Kate - Thanks, again. I'm really liking the idea of Starry Night. The picture makes it look like there's more empty space next to KO than there really is, so if I was going to use it, it would probably work best on the next tier down. Here's an older picture of the circle of golden eunomys. There was originally another golden eunomys in the middle, but I took it out so I could put the rose there. Bodica - I did have Coreopsis planted in front of the KO, but I decided that it did have more of the cottage look and it didn't go with the rest of the plants, so I recently took it out and decided I would try the daylilies. The backyard isn't landscaping anything like the front yard. I adore roses and daylilies, so that's pretty much all I have back there. It doesn't look quite this good right now, because I've replaced alot of my roses for more disease resistant varieties and they're pretty small, but this is what it looked like a couple of years ago. Laurie

try building a scale model & putting different porches on it. It doesn't have to be an elaborate model, just to scale. Chipboard or foam core board are easy to build models with. An x-acto & elmers or hot glue can hold it all together. Draw on the windows & door. Then once you have the base model, try different porch designs. I could see possibly a porch roof starting up halfway on the main house roof & coming out at maybe half the pitch of house roof. That could cover from near the door to the right side. The gable end make a porch roof difficult. While you have a cute house, the exterior could use an upgrade. Doing that along with the porch would make sense if you could afford it. If you go that route, some professional design help might be helpful.

I would want to change the gable -- enlarge it to peak farther to the right and to cover the door area. I'd carry that gable as far forward as you want the porch to go. You could put a skylight in one gable angle to keep your interior from being dark. Another possibility would be to create a "swoop" roof line starting from the gable peak and swooping in a curve to cover the door area. Then carry that all forward to form the porch roof. Even if you don't do a porch, I'd like to see you make your nice windowboxes the same width as the windows.

Well, this is what I've done. I put the chairs that were originally there, back. I love these chairs -- they were a CL find, and they were in front of the FP until I moved them to the "conversation area" that, yes, is cozy aka crowded, but that arrangement works better than others I've tried. Tucked away over there, they weren't as easy to admire! I think they are back in their rightful place. I still need to get a rug, which may have to be an indoor-outdoor type until our elderly dog....dies. I have the wicker chairs back over by the sofa, but that's temporary. When I find the right chairs to replace them, I will move them over to the puzzle table.