msrose Unfortunately My DH has requested I not put photos of our home on the internet. B4 Coloredthumb passed she had put some of hers on-line, I have the pass words to her old accounts I may be able to find some and post them but it takes me a while. The technique is layering several very thin coats of plaster onto a wall then burnishing all of the plaster and finally sealing with a paste type wax. It does look very old world. It has depth and dimension and looks more like old granite than plaster. You get the plaster colored to what you want because painting after to give it the same look is many more steps. There were quite enough steps in just the plastering for me. the name brand already colored plaster is expensive but the larger bucket of cheaper plaster and color it yourself is not that bad and works just as well. Both the brand type and the self mix dries darker than it is wet. Sanding the wall to give the plaster something to stick to is the first of many steps up and down, up and down, up and down the ladder and around and around and around the room. I most definitely agree with forboystoo Venetian plaster is a lot of work and my arms, shoulders and back ached a lot. It is not for the faint of heart or those with a low pain threshold. It looks much easier on the home decor/improvement shows because they have an entire crew doing most of the work. Doing a 6' X 8' bathroom took me 6 days and every day was long and painful. On the seventh day I wept and rested because I couldn't move anymore. I used the tissue paper in a breakfast room at a friends home. We wanted to make it light and airy with the look of forest greenery in the distance. It depends on how much of the scrunching is still showing after the paint dries to how the final look comes out. Our first attempt/tryout did look like green suede leather. We just made more smaller scrunchies in the tissue and finally got the look we wanted. I've never been able to achieve a granite or rock look with the tissue, but there have been some awesome things we have done tissue wise. Lil

I think even if you share a household, you need to learn some boundaries. To protect yourself, mostly. But also because it's right. True, your mom is too "lazy" to make those albums. But maybe that's just a pipe dream; maybe she thinks she "ought" to put photos in albums, and just can't admit that she doesn't really WANT to. That's often behind people's laziness--the fact that the benefits of that thing are just not apparent. If people don't do something, I believe it's because they don't genuinely WANT to. No matter what their mouth says. (and frankly, there is NO empirical benefit to putting photos in albums w/ fancy paper and stickers. The fancy paper and stickers are make-work, and should be done only by those people who get some sort of artistic satisfaction out of doing it. Your mom obviously doesn't get enough satisfaction to bother with it. She's ALLOWED not to want to actually follow through on her albums. Of course it would be nice if she could be honest with herself and say, "I'm content w/ these photos in boxes, and I'm going to stop kidding myself that I'll really make albums," and then toss the excess scrapbooking stuff. But having only recently been through that process, I can tell you that it's not an easy one. It involves creating an entirely new self-image.) I think you need to stop taking responsibility for "fixing" your mom--whether she's morally deficient ("irresponsible and immature") or ill ("psychological disorder"). You *can't* fix her. She's a grownup, and if she's going to change, it will be only because she wants to. You can't even make her go to a psychiatrist to see if medications would help her (say, if she has OCD), because she is NOT your legal dependent. I think you need to just NOT focus on her, and her stuff. No more going "room to room" and making lists of all the ways she is deficient. I know you live there, but it's not your space. Focus your energy on getting out, and on making your life be what you want. Try to maintain calm and order in the places where it affects you, and then, regarding all else, close your eyes, stick your fingers in your ears, and say "la, la, la!" Try to have your own life settled so that if you *need* to "be there" for your little sisters, you can, but don't take on that responsibility too rapidly. A 17-year-old can watch over a 12-year-old, and your dad is part of the family too. Few people have actually died because the corners of the living room are stacked full of out-of-date textbooks, etc. Also, you need to spend some energy, not on fixing things in your parents' marriage, but on getting OUT from "in between." Stop taking ANYBODY's side in any of their disputes or problem. LEAVE THE ROOM! I'm not trying to be snippy. I'm just trying to make you see that you are reaching beyond where you ought to. And your basic assumption--that *you* need to "fix" all these problems in your parents' lives--is wrong. You need to "declutter" that assumption--toss it in the garbage. That assumption is YOUR equivalent of old issues of magazines, etc. You can't fix those problems. So stop trying to. You'll find it amazingly freeing.

People who need to know a particular tree wants to grow over 60 ft. tall where conditions permit are those wanting to plant the same kind where there is room for one about 15 ft. tall. Something that happens a lot, particularly when many appear to think "big tree" = 15 ft. The physical demonstration of genetic programming recorded by those measuring fully developed examples illustrates the inherent character of trees being considered. Doesn't matter if they don't all grow 100 ft. tall everywhere, when even half that would overwhelm the planting site. Or that it might take 50 years for them to get big. It costs thousands of dollars to hire a qualified tree service to remove one big tree in a developed setting, where it can't just be sawed through at the base and allowed to fall where it may. And left to rot. Why ever choose a tree for an inadequate space, when a smaller kind could have been planted instead? Denial that a particular kind does often loom large does not prevent this problem from developing down the road. Plants that burn - or worse - every time there is a sharp winter may not really qualify as landscape staples. Certainly not as the ironclad, fail-proof unchanging purchases probably nearly all non-hobbyists are visualizing at the time they bring landscape plants home and install them. Hence the value of pointing out specific items aren't, in fact totally hardy - as in never damaged by cold. This is why there are hardiness rating systems and hardiness categories like fully hardy, half hardy and so on - people want to know where each plant falls on the spectrum, what to expect.

Your room is lovely; it's unfortunate that some people get satisfaction from being rude - must make them feel better about themselves somehow. When you put the sample against the couch are they different or the same? Or did you not actually have a sample or just the pic of it. If you don't have a sample, I'd order one and see if they are the same. The color is lovely; I personally think it is much more interesting and livable than a darker gray would be, but that's me, not you. It looks great in your space. Will the store take it back if the fabric doesn't match the sample?