whew, what a day, learned a lot though :D I've posted the new pictures I took today of the big crape on the left over in the trees forum, it's not looking real good there. wondering if it needs to come out, so will see what they say. real quick, amazon, I DO appreciate the truth, wouldn't be here if I didn't want to hear it...and yes, I do have a good sense of humor, it's what's kept me alive! sad to say, that is a light there...you can see it on the tree forum post on ID of the crape mrytles post...and the "target" under it? that is a little rose bush that appears to want to live, surrounded by tin soldier thyme courtesy of my MIL. :D (kind of "ring around the posey" comes to mind) Brent, you put into words in your last post what I finally figured out this morning was the problem!!! thank you for that!!! the link you put in was awesome, and reinforced what finally hit me this morning...it's the plants!!! I've always bought them for the flowers. the 2001 picture always nagged at me, you pinpointed the problem with it, all the same size, texture, etc. and yes, the daisies did sort of tin soldier the look too...LOL, wasn't the best year, only one I could find though with flowers. on to what else I learned today.... I went outside this morning, armed with my camera and a heavy jacket...41 degrees, brr...127 pictures later (will not subject you to them...LOL), I took a good hard look at the house and yard. The siding guy came out tonight, did not get a good estimate, just a round ball park figure on averages...hubby was sick and asleep. It's not going to be cheap for sure, but this was from the high end company locally, and is excellent work. Did some more math, and its looking like with the siding, and interior work that needs done here, I'm thinking about 50 grand for all that. I could have my new kitchen for that much :( However, I think based on sale price, etc, that we can fully recover that much when we do sell. and that is with the highest price company here...but the warrenty, lifetime covers anything, is transferrable to new owners. Ok, so after looking at the pictures I took, with a new eye, I went to a couple of the local nurseries, as well as a big box store, to check out a list of plants I've gathered from this forum. WOW. you all need to stress to the clueless ones like me that we need to visit nurserys in the winter too! It was a whole new experience...the forms, textures, feel, are so different than what I see when I go in, leaves and flowers. I love flowers, therefore, bought flowers. Hmm. I do believe it finally hit me what backbone in a landscape really is. (and that landscape and garden are NOT the same thing) however, I still have no clue what this house is asking for. What I always envisioned here, will not be done due to moving (lets just say NO grass was going to be here when I was done), and while I'm trying to get that picture out of my head, there is nothing there to replace it with. I realize there will be no planting this spring around the house, the siding if we get financed, will be done this summer hopefully, possibly in time for fall planting with luck. So, i'm back at square one, empty slate, only with an idea to form and texture. I did discover in my walk this morning a lot of daylilies, six nandina's of all sizes, quite a few irises that survived the last few years of total neglect, and I do know I have two temporary (four year temp) beds of hostas that I saved. they should be good and ready to divide...and there is a LOT of lireope (sp???). I realize now that basic minimal landscaping is in order for selling with. Leads me to the following questions: 1. should I delete the bed under the two crape myrtles on the corner? or fill it in somwhat with hostas, daylilies, etc, there by saving me from spending any money there on plants? the yard will also be revamped and reseeded, etc. 2. the ring around the lightpost...I can't get rid of the light, so am not sure if I should just delete the plantings all together, or extend the bed on that side to include the light area? Plant it with??? I was thinking a couple hydrangea's, there was a big one in the corner there, but it died, think they won't get enough sun there now with the tree. Azaleas? far over planted in this area in my mind, and the camilla was finally cut down that overtook the house...was taller than the porch one year. I agree with you brent on the first post about low evergreens along the front, I've been looking at euonymus "golden" (did i get that right?), not sure how it will look color wise though? The house, most likely would be resided with something nice and um, boring like Natural Almond, as this company only has nine colors, and I'm not fond of any of them...the house is so big that i'm worried about anything of "color" being way too much. I don't want it to look like someone dropped an overgrown kid's building block on the lot, though it does look that way now actually. somehow I just can't see myself tossing in the "builders bushes" and calling it good. I ripped those out the day after we moved in. they were mostly dead anyway. so, back to square one, and i'm heading to bed. I think this is giving me a headache. thanks guys. sally ps. amazon, remind me some day to tell you my mulberry tree stories....i'd gladly have them :D though they ARE a mess. (hint...involved a slingshot, my neighbor, and my rear end)

We have a deep back porch as well. We live in a climate where we would get little use from a porch or patio if it weren't covered. The roof of the porch is the main roof; the floor is part of the main foundation. The living room windows look out onto the porch and beyond that to a nice view of our yard, the birds,etc. But we had to plan more lighting in the LR due to the porch, even with large windows. One thing that helps us is that we bumped the dining portion of our kitchen out beyond the porch and gave it six windows. We gave up a formal DR in order to have the one large eating area with great light and windows. One option.

Anyone know the "magic secret" on how to turn on the max level settings. I read that you can call Canada for the Miele washer and they'll give you a code or something to that effect. Amana also has a Canada service #, but I kinda feel like a jack*ss for calling. Any help out there??

I have a question, which might also help richmondcat: How are cabinets with >36" drawers beefed up so that no center stile is necessary? I know most would have a face frame added, but if richmondcat's cabinets are partial overlay, which they appear to be, the face frame would already exist. I assume cross bars would need to be added between drawers. If the style would work with the rest of the kitchen, would legs under the corners of the toekicks provide enough extra support? richmondcat, I've re-worked several old cabinets, and added a trash pull-out to one. (No removing stiles for wide drawers, though.) It worked because I was doing the hacking myself, and had plenty of time to invest. Unless your current cabinets are extremely well made I'd tend to agree that the investment in time and money wouldn't be worth it.