Hello ladies and happy every Holiday I missed. To those of you who do know me, I am back and mentally back on track (I think). To those of you who don't, well I was I am a member, love everyone here. Went away to do some great mission work and had some very tragic things happen. Many hours of therapy later, and actually returning to the Dominican I think I have healed, I am not bitter, sad, or frightened to leave my house any more. I am able to talk about it and I feel that I can share with postive feelings now. But enough of that. Am I to late for April? Please tell me that I can play in April? Max is 4 and we just looked at Co-op preschool. HE is a mama's boy and didn't want to go to big boy school yet. Maryanne~ I have a box for you that I need to send, but um lost your address.. So Merry Christmas when it comes. Ahh. I just don't know what to say or who to say it to because I am scared I will leave someone out. I tried to read as many posts as my brain can handle, but I am sure that I will need some help. Babies and ornaments, tornados and ahhh.. I am not in Kansas anymore. Please feel free to email me with any personals that you'd love to share. I apologize for being gone so long. If there is anything that you want to know email me. If I need to re-join let me know if there is room. Mayanne_ my big sis.. I hope all is well, miss you and thanks for all your support thru this, even though I was a bad lil sis and became an introvert. But guess what? I am back and better. Missed you all Laura.... beans

Gwendolynne, I LOVE your choice of colours. I wish my furniture and decorating could mathc your colours. They are soo soo nice! I am completely colour challenged, and I have seen all of these wonderful rooms posted with fabulous colours, so I need your help with choosing colours for my rec room, bathroom, and kitchen. 1. REC ROOM/LIVING ROOM: We live in a side split house and are wanting to redecorate our rec room area, which is half in the basement but with full windows and still with lots of natural light. The bottom half is with cedar / oak wainscotting and the carpet is a blue colour. I have no idea what colour to paint the top half. Our furniture conssits of beige couches, wood coffee table and end tables. Our theme is going to have bar and sports paraphernalia (and we have a foosball table). I dont want to go with a blue paint because two of our bedrooms are painted blue and I would like some different colours in the house. I love colours but have trouble picking out colours on my own. Since this is the main room where we watch tv and hang out while the kids play, I would like a warm colour that makes the room cozy but fresh and new/classy. Someone suggested yellow or beige to me, but I am thinking I want more colour. What about red (Benjamin Moore Northern Fire) or would that be too dark? 2. BATHROOM: For our bathroom, it has a "teal-like" colour for the countertop and gray-blue cushion flooring. I have no idea what colour to put on these walls. I know green is not good to put in the bathroom. Someone suggested white, but I want colour! However, I know that the green counter top probably limits my wall colours. Am I stuck with white walls? 3. KITCHEN: Our kitchen has wall paper on the bottom half and a beige on the top half. Our counter is a pink (UGH!) and our back splash has pink, browns. Our theme is a country kitchen. I would like a dark warm brown for the bottom and a lighter colour for the top, but I dont know if this would work or not with the pink countertop. Any suggestions are very much appreciated. I have pictures of all three rooms, but I dont know how to post them. (Can someone tell me how?) THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Thanks to all who have commented so far. More ideas are welcome too. amity, thank you for your comments. I am so glad you like my try at decorating this room. This room has been a little mini-brainstorming project on my part. littledog, thanks for taking the time to critique. I have lots of photographs I can utilize as art and have done so in other parts of our home, so I may consider that in this room as well. As for the cane chair, I wanted something else in the room besides modern - to break up the stiffness of the modern style - I am working at how to accomplish that in this room. Actually my chair is very pale blue, but I think I need to darken it a bit for the room. Several folks have mentioned a shade of some type - and I might just try that in this room (Every time I mention something to DH about what our decorating needs, I can see his eyes saying isn't the room done yet, i.e. you have to buy more stuff?). I have another floral arrangement - I'll repost when I get the smaller art pieces framed or other pieces of art. There really is nothing that serves as a focal point in this room other than the view or the art on the walls. This room is more of a conversation or formal sitting area. Our home has a great room adjacent the living room. The great room has a fireplace, sofa, TV, bookcase, a dining table, and a kitchen with a peninsula with bar stools - all of which are open to one another in one big room - so we pretty much live in that room, but happen to have this living room too. I am having the most fun decorating the living room though. meltnaz, my room does have a pinkish tone - it is my standard color for homes till I decide what to paint. I have had a fear of color in the past and am learning to bring that into my home. I actually used color in my two bathrooms with pretty good results - those two will be posted soon. I am having a hard time picturing the chargers on the wall - but I am thinking I might be able to utilize them - perhaps only two - somewhere in the room. I think sometimes art should be three dimensional rather than one dimensional and the chargers would accomplish that. The artwork is supposed to be centered above the loveseat, but I had moved the end table to the other side and when I did that I had to move the loveseat down which threw it all off - but I will definitely center whatever ends up going above the loveseat. les917, thank you so much for taking the time to look at my living room in detail. I have been reading your suggestions on other threads and I really admire your expertise. You always have such great suggestions. I showed DH the drapes you had orginally suggested and I think they would be better in this room, but he said - why do they have two different colors? Also I was afraid the blue color would have been too dark for what I was wanting - but now I am seeing that shades of the same color are sometimes better - I am learning as I go along. I love the lamp you picked out - I actually saw something similar at Pier I recently and liked it. I am now thinking along the same lines as you that the white shaded lamp isn't correct in the space. Now that you mention it I see what you mean about the floral, I will post the other one in the space tomorrow and if not a go, I will try to adjust this one. Thank you so much for your idea about mounting the large art piece on plywood with a darker frame - that is a great idea and would improve its stance on that wall tremendously. I almost put those boxes under the sofa table - but wanted something by the chair too. I have been looking for something round but not sure quite what style to put there - most round tables are either gate leg with splayed legs that don't seem right or a ultra modern boxey looking side table that isn't what I want either. I actually thought about stringing some of those lights on the manzanita branch - not familiar with the rice lights you mentioned, but I will research them - I like the idea of them being very small. The ceramic vase has holes in the bottom to string the cord up through. I was going to put sand in the vase to increase the weight to hold up the manzanita rather than plaster - so I can change it later if I want - I will just tape the holes off so the sand doesn't spill out. I had planned on placing black stones or moss on the top as you have suggested, once I am sure I am finished with the arrangement. I will definitely edit out some of the items in the room. I am seeing that sometimes less is more. Again thank you so much for your suggestions. Thanks to everyone for your kind words and suggestions. Believe it or not I had several other renditions before I posted this one. The curtains were supposed to be the blue ones shown in my daybed room posting (but they were too short for a sunken room - boo hoo). The light chair was originally on the other side. I also had five large reddish brown bamboo poles in the vase - but their lines were too hard and stark for the space so I substituted the manzanita branch. I will post rearrangements and adjustments later. I might not get to it till after the weekend, because I have a tour tomorrow and a party here on Saturday, so I have much to prepare for both. But I will post soon with some more photos. Thanks again to all.

Thanks everyone! I thought I posted something last night but I must have been tired because I don't see it here now lol! I still would love to be able to bring in some color w/ the backsplash if possible- although the tans are pretty too, especially the crackles! Through some of your links I saw that there is a 'The Tile Shop' about an hour from me so I will definitely have to go there too. I'm going to make a list of all the great recommendations and try to locate them in person! The fireclay brick is soooo pretty- it's too bad it only comes in one size. I'll have to get a sample anyway though! :-) As far as the kitchen style I was originally trying for 'refined natural' but now it is more 'refined rustic' due to the rustic sway of my DH :-). So if the tile choice could sway it towards being more rustic (than it is haha) or craftsman I would like to avoid that. So maybe lean towards the lighter shades of the mentioned tiles for this effect? Thanks everyone :-) Such great great ideas!!