I use sand. Been using it for over 40 years. East coast, west coast. Coarse sand, river sand. For heavy clay loam, add about 1.5 inches of sand on top and till it in as deep as possible. Remember, all loam soils already have some sand in them. So you might not need to add as much as you think. Once you've amended your soil with sand, it's permanent. You can add some humus by top-dressing or mulching every year, but you will need a lot less compost for that than if you were amending the top 8 inches of soil every year. So the sand is a lot of work at the front end, but it saves you a lot of work every year thereafter. Then I rake the soil up into raised beds. I don't use any retaining structure. By the time I'm done, I've got at least 10-12 inches of well-aerated loam soil. Everything grows like mad in this stuff. Once the winter rains hit the soil, and then it dries the next summer, you might decide that it's still a little too stiff. Add some more sand. Or mulch with sand; that works really well. On heavily leached acidic soils, it's also a good idea to add lime. I prefer dolomite lime, because it has Magnesium as well as Calcium. If you have pure, impenetrable clay (which I call subsoil clay) , you're done for. Often this stuff will smell like methane when you disturb it. I recommend that you replace it with good topsoil, or pile good topsoil on top of it. If your native soil will grow healthy weeds and grass, you should be able to amend it with sand. If not, you need to truck in some soil. All of my experience is in areas with high rainfall and heavily leached acid soils on the east and west coasts of the US. So I don't know if sand will work in other situations. I do know that rock gardeners and rare bulb growers use sand extensively for growing beds in the entire northern tier of the USA. My experience is with very rare, difficult plants. They will thrive in prepared soil with added sand; most will do very poorly in heavy clay loam. Believe me, if this didn't work, I would have given it up a long time ago. If you have a big area, you will probably need to buy a dumptruck load of sand, and rent a little tractor with a bucket and tiller. Otherwise you are going to get the workout of your life. For the science behind this, google "soil triangle". It's pretty simple, really. Add some sand, get loam. Add more sand, get sandy loam. In my opinion, sandy loam is garden heaven for a wide range of plants. A few plants prefer a heavier soil, but most gardeners grow a lot of different things. Sandy loam warms up earlier, is easier to weed (they pull right out), doesn't stick to your shoes, doesn't compact, is well aerated, and gives amazing seed germination. My rare plants reseed themselves all over the place. I never saw that with clay loam. I like a humusy organic soil as much as anybody. But I don't have time to amend my soil with humus every year for the rest of my life. What are you going to do when you get old (like me)? Just add the sand now and enjoy. Skeptical? Worried? Buy a bag or two of sand at Home Depot. Dig it into a small area and see if it works for you. But make sure that your clay loam is in a tillable condition, or you are going to end up with an awful mess. It can't be too wet or too dry. I've never used peat moss to improve garden soil. Too expensive, too temporary, no nutrients. I use it in potting mixes. This post was edited by lilydude on Tue, Apr 22, 14 at 21:55

The reason you're responsible is that you are also allowed to remove any dangerous branches or offensive leaf droppers :) A neighbor does not have the ability to go onto your property to trim their trees. Think about it...say you have the neighbor from hell who won't allow you to trim branches, even if they're an obvious risk to their property, do you want to face being sued for their lack of cooperation? I myself would not be excited about allowing just anyone over on my property to trim limbs if my neighbor wanted them trimmed. I'm putting in a complicated (but easier LOL) garden and I don't want some joe blow tree trimmer over on my property with equiptment or to trip over a brick and sue me because he's trimming my neighbor's tree. We require anyone who works on our home or yard to be insured...if the neighbor calls them how would I know? My neighbors are lovely, so it's not an issue, but that does not mean that a new neighbor would be the same. I'm actually trimming limbs off of my neighbors trees right now (legally allowed but we discuss any major changes because we're friends). She's for anything I do because we're improving the property on the line, but still, thank god she's not a busy body who wants to control every branch. I'd trim your "offending" tree if it offended me :) I'm trimming pretty trees now, but while they're pretty, they don't fit the future garden's goals and they block my view. If I had a yard with too much shade and a neighbor's tree was over it...I'd cut the limb off because an ugly stub is in fact less ugly than me sitting in the yard in one square foot of sunshine :oP And as to the lawn guy trimming the tree....don't judge a book by it's cover. My lawn guy trims the trees here. He's an arborist as well as a lawn mower and very qualified to handle something like a limb being cut off. I'm sorry your neighbor sucks. In cases like this there should be a goverment fund that allows us to buy the house of any annoying neighbors to get rid of them :oP I would buy six townhouses in my other neighborhood LOL

There's a time and place for all of them. I really like email. Any time I can take business away from the post office I'm thrilled. Instant messaging is very handy for chatting with people you don't see too often who happen to be online when you are but it's also a good way to leave a quick message. Texting is a little quicker in some respects since the person usually has the phone on them. I really think it's rude when you're with someone talking, dining or whatever and in comes the signal and they drop everything to look at the text message. Then they usually have to give a quick text back. Then there's usually at least one or two more repeats. It's like the ones who constantly answer the cell for unimportant calls. I've started getting up and walking off and say obviously they're/that's more important than what we're doing so finish that up and let me know. I really find it hard to justify all these kids of all ages having expensive cell phones so they can be notified of terrorists! Isn't that going a bit overboard? No wonder the kids aren't learning! I have a prepaid cell and will not give out the number to too many since I know I'd be bombarded with spam. Cute little quotes, 150 "hi!" messages and other worthless garbage. I give out a forwarding number so they can't text me when I want them to be able to call me. I use Yahoo Instant Messenger to text people. It's great. I have the keyboard, a decent size monitor and it doesn't cost anything. There's 154 character limit to a text so sometimes you need to abbreviate. There's nothing wrong with that in my bood. I do get annoyed with some of the more obscure phrases and it bugs the daylights out of me when people have to use instant messenger abbreviations on forums. There was one guy in another forum who insisted on all abbreviations. "u ppl sh And I don't have picture messaging and don't want it. Email me the pictures if you want to send them or transfer them by instant messenger. There's definitely purposes for it, I agree. I think it's good for history to have the hanging of Saddam Hussein recorded, even as poorly as it was and I find it no more offensive than the Zapruder film. The pictures of Whacko Jacko on the stretcher, and even the shots of David Carradine to show that what was being said wasn't true, are some valid uses. But there's abuse too. The more technology, the more chance for abuse. I do find it hilarious when people can't make a phone call when the power goes out because they have only cordless phones or rely on cell service and are in a dead spot. But then again I laughed so hard I nearly drove off the road when I saw a tow truck on the side of the road with its hood up! I thought about stopping and offering to help for about $250. But that wouldn't be nice, would it?

I hadn't even thought of the direction that the light is going. That is good to know. I will start looking around. I would love to have overhead but we have an upstairs above this room so I don't think it is possible. Yes I plan to install sconces on the fireplace. I have been having so much fun collection ides for it. Of course, some of my inspiration pictures were on this site, so I am hoping they get restored. We have been waiting to spend money on the room, wanting to be certain that hubby's job is solid. Lots of rumors at his job of closings, and lots of layoffs. So we have waited. However, the longer I wait, the more I think of that I want to do. We have hardwood in the entry and I would LOVE to take out the carpet in the room and match the entry hardwood if that is possible and continue it into this room. Then I could get a pretty rug. We usually take our shoes off at the door but sometimes don't when we're in a hurry. One can use the foyer to go to the kitchen, or cut through this room. So it sees alot of foot traffic, and the dog loves to roll around on it. Arranging the furniture around the vision in my head has been difficult to say the least. I like things to be symetrical and would like the couch directly below the window. However, that doesn't make for nice conversation. We've had it there before. What I hope will work is to scooch the piano down to the end of the wall - where the doorway is, and squeeze a chair in that corner, have another chair in the other corner, then have the sofa under the window, but not centered under it. It makes that end heavy but I want a nice conversation set up. The piano really can't go anywhere else. I've thought of putting the sofa facing the fireplace to come, but I think it is too big. I could scoot it closer to the fireplace and angle a chair beside it, that may work. Not sure. If someone has another idea, I'm all ears ( and eyes). So glad you don't think bedroom when you see the drapes. They do look brighter. I have another set of panels. Perhaps I should double up and hang them too for fullness?