Hey Houzi, I just saw your post. Thanks a lot, yes my trees seem to have survived. I'm starting to believe the Japanese Maples are much tougher trees than I thought earlier. This will be my 3rd summer with many of them and despite all the negative factors (deep planting, too much watering, hot weather etc... ) not even 1 died on me. I had little hope for many of them last fall as I had removed a major portion of their root system. Some of them I had even bare rooted and it looked as if it wouldn't survive with such a small root system. Now with better conditions hopefully, (hey at least they are planted closer to the "right way" this time with the visible root flare and raised bed) I have much higher hope than before that they will be present in my garden in the long term. The tree marked as Corralinum seems to be like a sango kaku although it is probably a seedling rather than a true type. I still enjoy it, with its shape and colour. The bark was much more pink in winter though. Here are a few before & after photos of only some of my trees which I had posted in this thread

Hi..I use Netscape 7.2, and have always. But I really like Firefox..And use it. Imported all my bookmarks.Works fine.E-mail is Netscape..And when email arrives, Firefox lets me know. My Question is; what would be the pros and cons if I made Firefox my default browser? Thanks, Carol

I looked at your Flickr albums and will say that the kitchen & bathrooms look great. I think asking a few agents is a good idea, but in the end, you also have to use your own judgment. my mom, though 72, works out at the gym 6x a week and still works FT, so *right now* stairs are not an issue. Of course, this can change at a moment's notice. You're right. My neighbor's lady friend in her 70's had a freak thing happen, now she can barely get out of the house. Thankfully she has a rancher. My neighbor has been fine and very active like your mom, he also had a freak thing happen. He was in a garage & fell. That was two years ago, it's slowed him down a lot. They both now have back problems that never bothered them until they had the accidents. You mention that a lot of people build up. Is it possible that if you don't, your house will be more desirable to someone that can't do steps? Your gut is telling you to move & it's possible that your gut is right. You might want to start looking online to see if any houses on the market will suit your needs. If so, that might be your answer. Do you have a garage? There are some people around here that are turning their garages into living spaces for their parents. Some leave the garage doors just in case the next person wants to use it as a garage again. Good luck. I know it isn't an easy decision. We also toyed with the idea of adding on but decided not to because living in the house during construction would be the pits and it would not be worth it to do so in our area.

The cabinets look fine in the pic. So...you've got to figure out which look you'll like best in the long run. None of us will be living there-your opinion is the only one that counts. Almost any change will be appealing in the beginning because of its freshness, but if it goes against your inner style, you'll tire of it quickly. Do you love painted furniture or do you drool over the wood grain in fine furniture? Some of the white kitchens posted here are breathtakingly beautiful but my own heart lies with the warmth of wood. You'll need to figure out where yours lies. Another factor to consider is the overall house style and location. One pictures wood cabinets in less formal lakeside or woodsy locations; painted ones in beach or more formal sites or in antique or reproduction Colonial houses. Lastly, if you wanted to keep the wood look, you could lose the golden tones by darkening to a medium brown or espresso color by using gel stain or colored polyurethane. On my monitor, the golden color of the cabinets doesn't work well with the green or taupe walls. If that's how it looks in real life, I'd change either the wall or cabinet color to one that goes better.