Alycia, you sound like me! I started about 20 years ago, when I was interested in gardening and my art teacher invited me to her house to take a division of her Undulata Albomarginata. I divided it, and when I got married, left the hosta at my mom's house, where she continued to divide it until there were literally HUNDREDS of mature plants all over her yard, lining every conceivable pathway and curve of land. After my divorce, I came back to help mom (she was going through her first of 2 struggles with cancer... both have been victories for her), and found all of the hosta. I was without a job & found out that they could be sold on ebay for some decent cash, so I started selling by the dozen. And then every once in a while, I'd use some of the money I MADE, to buy more hosta! Now, I have around 75 varieties, and since finding GW, have added at least 2 dozen of those. Most of my plants are young, but I'm EXTREMELY excited about next year. I've also been adding some daylilies and Iris to my collection, as well as more shade-loving/shade-tollerant plants (LOTS of shade at mom's house). I'm here for the summers between school (went back to college at the age of 30 & after my divorce, to become an opera singer! Talk about high hopes.) So, I plant lovingly, and with some trepidation, because I know that for a significant part of the growing season, I will not be available as much as I am right now, and who knows what will happen to my babies? But it's amazingly fun and therapeutic, and I'm hoping that I will be able to trade and sell even more next year. Please post photos of your garden! I LOVE to see new gardens develop. I am going to take some as soon as the sun comes out again. Here is a link that might be useful: My website, in case anyone is interested

We've had laminate floors for a few months now. The upstairs is a lighter, low gloss finish, the downstairs is a dark, high gloss finish. The upstairs is the easiest. Just a quick vacuum with a stick vac and a run over with a microfiber dry mop and we're good to go. The downstairs? The same thing, but it needs to be done more often (every other day, vs. twice a week) Still, for the look of the downstairs high gloss, it's well worth it to me. I do have a spray bottle of Bruce cleaner for laminate floors, but I hardly ever seem to use it, and when I do, it's mostly for the entry hall where we come in from outside.

Thank you all, I'll try to respond better now that I'm on my computer and not the phone! Ellendi61- thank you. I know. It's a bathroom. You know. Rationally I know. I was so happy with how our powder room turned out that I maybe should have done the same combo- dark cabs, light counter. But I didn't want the counter to look like the old cultured fake marble and I didn't want dark cabs as it's so small. And we used a vanity with an open middle and legs so it is not oppressive at all. But this is different. Thanks pal. I get what you're saying. I totally do. Thank you for the perspective. Amberm145- thank you. I don't find this dull as in boring, but dull as in bland and beige. Maybe I should have gone with the bright blue counter my DS wanted :) Would have spiced things up! And I don't remember exactly what city you're in, but a tile store in Edmonton just sent me 9 samples by like express post at no charge. I love them. So you don't have to go to the train station for me :)

So... This room is still not done. We ordered the tile and it had issues so we had to send it back. Tried twice with different lot numbers and the tile had issues both tmes. So I had to go back to the drawing board which was extremely frustrating! I ended up selecting the tile below in 24x48 format. But I'm not sure how to lay it out. Rather than start a new thread I thought I'd bump this old thread and see if I can get some input. I don't know how to word this but if you are looking at the photo in the very first post, would you put the tile in portrait orientation (short edge faces fireplace) or landscape orientation (long edge face fireplace)? My intuition is portrait but the tile installer said most designers would go with landscape because it is a wide room. However, it's only a "wide" room if you count the two rooms as one. You can see in that first photo that this is really two rooms with a large opening in between; and if you consider this as two rooms then they are "tall" rooms rather than wide. Thoughts on orientation? Other question is whether I should lay this out in a grid pattern or staggered. With the original 24x24 tile it would have been a grid, but not so sure with 24x48. And not sure about grout. I usually hate to see grout lines but with such large tile there are fewer grout lines so it might be interesting to provide some contrast. Here is the tile from the manufacturer's brochure: