Annie, I know it's hard to believe that we would leave that beautiful snow in Michigan, but, it's true. We are going to Cathy and Ray's for lunch tomorrow in sunny Florida and we are really excited. Jim, glad you found us pleasant and we will vouch for you also. Cathy said, to come early and "roll up your sleeves" and we will cook together. That will be so much fun! However, Cathy do you want us there around 8:00 a.m. to get everything ready by noon or 1:00 p.m.? LOL Karen

Simple White is red hue family. A hint of pink doesn't surprise me. But Shale is right there in the red to yellow-red hue family neighborhood too. Which is why Simple White was a contender. Are you testing it on the ceiling? Once you turn color from vertical to horizontal above your head this thing called 'flop angle' kicks in and it does change how the color is perceived. The angle strips chroma so the color looks less colorful and more gray and it also appears darker in value. The only other idea is yet another color - Incredible White SW 7028 which is about the same chroma (amount of colorfulness) as Simple White but it's more squarely in the yellow-red hue family so it's less likely it would show as pink. As far as ordered color systems, Dunn-Edwards the Perfect Palette might be the ultimate. California Paints licenses it because it's awesome. Benjamin Moore is actually one of, if not the most, poorly organized of all the color collections I work with. Again, likely more designer-type opinion as opposed to common sense and logic could be the culprit. i.e. The Affinity deck is marketed that all the colors coordinate. Coordinate is arguable. Rather the colors all have about the same amount of grayness. A tight range or consistent amounts of gray means they match on the aspect of grayness. Doesn't necessarily mean they harmonize. Color harmony is just another way to say color order and vice versa. Matching just one aspect like grayness does not constitute order therefore does not constitute harmony. So, the Affinity collection is just as ineffective as Classic Colors.

Cancel the painter appointment. It's ridiculous to expect to be happy with a choice you rushed into when you've spent a fair amount of time struggling with it. Not to mention the expense of having someone else do it with a color you aren't sure about. Stop buying gallons of paint. Sherwin Williams has quart samples for $5 and there is a coupon for buy 1, get 1 free. I'm sure you can have samples made up at several paint stores, as well. Ok, I'm assuming you are staying with the imperial yellow? I like it, it's bold and I had that color in the living room of my last home. My dining room was paper-bag brown with a metallic gold ceiling I did in a kind of starburst. A little moody, but that's what I like for a dining area. I used red accents to spice it up. Our den was a brick red that leaned toward a deep coral and it flowed off the yellow very well. Like parma said, you want to have similar saturation of color in order for them to play well together. My cousin has an orange entry, purple front room, yellow living area and the back wall is a turquoise. It is fairly open concept and everything flows wonderfully because she used colors with similar intensity.

Yep, I only water "new implants",and last time I was there I did test the soil with my moisture-reader of a couple of them, and the soil still registered as "moist" ,so I haven't yet started watering. In any case, this year there's only 15 new ones,since I could only start gardening after Christmas, due to the hip operation. What's more, I do have quite a lot of water stored up out there; it's just that, as a principle, I like to always replace the water that I use as much as possible. But these past 2 years have been so hard: last summer, since I was doing chemo, I had to break my rule and use water without replacing it,my water-catching rooflet fell down, and un-wisely, I put off filling up one of my 5 big water tanks-I didn't forsee my car having problems. So, things are far from "desperate", lol-it's just frustrating. For at least this up-coming week, I may have to avoid trying to go out there;the forecast is so bad! extreme heat, no favourable wind (for me, favourable is south-west ; makes it bearble temperature-wise and keeps the mosquitos, flies, etc away). Among my future projects is to build myself a sort of gazebo, so I'll have a place to sit in the shade and just look. Also adding trees, though it's tricky. The view is so beautiful, and I don't want to block it too much, but it is towards the south-west . So I am trying to guess spots in which I can put trees that won't block the view completely, yet will provide some protection from the afternoon sun. But I get so little morning sun, and I don't want to block that. I'm also trying to think of ways to shade the roads that I must use to get down to my garden. For the main one I'm going to try to plant tall -growing climbing roses that I can train over rebar bent to form arches, in the hopes to create a sort of rose tunnel. On another path, within the garden,I've decided to not replace the roses that I removed -they were doing so poorly!-and instead put in a redbud or two. I've got 2 wisterias planted that I'm hoping will help shade the entrance gate as well. Gotta build support structures for these things, though...so much to do! but for now it's best that I just sit tight, and try to be patient.