Suzie, You never know, she might get a thundersnow storm. We've had a lot of them in recent years. I grew up in Texas just about 80 or 85 miles south of where we now live in Oklahoma, but I'd never even heard of thundersnow until we moved here. I won't say we have thundersnow here at our house every year that snow falls, but probably about every other year. We had it last year, and we've already had it this year. Jim Cantore was very entertaining the other night. I'm sure a lot of that is part of the "show" he puts on for the camera, but I also think he was shocked to see thundersnow that far north. The other weather phenomenon we have here that I don't remember having in Texas is derecho winds. The first one we experienced here came during the night with 60 mph winds and hit the house so suddenly and so hard while we were sleeping that we thought a semi-truck or an airplane had hit the house. I also had about 20 flats of plants on the screened-in porch (so it must have been April) and we had to run out and bring them all into the house because the temperature plunged probably 30 degrees in 10 minutes when the derecho wind hit the house. I think we've experienced 3 or 4 severe derecho wind storms at our house since then. The one I remember best, the local met on the TV news at noon told us it was coming and told us if we went outside 5 or 10 minutes before it was due to hit our area, we'd hear it coming like a "mighty rush of wind". Of course, Tim and I went outside 10 minutes before it was s supposed to hit and went down to the road so we'd have a clear view of it coming by looking up the roadway (too many trees around our house). Sure enough, a few minutes later it came roaring towards us like a freight train (we could hear it for a minute or more before we could see the blowing of the vegetation begin) and we went from clear skies to dark grey ones in about a minute as the wind blew through and the temperatures plunged. The other one I remember was a severe derecho squall line with multiple bow echoes accompanied by tons of lightning. This time, the TV met kept cutting into regular programming to warn that anyone working outside needed to get inside by a certain time. Our barn-style detached garage was being built then, and the buys working on it were welding steel beams together. I talked with them about the weather and convinced them to heed the warnings, get down off the structure, put up all their tools and head home. They literally were driving down the driveway when the derecho hit here and the first raindrops started falling, and we sure did have lightning! I was glad they weren't up on that metal framing when it hit. You've got to admit, Oklahoma's weather is never, ever dull. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Facts About Derecho Windstorms

threeapples ... yes, it's the bulbs, which depend on your choice of fixtures. Are you planning fixtures that take incandescent, LED, halogen, or fluorescent? Some of those have a limited range of color temperature. If you have samples of the flooring, cabinets, counter top material and bath fixtures and tile, you can do it. Just be careful about the undertones so you aren't trying to mix a pinkish beige and a greenish beige because they subtly but definitely look "wrong" together to most people.

I do have my own lawncare/gardening website: http://thegreengreengrassofhome.blogspot.com/ But I provide information as freely there as I do here, usually generated by questions people have asked me face to face, or that show up in my search results. Or just things I notice happening in my own garden. Not that I'll object if you go and click on some of my ads, but it's not exactly a money-maker, nor designed to be. Think of me as your Public Advocate for Mostly-Organic Gardening. People have asked why I don't run a lawn care company. The answer is that doing this correctly requires pretty good timing, so I could take limited clients. And the amount of work involved per lawn means it would be incredibly expensive until the lawns reach maintenance, but that takes years.

Thanks everyone! I LOVE it :) cmarlin, I love what you said :) There are so many styles I see here that I wouldn't do (in a million years) but I like it in their home and happy for them. The new lamp is on it's way. I've had a new development with bulbs. The lamp uses two bulbs. One has exploded and two days ago, one burned out...a brand new bulb burned out in 3 days. DH is re-thinking his thoughts that it was the bulb. Plus, as fast and without input from me, the company immediately wanted to replace the lamp. Sounds like maybe this isn't the first time they've had to replace this lamp.