'Fragrant Blue' is one of those cultivars I've had a love-hate relationship with. I love its size, its shade of blue, its glaucous leaves, I hate its slow growth and the fact I've never smelled fragrance from its flowers. Until last year. I divided my original plant into 3 divisions 3 years ago to accommodate a trade request, kept 2, traded 1. One went back into its original spot and has grown, but nothing to write home about. The other I potted up and has done WAY better. It went from a single shoot 3 years ago to where this spring there are 7, but more important than that, it flowered last year and I got to smell its fragrance. It's rather different from most other fragrant hostas, not like 'Fragrant Bouquet' and its derivatives at all. Don't quite remember what it reminded me of, but I'll make a point of being more observant this year. I'll go way-out on a limb here, but I suspect that all of us who have slow-growing 'Fragrant Blue' samples have never smelled its fragrance, but if you're fortunate enough to have one that is more vigorous -like its supposed to be apparently- you probably are one of lucky ones who have. Pieter

My MIL has a similar layout as your family/kitchen/dining areas and she has her kitchen/dining all the same colors, since they're really not huge rooms it looks better than 2 different colors in there. Then her family room is a shade or two lighter likely on the same swatch but I don't konw for sure. They both happen to be green. I don't know the colors you speak of specifically, I'm not to that point yet, but I think I'd be tempted to make the dining nook area the same color as the kitchen, and then go from there but make the family room a complimentary color since they're so open to each other.

pictures would help, there are lots of posts on how to do it. Just search on google, gardenweb, how to upload pictures and I'm sure you will find something We just painted our dr blue and I didn't like... not to say you won't but it just felt cold to me, that said, I have seen tons of pretty blue dining rooms:) we are having to repaint ours;( Anyhow, you can look in the blue gallery for paint ideas and or google blue dining rooms. Here is a link that might be useful: blue gallery

patty_cakes, that sounds really pretty. Thanks for the idea! newhomebuilder, I'll see if I can find SL magazine and look at that picture. I like your flat round basket on the ottoman (and the doggie). I used to have a really large basket on my large square ottoman in my previous decor. Maybe I should consider something similar here. demifloyd, I have been having trouble finding larger trays. They don't seem so easy to find, aktillery, beautiful room! Yes, that ottoman and basket looks similar to what I used to have, although my basket wasn't quite as deep and was larger. Maybe I should see how it looks on my current ottoman, although I don't think it will work very well. I'll have to take a picture.