FOR THE FILL: How about calling local excavators (those contracted by your city for road repairs etc are a good bet) for free fill. My husband works construction and we've had his company bring all soil from excavation projects to our new property to assist with the mess of leveling the property off (there's portions that have to be raised and leveled by two feet!). Some of the dirt was very poor quality and we had to pull pieces of black top out of it, but it WAS free, delivered, and dumped for us - all we had to do was push it around and level it out! It worked to level the place (3/4 of an acre) off. We still have to bring in top soil which we are budgeting for now, and I have been colelcting shrubs, trees, perenials and other items for the last year to put in once I get the place ready. For now everything is sitting in pots around the property - arranged into temporary "gardens" so that from a distance it does look like I have gardens and landscaping, and walls and unfinished projects are hidden from view by potted trees. For your project - Grass definitely a must for erosion control and give your little girl a place to play. Beyond that go slow, be patient for the results, and plan carefully. Rome wasn't built in a day, and can you imagine how disppointing the pyramids were to look at for the years and years before they were finished? Look at them now - people come from all around the world just to stare in wonder. Start small, and try not to get discouraged by the time it will undoubtedly take. For our wall I used trailers like indian strawberry (tasteless, fast spreading strawberry like plant) which has filled up fast but is now slightly out of control - the bunnies in our neighborhood however love me for them! There's also things like passionflower and countless other vines that people normally have climb UP a trellis - have them climb ALONG the wall instead. With a new construction things are never going to be finished and pretty right away. Start by collecting small plants, cuttings, immature trees (I started last spring and now have over 250 plants, vines and fruit trees and stayed completely within budget by just doing a few things a week, although it is tough to walk out of a nursery with 3 plants when I really want to get all 300something right then!) I also learnt how to make cuttings and have grown tons of stuff from 4-8 inch cuttings I snipped off my friends, parents, and neighbors plants. The plants are small but I get far more for my money, and with time I will fill in more space with more plants, rather than having very few, very big trees. I'd spend $5 for a 3 foot tree rather than $40 for a 6-7 foot tree - and come out of the nursery (or home depot) with 10 things instead of 2 or 3. It will seem like things are not filled in, and not the look you want, BUT you can do 4 times the work for the same money, and in 2 growing seasons it will look like you really wanted it. If you try to get the whole thing perfect right away you will run out of money fast. It's disappointing to look at a property and house and have it not be your dream vision you were hoping for - man do I EVER know that - but sometimes you just have to force yourself to go it slowly and be patient for the perfection that will eventually come...

Oakley- I like the Sisila but don't know that that works with the furniture. It also has gold in it. (Dang pinkish carpets.) I know it give the dimensions of the scale but it helps me to see the fabric IRL or a photo of it on something. I'll look around, thanks. I also like the Selim but the colors are little too cheery. I'm going to pass on the table. I like it but starting thinking it reminded me of a nightstand. I have bb wallpaper leftover. I actually have painted posterboard inside the ends, but could cover foamcore board. Tina - That made sense about preferring the color in accents. I think her pillows are from PB. I like all her pillows and would switch her houses, ha. Sadly, our PB outlet was really lacking the last time I was there. Tuesday - I really like those photos, thank you. Kswl - I like crewel work pillows. About the burlap tablecloth, with the wingchair being beige/tan you don't think that side would be lacking color; worsening the unbalanced feel? I've been meaning to get a glass top so will look into local. Geo, Val, Tuesday, Oakley, Kswl - I pick up a sample of the Saybrook. It is a pretty color and on and off over the past 6 months I've had occasional thoughts of painting the kitchen area (currently BM Olive Branch) a similar color. I think it would work better with the floor, etc. Anyhow, my biggest concern is I paint the room Saybrook and 6 months down the road we decide to replace the furniture. It's not in the plans but... I also think I'd feel more comfortable with a color like Shaker as it's similar to what I have. I was thinking about carrying the LR color through the foyer and hall, which also has the brown carpet, to help the flow. The color there is even worse than the LR color paired with the carpet. I never cared for it once on the walls. Geo - I like the idea of the Saybrook better for accents in the room. I'd be ok with changing the back of bookends to that color. I like the cream idea too. I probably could take the doors off but DH and I both like the glass. Also the ends light up and we turn them on a night. The shelves consist of mostly books and wooden ducks that are sentimental, but the few other things could change. This post was edited by sheesharee on Thu, Mar 7, 13 at 17:37

it's only a matter of the amount of blue and semantics. The color I'm referring to is a pale pink-violet-grey shade, so all of the above. But my point was that the gray she wanted painted on her cabinets is at the opposite end. ETA: blfenton -- not sure if you were saying you thought maue was more pink than purple or if you said you were seeing mauve in the photos. Anyway, I'm not sure the paint was mixed properly (a color match should probably be from a tested, adjusted formula or from shooting the swatch rather than using the manufacturer's formula in a different base -- or just wrong color) and if it was, I'd look at lighting -- because all the laundry probably looks funky too (but to the OP -- I'm not seeing that, but you can never tell what a camera or flash may be doing to the color, Every light bulb and window impacts color).

It's the case that your front yard will never look nice if you don't get the lawn (grass or groundcover) into good shape. It's the largest "plant(s)" and having it be scarred up destroys the look of anything else that might look nice. I agree with Laceyvail's comments about how the walk approaches the house. It should be farther from the house, approaching it from the front, giving more depth to the bed that is left of the stoop. Many times people don't like to change such things because it costs $$, so it's mentioned in case you are willing to correct a condition in spite of cost, or in case you're faced with designing a walk for the next house, or for others who find this thread and wish to learn about avoiding mistakes. I actually don't mind an "S" curve shape to the walk. If we were starting from scratch, I probably would have made that curve stronger, allowing more depth in the bed near corner of the house, and placed the small tree on that side of the walk. But now we're dealing with what is. Here's a basic configuration in regard to arrangement of elements. Keep in mind that I cannot really see how much shade the tree produces. Where you place groundcover vs. grass will depend on where light exists. If you have no real light to speak of, it may be the case that your entire front yard would be better off being groundcover than grass. If you have light, you can have grass. Also, the tree is large and even though I can't see it, I see low hanging branches. I'm sure you could stand to (need to) remove lower limbs and branches which would have the effect of letting more light below which would help plants at the ground prosper. Color is used to differentiate one object from the next ... not as a suggestion of what color you should have things be. (The small, multi-trunk trees would be made from large shrubs.)