gardengal48: ok, that is very helpful. Thank you. :-) nwnatural: given the feedback here, and our assessment of the situation, that is the direction we are going. karinl: I am glad to hear that it didnt come off as whining, which was not my intention. I greatly respect the skills and abilities of the people here who work with gardens and landscaping. It is just a bit overwhelming to the rest of us mortals. In terms of the ground cover, this was suggested to us by a friend who is a true gardener, and we have incorporated various types of thyme, teucrium, cerastium, etc. into our design. The problem is that this site was full of weeds when we cleared it to build the house and we need to control that without the use of chemicals if we can avoid it. Based on how the ground cover does, we may be able to slowly incorporate it in other areas, thereby achieving eco-enlightenment. :-) I have included photos below: gweirdo: it is somewhat difficult to answer your question, since we didnt do the landscape design. I can say that our intention was to use drought-tolerant plants that grow well in this area to create an ambiance that defined a place of sanctuary for us. Since a Mediterranean landscape evoked that feeling for us, we began to use that term, perhaps inappropriately. We also wanted to contribute to the land by replacing all the scruffy weeds with plants that would help support the local wildlife (the birds and the bees, not the adolescents in Mini-Coopers). The difficulty is to being able to communicate the experience we want from our garden using the limited lexicon that we have. It is like trying to tell someone from another planet what milk tastes like. We know exactly what we are talking about (fortunately) but no one else does. This probably means we were raised by wolves. To see the details of our design, please go here: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/design/msg0623022121666.html inkognito: I believe I have read enough of your posts to both respect your knowledge and appreciate your writing style. I also believe that you do not mind a bit of verbal jousting, which I am happy to provide. No offense was taken. :-) I will talk to our landscaper about the suggestions you mentioned thank you. We were also concerned about the clean up on gravel, so you are spot on there. springvillegardens: your herb garden is beautiful and the view of the hills is amazing. You have obviously put a great deal of work and love into your creation. Thank you so much for sharing this. frankie_in_zone_7: your vote has been noted and recorded for posterity. I hadnt thought about the linear feet of raking on the paths. Hmmm.... perhaps I need to take up Zen Buddhism. When you say decomposed compacted material, do you mean decomposed gravel and would that be with landscape cloth underneath or not? Thanks.

Hello, Bichonlover3, and thank you so much for your kind words. I know the photo isn't as clear as it could be, but to answer some of your questions: the walls are real plaster with integral color that's been burnished to show color variation; if you're referring to the undermounted sink in the island, yes, that is hammered copper, but the rest of the island is an antique french style end-grain butcher block and behind that is giallo reale marble, which is the same as the marble on the other counters. It has an antique finishe, not honed. The tile on the back splash is authentic antique Italian cement tiles. They were sourced by the person who designed and built my kitchen. (He, too, is Italian, John DiSanto 818.693.3777.) He does amazing work. In fact, my kitchen isn't the best example of his work as he was working with some existing elements as opposed to a clean design slate. I've seen other examples of his work in many different styles. I'm sure he works in your area because I know he did a wine cellar in the Chop House Restaurant in Palm Springs that's amazing. Also, let me add my two cents about the faux beams that are under discussion: in other parts of my house, we used real 200 year old beams, which gave it instant authenticity and my designer made some wooden box beams which he also did an antique finish on, that almost looked as good. As far as the styrofoam faux beams, in my opinion, unless you go over those with an additional finish, they tend to look pretty plastic.

Thank you, we're really happy with the way everything came together. The backsplash looks much better in person, of course, and I just love it! we chose the color rainstorm in a crackle finish. Heres the link https://sonomatilemakers.com/product/stellar-marea/

I've been following this thread for some time. Braz, your wall hanging is great--I really like it, want you to keep it, and use those colors as your inspiration to decorate with the folks here. But I want you to know that in your lifetime as a homeowner, you are going to be very happy to learn how very easy it is to repair small holes such as would be left by removing a wall hanging, nails, screws, etc. Every homeowner should have a small bucket with some spackle in it (paste-like stuff you buy in a small canister at your local hardware store), some sandpaper of different grits, and a tool for applying the spackle. I like to use a plastic picnic knife. If your wall has texture, then you can buy some spray-on texture. It has been pretty easy for me to imitate the knock-down tract-house texture on my walls, so it should be easy for anyone.