Paul and his wife adopted the tortoise... we couldn't ask for a better place for it. After meeting them in person I have no problem sleeping at night knowing it has the perfect home. People need to think ahead of time when they aquire an exotic pet... how big they get, what they have to eat, housing, etc. We gave the tortoise an excellent living environment while we had it but I should have put my foot down when it was brought home knowing the size it would get and that my son most likely would loose interest in it and your's truly would be taking care of it.

I'm not an expert however I live in So. CA, Zone 10B. Our roses also grow most of the year. I prune my roses in late December or early January. Black spot can't be cured however you can minimize it's effect. If you don't mind chemicals, Bayer Advanced for roses has helped me fight the black spot problem. If your roses are blooming, I'd recommend waiting until December to prune them back. If they aren't blooming I'd prune them severely to about 18 to 24 inches above ground. If all you are left with is canes after pruning, you can jump start leaf production with one application of 10-10-10 general flower liquid or granular fertilizer. After that, I would use any liquid or granular fertilizer specifically for roses. There are a few systemic products for roses like Bayer Advanced that include fertilizer. Good luck

No, the sofa and loveseat are blue. Not denim blue, almost a little periwinkle. Thank you for your compliment! The wall color is Sherwin Williams martha stewart collection "chopstick". I'm glad you like it! The loveseat back to the front door bugs me too. I can't find a console table I like yet. I wanted to put one behind the sofa, I just don't know if it would look strange to have one behind the sofa and the loveseat too. This room is huge so there is a lot of leeway for furnture placement. I just have no clue what I'm doing. I always had tiny houses before. I'll have to measure and get the exact dimensions. I want to paint the kitchen Haven by sherwin williams. I had it in my last kitchen and it was gorgeous! So much so that one of my friends painted her living room the same shade. She also has an open floor plan and lots of bright colors and it really looks great. I mix and match lots of colors all of the time so I don't think it will clash. Even if it technically does, I probably would still like it! I like high contrast in colors, it makes them all pop. So would you all suggest roman shades on the sliders and nook windows both? Or panels? Or panels on one and shades on the other? The nook is really confusing. The 3 sides of the window are connected, like a bay window I guess. Thank you so much for all of your compliments on the room so far. It is greatly appreciated! And my dogs are great decor too!

I refer to our two hundred year old home as a white elephant. I am in the greenhouse business and my husband is a rabid gardener, so the grounds are planted with rare trees and flower gardens and go on for acres. Over the years we have added a large gazebo and a spring fed pond. yadayadayada. Only a person who knows old homes first hand, and has the time or money to hire a professional full-time gardener, should ever buy it. There'll be lots of people to come look when it goes up for sale, but it would not be for the weak of heart. Heating bills. Put that at the top of your list. Even if you let the house fall down around you, they'll just keep coming. We've installed new double-paned energy efficient windows. Caulked. Weather stripped. Built a solarium across 2/3 of the northern exposure of the home for solar gain, replaced the roof, put in a new boiler, converted from electric to gas heat (yes we had to pay to have lines ran), and placed gas grates in strategic spots to take off chill or use when it wasn't too cold. Use reversing ceiling fans to distribute the heat. We've cut our heating bill IN HALF as far as energy consumption. But, rates rise and will keep rising. We still have six hundred dollar a month heating bills in winter. And this is an old farmhouse. It does not have fourteen foot ceilings. It also is nowhere near 6,000k square feet. And, until we put a small fortune in the energy efficiency items, a draft from a window on one side of the room could blow out a candle on the other. It's comfy now, and even cool in summer so we don't need air conditioning, but for the first fifteen years of my marriage you needed a wet suit to take a bath. Think also about the bones of the house. Redecorating is great, but get somebody in there who knows construction really well to look at the skeleton of the house before you even consider buying it. The last two winters, we replaced the beams and joists under our kitchen and dining room. They were logs with the bark still on them, or logs cut on site and hand hewn to nearly square. They were ENORMOUS,and likely dragged into place by teams of horses. We needed to chain saw them to even think about getting them out. We had to gut these rooms clean down to the dirt underneath and after we got new joists up then replaced floors. Moolah. BTW, we never thought about replacing joists and floor beams in this house. After all, they'd withstood two centuries before us. Then termites happened. LOL. The roofer left about a hundred bats homeless when we replaced the slate for modern shingles. We've put in a new entrance box and had to rewire the whole house and it has solid brick interior walls. The logistics of running electricals, and the plumbing for the boiler system were staggering. If you see fuse boxes that should send up a red flag to check out the electricals for modern wiring. Moolah. We had to restucco over the seventy five year old stucco over the bricks. (major, major moolah) We've had to repair or renovate chimneys and it's hard to find brickmasons here who are familiar with the old craftsmanship. That's another thing about very old houses. Nearly everything in seriously old house is done by methods not common to craftsmen anymore and that includes materials. If you have to replace parts of woodwork it's going to be something like oak or mahogany and large. Not box store kickplates. My walls are so old, it's not even plaster on most of them, it's a sandy almost concrete covering. If we put together all the money we have spent in the last two and a half decades breathing life back into our wonderful old home, we could be living in a really fancy new one. We don't want to. We love our old home and pretty much know it inside and out by now. But, it's like a marriage and yes.............we are the volunteer caretakers to an historic old building we couldn't see being left to ruin. But, it's going to take a very special person to want the job after us. Now, ask me about the plastering schedule where the doors and windows are. LOL. Old houses just keep settling. Not a door in this house even resembles a rectangle. They all have been trimmed or had wood added to them to fit the openings. Every window was custom made and no two are the same size. The house is nearly regained its integrity now, and I can see the end in sight of the major issues. But, if we had been forced to sell this at any point along our long path of renovation, and somebody else had to pick up where we'd left off, if they knew up from down, you can take it to the bank our money and sweat wouldn't have left much room for profit. There'd have been no quick sells. The end results perfect for us. It's rustic yet and even has a pitcher pump in the kitchen to pull up the spring water for the house. But you always live with a foot in the past where people lived simpler and made do in some respects. Some people can do that. Some people can't. It fits our lifestyle well.........simple and hard working. But, it was purchased because my husband wanted an old large home in a rural setting. If he'd just wanted "room" it wouldn't have even been in the game. Good luck whatever you decide.