Everyone thank you so much for your input. Chijim, I love all the beautiful pictures of the dogs so much! I love dogs. I have four little dogs ranging in size from 4 lbs to 8 lbs. Three are Maltese and one is a black and white Shih Tzu. I like how you have the pictures stacked. I guess there is various ways to make a room look grounded and nice. I love the picture so much and I just want it to look right so I can enjoy my family room before tackling my next project which is the TV stand and TV. The picture means so much to me since I was waiting until I put the Brazilian Cherry floors down before putting a picture on the wall since I was not sure how I was going to arrange the furniture. I was also waiting until a picture called out to me and not just put any picture up. I am glad I waited so now the sofa and end tables are where I want them to be and I was able to see the Bronze frame would look nice with the floors. A cherry frame would not work with the red in the picture to my eyes. I was up late with a client that has a 3 hour difference and then I could not sleep. My other client/friend arrived to hang the picture at 10 AM today and first he hung it crooked and too high even with his leveler. Then he rehung it too low and I measured and he hung it 1/2" higher than I thought it should be so I made him redo it. Now it is where I thought it should be but I thought the picture was 40" in height and it is 39.5" in height. It is actually 49.5" wide X 39.5" high and not the 50" X 40" I thought it was. I guess they have to take 1/4" off on all the sides to mat it and frame the print. My client/friend measured on top of the rounded frame part instead of on the side which is why he gave me the wrong measurements. I will for now on measure with my white easy to fold-up plastic stool. When he left, I realized the sofa is not completed filled out on top so when it is squished down, it was the 31.75" high but when it is fluffed the sofa is 33" high but 34" on the sides. So now the picture is 39.5" high off the floor but in some spots of the sofa it is only 4.5" height and other spots only 5.5" higher than the sofa. The middle of the picture is 59.25" from the floor. In my sleep deprived state, it looks like the picture should be about 1/2" higher from the top of the sofa. I am going to wait another day before making a decision and try to take pictures for all of you. I am a little upset that I did not notice a tiny chip on the bottom of the frame but I got such a great price and the rest of the framed picture looks beautiful. The chip is very tiny. Do you think there is some kind of bronze pen that can fill it in? The beauty of the Japanese Garden is so perfect for my family room. The museum quality acrylic really is amazing allowing the picture to be so vibrant and gorgeous!

Alex, that is what I am leaning towards for sure. There was just some debate about the stairs that needed to be figured out on the design. Mush, I was just overbuilding to to 'be certain'. You say 37" is nice. I was thinking I would opt for 44 since rails will take up 3-4". I may be shaving them down to 38" if I am unable to have enough room after the landing turns (such as if the stairs cut too much in the front entry way) I am currently thinking with the extra 4' that will not be an issue...depending on how I manage the entry. Considering having a 6' dividing wall from entry and living room, then opposite of that a matching storage wall / closet to hide the cut out floor and allow coats, boots, etc to be stowed away. Suggestions? The closet is awkward with that niche, but I figured I would turn it into built in shelving floor to ceiling. Then there is an L shaped space for hanging clothes along one side and the back of the closet. Taking out the niche and giving it to the bathroom is a waste of space. I considered splitting the closet between both bedrooms. But where do you put dressers and a TV? I am not building the master bedroom to be excessive by any means. I want just enough room to get around the bed and feel comfortable (3' or so, I think) The garage is an awkward big. If it were wider and less deep it would be more efficient but location on lot doesn't allow that. I can easily use the extra depth for a riding mower, woodworking area, and my little motorcycle. dekeoboe :) Thank you for harping on me about my lax attitude on the stairs. So, Yes, that is true with only 78". So I am thinking about making the stairs less wide so the landing is less wide so I can fit an extra stair. Assuming 4' extra space is there at the front door, I think we could cut out one more I-joist to make sure I meet code. Do you have any other suggestion? Do you think my idea of having a storage closet with a false bottom to the right of the entry door will look funny when all said and done? What about having that section of the house serve as a foyer with walls on each side of entry? My only other thought is to have the stairs next to the garage wall, and behind the long kitchen wall. The garage person door would need moved further down so I can have enough stairs before the turn landing to not have to make any floor notches under kitchen cabinets. I really don't want to run the stairs perpendicular to floor joists. This post was edited by CTSNicholas on Sun, Feb 1, 15 at 15:37

I'm also in Ontario. I agree with the above posters. You mention " tightly clipped" which sounds like you want it to have a neat and tidy appearance, but you also want flowers and you want 4 or 5 different species so that your hedge has colour most of the time. In terms of flowering shrubs up here, it would be tough to find 4 or 5 different 4 foot high flowering shrubs that would have a small diameter of 12-18 inches - I really can't think of any that I've seen in Ontario off-hand, let along 4 or 5 different types. Further, if you took different shrubs that are naturally larger than the 4 feet high by 12-18 inch diameter, and tried to clip them to keep within the 12-18 inch diameter, you'd most likely lose a lot of the flowering capability as you'd end up cutting off the ends with the flower buds. Lastly, if the shrubs are that close together overlapping each other, often one ends up shading the other and thus reducing the amount of flowers because they each limit sun access to each other. In terms of perennials instead, I think it would look really messy to have 5 different perennials tucked really close together to form a hedge. It certainly would not render a neat and tidy appearance. And it wouldn't really give a hedge appearance, it would look more like a garden that hasn't been maintained well. Each perennial has different characteristics - crowding a daylily beside a delphinium beside a daisy - not exactly neat and tidy. However, this is just my opinion, and you might like the look. More about perennials, it sounds like you really want flowers, but I'm not sure if you get enough sun to produce great flowering perennials. If it is really only 2 hours, not 3 in the morning, and 1, not 2 in the afternoon, you might find a lot of the flowering perennials struggle, especially if the morning sun is very early in the morning. Some like 6 or more hours of full-on sun (ie: 10 am to 4 pm) every day. They'll flower with less sun, but may not flower as much. If it were me, I would chose 4 or 5 of the tall and narrow grasses as the other posters suggested - I see them at the shopping malls or in mass plantings by the city , something like Karl Foerster feather grass, or some of the ones with the large plumes. I think they look gorgeous - neat and tidy for most of the year, elegant and they have a bit of a hedge-like look if grouped together. Thats what I would do - and then add colour to your property using annuals in pots.

Get some rolls of paper, or big pieces of cardboard and try out different sizes and arrangements of pieces you have or are thinking of getting. Tape it up and see what it looks like for balance. Keeping the art - whether it's a single piece or a cluster of small ones - visually about the same size (give or take a few inches) as the furniture or furniture plus accessories. The common mistakes are: Art work too small for size of space or furniture, looks timid and lost Art hung too high and looks "floaty" Art hung too far apart in a cluster, Looks skimpy. Incoherent frame or art choices in a cluster ... this one is hard to explain, but there should be a commonality that the viewer can spot in the pieces. Similar subjects with disparate frames, similar framing unifying disparate subjects, colors across the cluster. Sometimes it the "odd man out" - one picture is just not helping support the group.