I'll be leading an "early bloom" tour in the Sacramento cemetery on Mar 26 at 10 am. A good chance to see banksiae, teas and chinas. It looks like spring is early this year so the teas and chinas may be pretty well over their first flush by our Open Garden (that means that the HPs and OGRs will be blooming, so there will still be flowers to see). I'll also be doing a class in the Sacramento cemetery, along with my friend Bill Harp, on the classes of Old Garden Roses (cutoff is Hybrid Teas) on May 7. We will do a "Part 2" of that class in the fall, talking about HTs, Hybrid Musks, Polyanthas, and ramblers/climbers. I double-checked and Spring in Guadalupe Gardens, where the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden is located, is indeed on Apr 23. Anita

Ya'll are making me blush! lol!! Seriously, I really do appreciate all your kind words. It makes me smile. Cotehele, my sunroom is not heated either. I did isulate it well though, so I can keep it comfortable with baseboard heaters in the winter and ceiling fans in the summer. The window is a standard exterior window with insulated glass. It is 4' wide and 3' high, a slider. It can be used as a pass-thru to the sunroom. The window has built-in J-channel trim on the outside (like you'd use for vinyl siding and we installed the drywall into that channel. The whole sunroom is drywalled. I can take a picture of how the window looks from the sunroom side this evening, if you'd like more details. If I had it to do again, I'd get a taller window that went all the way down to the granite countertops. I LOVE the way that looks and it would have been easier to pass things through there at a lower height. Cindy

Pal - I liked your comment on the earlier post that there are some people that you use as a negative feedback mechanism. I hadn't thought about it that way but you are right - had she loved my wallpaper then I would know that it needed to be removed immediately. Actually I don't particularly care for it any longer myself but several realtors have said that it's not worth removing - it's a fairly subtle tone on tone in the foyer and hall. We have removed wallpaper in the dining room and our bedroom and bath and the rest of the house is just paint. We have an estimate on removing the foyer and hall paper and are willing to include that in a negotiation. Obviously if it proves to be an onerous selling point we will have it removed. So far it doesn't seem to scaring anyone off. So far 2 couples have been through 3 times each. One put in a very lowball bid and we countered but they ended up buying a less expensive home in the next suburb. The other couple loved everything except for the 120 year old structural fir beam in our bedroom and wanted to know if we would have it removed. We told them they we could give them the name of a good contractor, structural engineer or architect but that we weren't going to remove it. One other couple said our house had everything they wanted except they didn't want to move back into this neighborhood. They lived a few streets away and just sold their house because they had serious issues with their next door neighbor. I'm not really sure why they bothered coming but they may end up changing their minds if they don't find something else they like. Pal - I think if a realtor knows you and your interest in homes and interiors he would value your knowledgeable opinion on a particular property. And now that your SO is a realtor I'm sure you have ample opportunity to see all the unique or historic places in town. Selling real estate is not as easy as it might appear - it's a tough job and I hope your SO loves it. Two of my kids have purchased homes in Philly within the last 2 years - and the third one just left for a leafy, fenced in yard in the suburbs. I wish I could have given him our home but he couldn't afford the taxes and maintenance. Thanks, Maire

In the shelves directly below the top shelf of your shelves - I'd love to see a vase with lots of turquoise stems (Michaels craft store). Those shelves can easily house a larger and fuller arrangement. They look sparse now. You have the beautiful turquoise plate in front of the fireplace, but I don't see that color anywhere else in the room. The blue in the rug is beautiful also. I think your room needs a lot more color. The print that you have on the wall across the room from the fireplace - I'd love to see a print with a lot of that turquoise there as well.