As Tiffany mentioned, straw flowers can keep on opening and closing. Fairy castle cacti hardly ever bloom, but in any case they would have white, night blooming flowers with a long neck, and they would stay tightly closed on a sunny day. The 'blooming' ones that you see in the stores can have strawflowers in purple, red, orange, yellow or just about any colour you can think of. Not a single cactus has blooms with hard, dry petals. Simple test: straw flowers don't wilt, and the plants don't get new buds. If you have the same flowers after say a month, you can be sure they are fake. Real flowers also don't have glue at the base ;-). Enjoy your ever flowering plants for what they are: living plants with decorative dead flowers.

Good God, you guys!! Wait until you see the rest of the house!! HA HA! Thought about answering you all one by one, but going to cherry pick before ending my lunch break! I'm 40. I owned a house before with my now ex-wife, moved into an apartment and now moving into a house. So, I've got all the control of what color to make things, how to set it up, etc. without really knowing how to do that. I can hold my own with repairs and my dad is a contractor who translates my "You know, we could..." to "This is how you do it," which ultimately turns into "Hold this light while I do it." I'd like something better than not, but, it seems a lot of you are saying that I should get used to the space first and then tackle it. With an entire house to do this to, this makes a lot of sense. I've picked out appliances that'll run about $1400 for a fridge (skinny enough to fit), a stove (gas) and a dishwasher (my first!!). I did think about used to just tide me over in the short term and still might. I've got 2 weeks to decide. Didn't think about the fire hazard thing and moving things over. A pair of 9's for an 18 makes sense and just slide things over. Not sure how the gas line would effect that, but, that's easy enough to fix. A lot of you said things about budget. I'd like to keep it low, only because I've got the whole house to think about and paint was the cheapest option to give it a different look because the cabinets do like jainky. But, they hold dishes and pots and pans, soo.... could be future Paul's problem! @P M That looks really cool! That's a good luck for the pantry! Also, I work in IT for a university, so the school provides the grant. I have to stay five years and that's it. After that, I can do with what I want. It's not that they approve the changes. They had an inspector come thru and he comes up with a to do list of things that have to get done in a year. My list is 23 things long, but, some of those are super easy (reseat the toilet) and others are more complicated (rewire the garage). They don't have a say in what I do day-to-day, but I have to fix what they want fixed before next September. Again, thanks everyone! Sorry i can't respond to you all one by one, but I've read everything you wrote and provide updates! :)

Leather is only as good as the care it gets. Assuming the owner has kept it up properly, then, good buy. If not, the leather has started to dry out, especially in a home where there is no HVAC. I’d take all the cushions off, vacuum everything, especially the under side. Then follow functionthenlook's advice. Throw pillows on leather are a pain in the neck. I’d recommend lumbar pillows with a rough fabric, like kilim. Hope this works…love the one long pillow. https://www.etsy.com/listing/735946199/long-carpet-pillow-12x48-inches-turkish?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_ts1-a-home_and_living-home_decor-decorative_pillows&utm_custom1=kenshoo_clickid&utm_content=go_920092452_47675451764_218669179812_pla-302796601582_c__735946199&utm_custom2=920092452&gclid=Cj0KCQjwwOz6BRCgARIsAKEG4FUMRGEgSxuwClckPDEf0pKY9-h1CkO5vTzCJEuFNP6tEAL_f-R1EWMaAhvKEALw_wcB

I would find a way to restrict dog access to that fence, if the dog behavior is an issue. Maybe fence in the pool and the fence access behind? If you want the dog to have supervised access to that area, you can try to correct the dog’s behavior. There is a product on Amazon called Pet Corrector that makes a whoosh sound that gets some dogs to stop whatever they are doing. You can look at reviews to see if that’s worth a try. For a retaining wall, would you consider doing it yourself? Some 4” high concrete blocks are not that expensive - I got some at Lowes for $3-4 apiece, 4x8x12, I think. Here is an option I just saw: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Tumbled-Retaining-Wall-Gray-Charcoal-Retaining-Wall-Block-Common-4-in-x-12-in-Actual-4-in-x-12-in/1002097496