redbirds, photos are always welcome :-), I am glad you took the time to post them! Your roses all look so beautiful! The pictures making the impression on me, that you have given your roses plenty of space to grow instead of cramming them in too close together, which I really like. From the roses that you have posted Maggie is my favorite! By the way, I really love the front of your house. You have chosen a very nice paint color. Please, keep more pics coming in the future! Christina Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Garden Dreams

I have both TB and colonial cream in my house. TB on my kitchen island and colonial cream in my bathroom.. My bathroom cab. are slightly darker than yours- they are more of a cinnamon stain so more reddish, but I love the combo together. Granted I don't have the oak floors in the bathroom so not exactly the same. My TB is ONLY on my island and I didn't find it to be so hard to template for the island I think your TB slab is pretty consistent in terms of movement so i don't think it would be that difficult to template, unless that is not the slab you picked out... Sorry if i am not more help, but I guess I am a little impartial-

Good luck to you. Our holidays were bittersweet, too. DS#1 got married this year to a real nice girl, so we had her with us this Christmas. However, DS#2 got divorced so that was hard. He has a 3-year-old son so we had to deal with sharing him for the holidays. We had to have our Christmas AFTER December 25. That was a bit difficult for us, but it will get better, we hope. I read somewhere that a mother can only be as happy as her UNhappiest child. That may be true.

Thanks, I am excited about how it looks since I was so nervous it would be too much that I almost had them install it as an accent behind the bar area which meant it would have to be made into a long pattern. I really wanted my island slab in Before I decided about putting it behind my cooktop. 'twas not to be with the crazy timing of my workers; so I took a deep breath and said ,"go for it"! I'm now basically wiped out with all the decisions. I am really on my own with all of these decisions since my DH has abdicated any responsibility ( except for the all important money aspect). He gave me a good budget if it only covered the kitchen but somehow it needs to cover a face lift of most of the house, including ALL of the flooring. I hired a KD for 5 hours as a sounding board for my vision of my kitchen. she gave me a few sketches with no dimensions. Beyond that, she's been available by text.... Hoping we'll be finished with the kitchen next week. My DH has been awesome and uncomplaining throughout. I guess I am one lucky girl. It's been sort of a dream to finally try out all of these ideas floating around in my head for the past 12 years in a kitchen I never liked. Hope it turns out . A fun adventure that I am so enjoying sharing and learning from all the GWers here. Thanks! . Heres Another shot. The mullions above will have antiqued mirrors.... No wonder I have been afraid to post photos. There's a lot of "clowns in my kitchen" And i hate clowns! But I love beautiful things that appeal to my eye.