Do you know what sort of soil you have? The type of soil you have, how well it drains (or doesn't drain, as the case may be) and your annual average rainfall (20"? 30"? 40"? more than that?" all are factors that would help us recommend what would grow well for you. As for plants that can be grown safely around dogs, that's gonna be a huge challenge. First, you'll need to start out with a list of what you want to plant, and then you'll have to Google and do your research and try to figure out if the plants you want are known to harm dogs if eaten or chewed. The ASPCA maintains lists of plants that are known to be dangerous to dogs, but it is not an all-inclusive list. It merely is a list of plants that have been reported to them as being dangerous. Still, it is a good starting point. I've always gardened with dogs, but for the safety of our dogs, they have an enclosed dog yard that is fenced off from the rest of the yard and nothing grows inside their dog yard that would be considered harmful to them. If we are out in the yard, I occasionally let them out of the dog yard to roam the larger yard, but only because I am out there with them and can keep an eye on them. Some dogs are diggers and will dig up anything and everything you plant. Other dogs could care less and never dig. Some dogs chew. Some dogs try to chew but what they end up doing is pulling up everything you planted so they then can chew on it. At times, when I planted stuff in our yard before we had built the fenced-in dog yard, I would put cages of woven wire fencing around newly planted shrubs and trees to prevent the dogs from digging them up. Did I think it looked really lovely? No, of course not. What it did, though, was allow new trees and shrubs to become firmly rooted into the ground before the dogs could dig them up. After the first year, I removed the cages and the dogs never dug up any of those plants. Our dogs were pretty big-time into digging in their younger years, particularly from the puppy stage until they were 4 or 5 years old. Now that they're older and calmer, they don't dig as much as they used to. We had one dog, Mrs. Jeeves, who made it her personal mission to rip into and scatter every bag of anything (peat moss, pine bark fines, cow manure, mushroom compost, soil-less planting mix, etc.) she could find but she didn't bother plants. So, if your dogs are older and more settled down, they might not bother your plants much at all. Be advised that if you use organic fertilizers like blood meal and bone meal, your dogs will smell them and will dig up everything in sight looking for the source of that smell. I noticed that a lot of the plants on your list flower at various stages in their lives. I think you might want to consider vitex agnus-castus which blooms in summer and has lovely blue flowers. It is very drought tolerant and will grow in almost any soil, as will crape myrtles. If you have well-drained sandy or sandy loam soil, I think that everything on your list would grow well for you, but I haven't compared the plants you listed to lists of plants known to harm dogs. Lavender needs really well drained soil, so keep that in mind if you have soil that has a lot of clay in it. I'll link the ASPCA dog problem plant list. When you click on the link and go to that page, you'll notice you can ask for a 'toxic' list or a 'non-toxic' list, or you can search for individual plants using their search feature. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: ASPCA Toxic and Non-toxic Plants For Dogs

I am a builder: In June of 2009 we received shipment of interior MDF doors from Holzkraft. The doors arrived pre-primed from the manufacturer. Being a LEED project, zero VOC latex paints were used. The painter lightly sanded the pre-primed doors, used a tack cloth to remove any loose paint and applied a Benjamin Moore paint, Eco Spec. product directly to the door. The paint did not stick to the door and could easily be removed with a light scratch. We called the paint store who lined up an on-site meeting with the Eco Spec. representative who confirmed the techniques being used by the painter were part of the correct process for his product. He suggested we use a primer to go over the manufacturers primer. The painter then primed all the doors before applying the final coat. The finish paint adhered to the new primer. Two years later the homeowner has noticed several areas were the paint has been removed with the least amount of effort. The confusing part of the equation is the painter used the same process on the MDF baseboards and casing through out the house and the home owner is seeing no signs of problems. I am in the process of hiring a surface engineer who has assured me that his firm will find the problem. I will post the results.

All - I was a good little bat and did the right thing, and ordered the smallest size :) kswl - Loved your enthusiastic response, thanks!! Holly-kay - IâÂÂd love to order from RugStudio due to the excellent customer service youâÂÂve mentioned; I may give them a chance to match the lowest price I find. Karenseb - Thank you so much for the Overstock find, nice detective work! IâÂÂm guessing at the pattern size and just hoping the color will be right. Yes, IâÂÂve seen the same variance and am checking the pictures from every browser possible. The picture you posted I think is the same I photoshopped but something could have easily been lost during the copying and pasting and different programs; the âÂÂpictureâ of the rug in place does look lighter to me. I like the lighter green look. I originally fell for the rug in charcoal and am hoping any green in the sage version will be sufficiently lighter. Voila - Checking the reviews is a good idea and I do it religiously for appliances (but didnâÂÂt even think of it here). Thanks for the color feedback. Sueb20 - so glad you saw this! Great to hear the carpet has stood up well. Did I get the size of the circles right this time?! Peony4 - If this fails, I will definitely order multiple samples next time. As I checked out I was wondering whether I should have included a few others, just in caseâ¦. Glad you lucked out with your sample selection. Have we seen pictures of what you selected? Please post :)

Hey there Dawn Martinez color finally chosen for family room and kitchen was Sherwin Williams Row House Tan! It's perfect, made everything lighter and fresher looking. Gcubed Yeah - I know, ... we tried so many things in this room, nothing worked 100% . We tried larger, smaller, ottomans, trunks, nesting tables, round wicker table, glass - everything was just the wrong scale or wrong color. The husband (who spends a lot of time in this room) liked this one best, it is one of those lift top tables, so the surface does come up and over more toward the furniture and it has several drawers for storage (for laptop, remote controls, papers etc.) so the room looks neater. We did try a larger sisal rug under this rug but between the furniture is pretty large and the room relatively narrow so it just didn't work. Eventually, the furnishings will be pared down and will allow for the furniture to be positioned better on this rug. I am having a hard time getting used to seeing the table there and now the fireplace looks off, big black square hole and an expanse of off white primer. I need some ideas to help it look better.