OK, your replies are just what I needed to hear to get me more focused... and browsing the FKB and everywhere else I could google a picture. Kelleg, I am attracted to clean lines.... and this has been creeping up on me over the past year or so. We have so much stuff. Old stuff. Antiques, etc. I want a space that is fresh. Although the cabinets are shaker they are a modern shaker...so I can pull it off, I think. The black sink will be history... I'm drooling over the Orca...but not worried about that decision yet. I'm thinking about Labrador Antique or Blue Eyes for the tops...and I really liked RemodelFla's idea of a limestone look porcelain tile, or maybe even grey. How about that? Igloochick...been thinking about your story all weekend...hoping things will work out for you. Off topic, but, Yandi...Jasmine is my bestest girl. She will be 14 in June...we lost her brother (ache, ache) a year ago in January. We also have a Scotty and a cat...so are thinking we wanted hardwood, but will probably do tile...we had it in our last home and loved it. It looked sort of like mud :) I wonder if Labrador Antique and Blue Eyes are considered the same price point? Gotta get up for work tomorrow...so I'd better quit obsessing and get some sleep! I really appreciate your responses...

Are you asking about height or about the light itself? If the decision is only about height, I think that 6 inches lower would be too low. If you are also asking about the pendant -- I'm not loving it. I think something less rustic and hard looking would work better -- something a little softer (maybe a fixture with a shade?) or shiny (metal? glass?) -- or maybe go that direction with the light over the table for some contrast with the barn type lights?

Those are vicious looking thorns, regardless. I probably would have left it to see how long it took the leaves to turn to green. What I would have done today was take off that bud (painful to take off a bud anytime) and I would check to see if all the sexual parts are there. Often with RRD the receptacle is missing. Sometimes the stamens and ovules aren't there. It's probably too young to look for anthers on this bud, but the receptacle should have formed already. The bottom leaves being subsized don't bother me, they often are. I am bothered by the close grown (short internodal distances) but the leaves up by the bud. I don't know what Take It Easy looks like when it blooms one bud per stem. This is something that is a genetic thing. And it ties to some exhibitors. I've talked with international rose show judges who complain that members of the ARS like their blooms to be way above the foliage except for a couple of smaller compound leaves; in Australia, for example, foliage goes up and all but caresses the bloom (and cultivars are chosen that look like this.) What I'm getting to is that TIE could be a rose where the foliage goes all the way up the stem. I'm seeing that on some of my more recent floribundas and am trying to get used to it. As I wrote before, I probably would have left it and it would have bothered me. I'd be going on Google photos to try to find just the right photo to tell me what normal is for this cultivar. Good luck. Ann

I would do Gray Owl for both spaces, since they are so open to each other.