Well, I just signed up to try firefox, I used it before, and I was asked to sign in using my GW account, so I think I'm back to the old spelling of justgotabme. Now I just have to remember how to get addons!

Stylish has an extension for Chrome too. Just Google Stylish add on Chrome. I tried the Morning Glory first, but the text didn't stay in the text areas and ran over into the morning glory border.

justgotabme go to TOOLS and find ADDONS

I figured it out. Thanks Yayagal! It I chose the morning glories and it looks almost exactly like the old GW! Love it. The background where I type is still light, but a pale lavender.
Thanks Terriks. I'll try that and see if I prefer to stay with Chrome or change back to firefox. I used it for quite a few years, but changed to Chrome about a year ago.

Okay, now I have the same old GW background on Chrome! Awesome. Thanks Yaya and Terriks.

Thank you! I really like the visual now. It's much warmer and more visually friendly to look at HD/GW.

Those morning glories are so much better to look at! Thanks!

BIG improvement!! Doesn't say a lot for the Houzz web designers that we have to do this on our own, but so be it - at least I can participate here again.

Awesome.. thank you so much for sharing! I wonder who is creating these skins-- the three available for houzz are all new and reference the GW takeover. If it is someone on this forum-- thank you so much! I am opting to use the same background that yaya is using vs the morning glories.. but they are both great improvements!

Thanks yayagal, this is great!

Thank you, thank you YaYa! What an amazing improvement that makes! Love it.

I don't know how long it takes to make changes such as this, but I'm wondering if the Houzz designers would like to keep it as is for a certain look and are hoping people 'adjust'. Hopefully not, since this isn't just about visual pretties.

I found out about the Stylish add-on from the below thread on the computer forum. Richard on that thread wrote the first two I believe and I used his code to work on my own. I wanted something quite dark for my purposes and uploaded my style there too. He told me how to add user options so people could pick their own font, size, colors, etc. So I just did that today and made a few more changes including lightening it a bit, and then re-uploaded it. I tried a few different color schemes with the new options and it worked well for me. I detailed more of the changes on the userstyles site. Anyone can download the code to play with and upload their own version back onto the site.

http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2831068/changing-houzz-page-appearance?n=10

https://userstyles.org/styles/browse/gardenweb

Molanic.. thank you and Richard for sharing your updated styles! It has made a big difference for me!

I just did this for Safari and it worked. Yay!

where do you find "stylish"

Go to TOOLS, then ADD ONS, THEN CLICK ON STYLISH

I don't know how it is on a Mac, but on a PC I have found it for the three browsers I use: Firefox, Chrome, and Opera. I also installed it for Firefox on an Android tablet, and it works there too. I think there are less options on the tablet though.

Very few use Opera, so I will elaborate on the others. In my Firefox and Chrome on the PC all the way in the upper right below the close window button there is a button that looks like three horizontal lines. Click that to see more menus. In Firefox you want to select "Add-ons" then search for add-ons. In Chrome select "More Tools", then "Extensions", then go to get more extensions. Search for "Stylish" made by userstyles.org, the logo is a white S with color blocks behind it. Install it.

Then on your browser toolbar there will be a button with an S on it. When you are on a website that you want to see if there are any styles for, just click it to find styles for that site. You can pick a style and install it which just means copying some stylesheet text to your computer that is applied just when you visit that site. You can use the button in the toolbar to toggle the style on and off, and even use multiple styles on the same site. I made one to change color and font, and another to experiment with layout, but have both enabled at the same time. You can update or remove the styles and the add-on at any time.

Anyone can create and submit a style to the site, and you can always change the style after it is on your computer too if you know a little css code.

I just found a good color selector that gives you the color codes to use either for handcoding or entering into the form at userstyles before downloading the styles with options. I made my default style with grey because it was easier on my eyes, but it is very blah. The other ones are dressier.

http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_colorpicker.asp

Probably more than you want to know, but I thought it would be helpful for anyone not familiar with installing add-ons. Stylish has been helpful to me. At first I tried just darkening my screen to avoid the eye strain, but that just made all the pictures too dark to see.

HEEEYYY!!! I like it with the Morning Glories. This is more like it! :D

Thanks for this. I followed Molanic's instructions for where to find it for Chrome and it was a piece of cake! It makes the font bigger too!

I just loaded Stylish to Chrome and chose the option that mentioned reduced eye strain. It is great! Got rid of deluminate.