for the counters, because it resonates without trying to imitate. Any finish which is not actual solid copper just looks cheesy against the real stuff. (The Moen looks a little cheesy, I sometimes think. But I just couldn't bring myself to do a bridge faucet, because of the vintage preciousness factor. Ah well.) I love the Essex and the finish is great. My one wish in life is that Kohler would produce this same style with a pull-down head. I'm very enamored of the paddle handles. Here it is on new counters: And after they'd aged for a few years: Another angle: I can't imagine that stainless would look bad against copper. My fridge only came in stainless and no guest has ever screamed that their eyeballs are burning. At least not because of that. Here you are: I rousted out an old mid-remodel photo that has my first faucet candidate in stainless steel lying on the counter, maybe this can give you some hint: