bonediggers, A really cheap and easy way of improving your soil is to compost right on the area you want to plant in. All it takes is some labor and time. I've done it in several areas of my own yard. Now pulling weeds is easy. The soil is so soft in those areas I can use a kitchen spoon to plant with. But it takes time to let nature do its thing. The areas where I haven't done that its still like digging in concrete. If you have a truck, and horse barns in the area its gonna be real easy for you. Just ask at the horse barn if you can have the stall sweepings. Most places are thrilled to let you haul it off. Load up your truck and then dump it, pile it up where ever you want the soil to be improved. Wet it down every now and then if you can. Pile it pretty high because as it breaks down it gets smaller and smaller. Let it sit. 6months, 9 months or a year even. You'll be amazed at what that does to your soil in that spot. All those leaves you have? Bag mow them to chop them up and mix them in with the horse stuff. Throw your kitchen scraps in there too. Anything except meat and cheese. This gives you time to really think about what you want in that area, and Mother Nature is helping you get it ready. In the mean time you can concentrate on your veggies in pots and maybe put some pots of annuals around close to the house to keep you inspired and have some color too.

That's almost a sand-scrubbed look. Like old Europe. Although sand wasn't necessarily used, many homes had raw wood floors scrubbed to a satiny smooth matte surface.. That tile could be a great start on a Scandinavian look, for instance. Waiting to see the "marble-esque" tile Lavender and assistant like, though. You know, I intended to do a deep golden background to set rich colors against in our bedroom, but I took one glance at my tobacco-brown going on our sloping attic ceiling and ran, not walked, to grab a couple gallons of an inoffensive pale taupe. Nothing like your own conditions. I imagine I over-reacted, but in mine the tobacco looked like a day-glow enhancement of a baby's first diaper, and summers in this climate require all windows be open and an overhead fan blowing all night. So the room is cream, pale taupe, white, brown, and green instead of, as planned, jewel tones (Lavender's fairy tale) with garnet, emerald, topaz.

Saxa I don’t think those water fountains goes with our rustic/farm theme. I think they are to contemporary for my taste. Also my three cats would have a field day with them. They love playing in water. Thank you for your suggestion! Much appreciated Daisy and Val as stated in my OP we are going to lower the tv. It is too high as it is. The plan is to remove the mantle and lower it about 5” and then lower the tv. Everyone in our house is in agreement that putting it on the side of the fireplace would be ackward for anyone sitting on the couch in front of the windows. And yes the cable will be put inside the fireplace. We specifically added a wall plug behind the stone. We just haven’t gotten to it yet. I’m still looking for that perfect rug!

Hi all, it has been a while but thought I'd update you on my progress. I've taken a lot of the comments on board (other than switching the painting as we love this painting), and I'm getting there. But I'm still struggling to pull everything together. I do still need to change the curtains to floor length ones, but I have no idea what colour/pattern to go for, so any suggestions would be very much appreciated! I've tidied up the bookshelves, built up the mantel, and we've finally installed our wooden flooring, I swapped the corner chair for a rocking chair and think everything feels a lot neater now and less chaotic. As you can see, I ditched the red couch cover - the red and blue was too jarring for me. But now I think the green couch along with the blue chair is too much? If so, what should I do? Both are IKEA and can have their covers replaced, I just don't know what colours to go for...maybe a light blue for the couch? I also think I should change the grey walls to a cream? It's an East facing room so I'm limited on what wall colours I can use but I feel the grey is too cold and flat in the evening. I'm thinking it's my colour scheme that's stopping everything from feeling coherent, but it could be other things I'm not picking up on? Please ignore that half the tiles are missing from the fireplace, haven't got round to fixing them yet, also the plant has seen better days and I'm slowly nursing it back to health after it was attacked repeatedly by our kitten. Thanks all.