Your crabapples sound really nice, almondstriations; I agree that multi-stem trees are often more interesting in shape. I actually really do like my Hawthorn. Though I am not sure of the cultivar name, I believe it is a Crimson Cloud - it has red flowers with white centers, lovely in bloom, nice foliage, with interesting, almost contorted branches. It is resistant to many of the diseases that plague hawthorns and it doesn't have thorns. I like it very much as a specimen tree; I seem to prefer having specimen trees as opposed to groups of the same tree. The Autumn Blaze maple gets way too big, though maybe it wouldn't get as large here. I am also leery of planting anything that has the silver maple in its parentage - I already deal with the fast growing and therefore weak-limbed/brittle white poplar so really don't want to experience this with another tree. Thank you for the suggestion though, marktrot1, and I am glad that you are enjoying it in your garden and that it grows well for you I went last week to pick up a Tartarian Maple as it seemed like just the thing, but the nursery I went to only had a larger sized tree, really too big for me to plant as well as costing more than I wanted to pay. Instead, I came home with a Picea pungens 'Sesters Dwarf' to plant where the oak tree was, as well as a Picea omorika 'Minima' and a Berbiris thunbergii 'Golden Torch' to plant elsewhere in my front yard. All slow growing, dwarf plants, nothing like the oak I planted, no red fall colour (I think the barberry is supposed to get pinkish in the fall, lol) but I love conifers, which have year round interest (IMHO,) and the lovely golden color of the barberry was very appealing to me. All three plants will fit well into my small front yard. Hopefully they will survive and be happy here.... Thanks again to everyone who has made suggestions. I have an area in my back yard which might be perfect for some of the trees mentioned; they will have plenty of room to grow there, too. Holly

I'm interested to hear that sliders are out and casements in; we're replacing our windows as part of a remodel and were encouraged to use sliders by our contractor and window installer (Milgard). We're in Oregon, maybe things are different in various parts of the country? In any event, I would probably go with white windows (that's what we're using) but then again I tend towards the safe and boring. I think white is pretty standard in a lot of houses, so it's unlikely to look dated.

The Excalibur window is a great window. The lighter colors will last longer than the darker colors.

Charming house, and I'd want to keep the character. After much research, my daughter ended up with Anderson 400 Woodwright double hung windows for her 1950's house. She did 6 over 6 instead of 8 over 8 because her openings were a bit narrower than usual. We also looked at Marvin Integrity, but Anderson had a few features we liked better and were a bit better looking to us. They are wood on the inside but clad on the outside for no maintenance. It's a nice looking product. Of course, if wanting all wood, then Marvin makes a nice one. None of these are inexpensive.