Glad to hear your girls like fairy tale characters. The book was rather difficult with a jillion characters to keep track of but maybe someday they will tackle that also. As far as a pic of the room, it doesn't exist except in my mind. Right now it is filled to the ceiling almost with stuff moved out of our kitchen which has been demolished and any furniture now in the room such as a loveseat and coffee table,etc. will be given/donated away. I'm even not absolutely sure of the arrangement in my diagram but so far I'm tending in that direction. May have to close the wall a bit between living room and dining room because I think a little less openness there might add some coziness and also give me room to put a corner cabinet in the dining room that will kind of be hidden but still useful for storage which is what this house has least of. Obviously, I don't have this all together but I do best one step at a time so if I could make up my mind about the bookcases, I think it would help me move on to the next step of deciding the rest of the furniture/room. Even the fireplace is unfinished and covered with cement backer board ready for marble (which we haven't picked out yet) but I think the bookcases because they will be first thing one sees when they enter the room should be decided first. Thoughts? The house though small is quite nice even if I do say so myself - especially once we get the kitchen remodel finished. (Though we also have a big job ahead of us doing the hardwood floors plus other tasks by contractors - this is not diy). The house is 75 years old but as I continue on this journey of remodeling, it seems my tastes have definitely moved from vintage/eclectic to modern/eclectic. Hence the reason for my indecision. I think the builtin bookcases will definitely bring me back from my modern direction. And I've heard it mentioned here that some think builtin bookcases give a room character. We are very fortunate that our house has so much character that it is not a major concern to add more. Though guess it never hurts. (sorry I'm rambling, it is late , will stop here...)

Meant to add that I read House in the Sunflowers by Ruth Silvestre a year so so ago. I think she has written 3 books with similar titles. It is worth trying to read them in order (which I'm sure I didn't do). They are about her family finding a run-down old farmhouse in Gascony (?) doing it up and meeting and becoming friends with the 'locals'. Wonderful details of the huge meals cooked by these French women. The last book is rather sad. I didn't get any terrible presents this year; although a while ago I received a hot water bottle two year running from my DH plus those electronic scales that worked out how much stored fat was wobbling off my delicate form. You can guess how pleased I was. Mary/woodnymph, your friend may appreciate your abstemious habits by giving you wine bottle stoppers. She obviously knows you never finish a bottle at one sitting. Or is she trying to tell you something? ;-)

Thank you guys! blfenton, you are right! I want this to be an updated midcentury. I actually want the bathroom to look contemporary modern, with lots of white-clean, modern, and bright. The exterior will replicate the mcm architecture but the interior will be more updated. I am really stuck on the floors and very nervous because I want to do the whole house in one floor type. kwsl2-That acutally sounds like fun. I wouldnt want to pay to fly someone out here though. I have called a few places so far. One was recommended by a store, but they dont do residential properties. Another one I called only does multimillion dollar homes and wasnt interested. I called a couple other places, but havent gotten a return call. I called an architectural firm whose work I really like, but they do their own work and didnt know of anyone. I am also nervous about the cost. A lot of the stuff I see online is very expensive multimillion dollar traditional/farmhouse style homes. Maybe these places are expecting calls from builders or architects and not homeowners?

Envy When I was a kid, my father, mother and my older brother used to read novels in the living room on Saturday , and I used to read cartoons. I was envious of them because it seemed to me only adults were able to read books. So from time to time I tried reading a book, there was one in particular whose cover attracted me, there were a boy and a girl and in the background a lighthouse , but every time I started reading it I got bored after a few pages. But one Christmas I was ten or eleven, an aunt of ours gave my brother quite a good present. It was a little bookcase where forty book were stored. There were all the classic ones. Little Man and…. Little Woman and… Tom Sawer , Mompracem Tigers (Sandokan) Uncle Tom’s cabin , White Fang , The Call of the Wilde, Ivanhoe, Ben Hur, Quo Vadis, Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and so on Among them there was a title that enticed me “The Paul Street Boys”. I started it and I got hooked. The story is about two young bands who are fighting for a place to play, which is owned by the Paul Street Boys, it is an old timber yard, so the other band the Red Shirts wage war on the Street Boys. First they make an agreement about the rules to follow, about who must be considered dead or caught and other ones, because there is not any meanness between them, the Red Shirts wage war because their hangout is in a botanical garden and they need a place in order to play football. The story is set in Hungary and the author is Ferenc Molnar. Of course there are other plots , but the main thread is the war. I liked it so much that once I finished I reread it eight times on a row, except the last chapter because one of main character dies of pneumonia and this made me cry a lot. Afterward I read all the other ones. This is how I started reading novels.