My grandma told me they had to cover all the window panes with oil paper so that lights from houses were not visible at night. She and her friend were walking home from a party one night, got stopped by a man posing as MP (maybe he really was, who knows?), and they just ran home as fast as they could. There's a CD compilation called 'Songs that Got Us through WW II': 1: Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy - The Andrews Sisters 2: I'll Be Seeing You - Frank Sinatra/Tommy Dorsey 3: Don't Get Around Much Anymore - Duke Ellington 4: Till Then - The Mills Brothers 5: G. I. Jive - Paul Estan/Johnny Mercer 6: I'll Walk Alone - Martha Tilton 7: Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive - Johnny Mercer 8: Don't Want To Walk Without You - Helen Forrest/Harry James 9: Long Ago (And Far Away) - Jo Stafford 10: I'll Get By (As Long As I Have You) - The Ink Spots 11: There'll Be Bluebirds Over The White Cliffs Of Dover - Jimmy Dorsey 12: Comin' In On A Wing And A Prayer - The Song Spinner 13: Sentimental Journey - Les Brown/Doris Day 14: It's Been A Long, Long Time - Harry James/Kitty Kallen 15: When The Lights Go On Again (All Over The World) - Vaughn Monroe 16: Yours - Jimmy Dorsey/Bob Eberly/Helen O'Connell 17: I Wonder - Louis Armstrong (bonus track) 18: Waitin' For The Train To Come In - Peggy Lee My dad was a seventeen-year-old soldier stationed at the Presidio in Monterey, CA and these songs really bring him back to those glory days. Good luck with the paper! Rain

Mommy2twocuties, we determined our main floor square footage by first deciding which rooms we had to have on that floor. As far as room sizes, one thing I did to visualize was to measure the sizes of rooms we had in our existing house and use that as a jumping off point. For example we had a dining room at the existing home that was 11x11. I knew from living in that space that it was much too tight for the table and china cabinet that we had and the buffet that I want someday. Based on that, I knew that 14x16 was the minimum size that I wanted. We also used the same formula for determining approximate sizes for the family room, bedrooms, walk in closets and kitchen. Because our existing rooms already had the furniture and stuff that would be moving with us, it made the numbers feel real to us and give some additional perspective. Once you know what you want/need for rooms on a floor, and the approximate size of each, you can better ball park the square footage that you are looking at. It will still bloat up with hallways, stairwells and closets, but you will know if you need to be looking at 1500, 2100, or 2800 square feet to accommodate your wants.

Well I'm a magpie too :) So I have both a mosaic (behind the range) and a subway tile, but I do have to compliment the fact that you went with a blue. I like it with the granite. A neutral would have been safer, and oh so boring :) By the way, we need to use the term DS...oh wait that's taken....(Dear Spouse dear son might get confusing) Or I like "SU" (spousal unit). My DH or SU as the case may be :) was told early in the design process that "I don't know" has a three day window to be turned into "I don't care" if he can't figure out what he wants :) Since I'm the designer...that's a challenge for him heh heh But he's one opinionated SU so normally he comes up with something :) He had definate influance on the backsplash. I was HORRIFIED with the cost, and he decided that it was the "only" one that worked LOL so my inner magpie won LOL

I've no experience with any of these colours but someone here did do an accent wall in their living room in Porpoise. Turned out really well. My advice is to try out each colour on inexpensive canvas boards (dollar store?) and check how they fare throughout the day in your room. It's really the only way to see if we'll like a colour in our space.