Spinosad is the insecticide most recommended for thrips. However, with the common flower thrips on rose, the basic symptoms are not the things Marc mentioned, but rather scratched and dirty-looking flowers with dry brown petal tips. Thrips will always be (barely) visible in the flowers, and it's rare to have noticeable symptoms on the foliage and new growth. If insects are causing bent necks, you should be able to see damage in almost every case (use a lens). Rose midge is a possible culprit if you are seeing dead growth tips. Again, look for a flange or flattening inside the bend, and if these are present, insects have nothing to do with it.

Are you literally doing the painting? Or would you be ordering cabinets in those colors? I ask because if you are painting them yourself, you can always wait till after the fact, right? And paint them once they are up and you have a complete "visual" of what everything looks like. I think your color idea sounds gorgeous... I'm just not sure about what happens at the corner of the "L" configuration, either. Is there some way you can do a Photoshop of it? It would hopefully at least give you a good idea? Or, low tech it by painting a piece of poster board in the pale blue-green color and taping it over the end cabinet that would be that color? I do stuff like that all the time and it really helps me get a visual. One other suggestion, maybe you could do your upper cabinets one color and your lower cabinets the other color? We KNOW that works! ;o) Can't wait to hear (and SEE!) what you decide! Lynn

Thanks fellow KTers; I appreciate the help more than you could know! Georgysmom - Black and sleek would be so me, but would not work in this rough and tumble house filled to overflowing with a large, active DH and his even more active, large hunting dogs! Believe me, I've Houzzed, and Pinterested, and Googled imaged until I'm blue in the face. White baseboards and trim seem to be the expected now. I've learned the hard way, with my three "bed" rooms that "white" does not stay "white," even with constant diligence! The trim in this room will be unstained oak. Also, most homes are built with some rhyme or reason to where there can be closets, doors, etc., and some sense of scale and balance. I have a suspicion the people who built this house in 1952, and remodeled in the late 70s, were a bit tipsy. Jim-1, Party Music50, JemDandy, You guys nailed it. Consistency. And making it work for my situation. I think the door choices has jelled in my mind. I do want them to blend in. They are in no way "features!" This is on old, plain house in an old, plain neighborhood and town. I am hoping for "clean, dry, and serviceable" with a large dose of friendliness, welcoming, and basic comfort. The new heat pump/furnace/air conditioning system has added the real comfort and is the catalyst for all this spiffing up. The trim and baseboards will be oak, unstained and finished to match the light floor. The baseboard molding is rather plain, about 5" tall. The oak window/door trim has a slight, non-descript molding to it. I think the doors should be the same satin finish, unstained oak, as the floor and new trim. This is a well used room; it's a TV viewing room / sitting room just off of the kitchen. Two-thirds of the room is "living room" with a tiny "breakfast nook" at the south end, next to the closet area. It has 8' ceilings. There are two windows, two open doorways, and the front and closet door in this room. I'm afraid the "artsy" painted doors I was envisioning would come off looking rather "college dorm" and lock me into only one wall color/furniture choice. I think using the light oak will keep everything subdued. Do you think the visual weight of these close-set doors will be counter-balanced by the media cabinet and two 6' tall bookcase/cabinets I have planned to center on the opposite north wall? My walls are painted a soft sage green; the ceiling is white. I think the crown molding will be white, too; but that will be another conversation posting.

geoffrey, YOU brought up the 95/5, not me... I have no idea what the installer will use, but I'm not sure how me doing research on items you suggest translates to me being a micro-manager (it's me reducing my ignorance of a particular product or method). I'm researching possible directions so that I may make a more informed decision rather than barraging the installer with impossible/impractical requests. But if you feel answering such questions is a waste of your energy, you're certainly free to ignore them. Vith, The issue with a tubing bender is it requires room for the length of tubing beyond the bends... in my case, it follows 40' down a set of I-beams, hooks behind an immovable object (think of it as a box I have to thread through, then juts out another 4-5'. If the line was completely flexible, I could push it past the obstacles and be done... but once you make a bend, you're set with the length of tube beyond that bend (hopefully that makes sense). My thinking was soldered/brazed connectors or simply swaging the tube in a couple of strategic places around the obstacle, allowing for 2-3 separate pieces to be used rather than trying to bend a single tube in an impossible manner. BTW, had a guy out here to discuss the plan. He said what I had in mind was not a problem. The furnace is moving closer, so he'll just trim back the line length, and since it's already cut, add in a few tight bends and cut/swage if/where necessary. The heat pump is moving farther away, so it will require a new pipe... same situation, just with a new pipe. He's also going to do a simple cut/reroute in a similar manner for the third heat pump. Nutshell, I get what I was hoping for,and it will significantly clean up the space so I may continue my framing. Thanks for everyone's comments/help.