The Hopi Red Amaranthus definitely looks like it. Thank you so much. No, the plant is not mine. There's a whole patch of them growing in a yard a few blocks down where I walk my dogs every morning and they're very impressive. I want to try to get a plant or two for my yard. Thanks again.

IMO by removing the small wall in the corners of the living room and combining them into the middle creates a more usable wall instead of more of a passage way as it is now. You have the option of putting the TV, or loveseat on the wall. With a corner, you only have a chair or putting a small loveseat at an angle. This new wall gives much more versatility. The chaise makes it difficult but not impossible, no matter what layout you end up having because the person is sitting so far back on the piece. They are so comfortable though :). When we had all 4 kids home, we kept our big rooms as one big room. I just wanted to show you options, Your furniture as you can see will be fine too. I goofed and meant to make the new wall 8' wide and not 6'. This would only give your visitors a visual down one side of the living room and not the entire amount. A 3' opening though may be too small. You'd have to mock it up and see what it feels like for you. LOL. You're starting to sound like my DH with the your logic of just not inviting others in if I don't want them to see the living room. How wide is your dining room table? Ours is a shy 4' wide and I've rarely seen any wider. You currently have a 5' opening (my suggestion if that wall isn't load bearing) was to increase it to 7' wide. Unless you have a 6' round table you shouldn't have any problems. We purposely purchased a rectangle table so we could add on inexpensive tables to the ends if we should need extra seating. I'm kind of glad you don't like the pennisula on that wall along with some of the other things. What if you put the range on the back wall as you and your other designers had in the first place, place the sink under the window (closest to the new area for the range). Left of the sink, would be a 6' countertop, and the pennisula would be on that side creating a corner. You'd only have to add 5' onto the already 2' counter. You could then have a 5' walkway from kitchen to dining room. You would then also have the option of adding a 4th person at the pennisula and shrinking the walkway to 3' (a still decent size). I'd create a window from that door. How great to have that right next to those sitting and for work space. This new kitchen would be much like what your 1st plan was with the island, except the island would be attached to where your frig was and their would be a window where the door was.

I know both.Nasturtiums don't have the heavy veining on the undersides of the leaves and nasturtium stems are zig-zagged.Wild Ginger's stems are equal length and all rise up directly from the crown.Wild Ginger's roots have a mild ginger smell when scraped and the leaves taste bitter.Nasturtium leaves have a pleasant,slightly spicy,peppery taste very similar to watercress to which it's closely related.If that wilted plant is in a spot with a lot of full sun it's not ever going to recover.Asarum canadence grows on the forest floor under old large trees.In the hot summer it survives on a small amount of dappled sunlight.It won't survive full sun during the hot summer.It needs more moisture in spring and autumn but can handle some drought during the summer as long as it's growing in SHADE.

MissSherry, i am always amazed with your knowledge of these things. I was hoping for you when I was looking for the sea slug looking thing on my coneflower a while back, but I think I did figure that one out. Took me hours, but once something gets stuck in my head it's hard to let it go. I did identify a milkweed assassin bug nymph today, but with something like these little barrel things I don't even know the words to search for.