Maryl, is the British Royal Horticultural Society Color Chart a book or those fans of cards that you can get from the RHS for L170? Or are those fans based on the book Horticultural Colour Chart by Robert Francis Wilson? I have never seen the book, but I sure wish I had some accurate way of recording colors. In the link that you gave, the RHS Colour Chart is compared to the Munsell Book of Color, but that seems hard to come by, too. There are a number of other Munsell books on color still in print. Would any of those include all the colors in the Munsell system? Does anybody know? Here is a link to the RHS Colour Chart fans: http://www.rhs.org.uk/Learning/Publications/pubs_library_colourchart.htm And here is a link to an ebay auction that just ended for the Horticultural Colour Chart by Wilson. It shows a few pictures of the inside of the books. Here is a link that might be useful: Horticultural Colour Chart (ebay)

Well, we live in a mid-19th c farmhouse with most of its original details intact, so I am somewhat constrained by that. I want a plain, workman-like space for the kitchen essentials, with nothing pretending to be something it isn't. (No faux wear marks or fly-specking details on my cabs for instance - at least none applied at the factory; we're not talking about what will happen naturally if someone leaves the doggone screen door open again! For those I've got my Spic 'n Span bucket ready.) I know this sounds drab and dull, but that's not the case since I have details like 14" tall skirting boards with deeply curved moldings; an open staircase with a second-floor gallery and the underlying (also rigid) balance and symmetry of a full-on Greek Revival building. With such strong elements never out of the picture, I have just had to learn to get out of the way. Since almost all our stuff is passed down from our families, (some period antiques and but mostly just old pieces, approaching legal antique status of their own, but not period, IYKWIM) my "style" of decorating is pretty much "what we found in the attic", combined, now, with what we've inherited from our parents. I can't really imagine what it is like to choose to decorate in a defined "style" or go out intending to purchase stuff to go with a particular style. When I read or see pictures here of what people are working on, I often wonder how you ever decided which one to choose. Seems like a lot of energy is expended working out those details. I just concentrate on 1) What do I need to make this room work for how we want to use it? 2) What do I have that will do the job? 3)(If I have more than one option for #2) Which piece looks best (mostly scale) with the other stuff in the room? 4) What can I/do I have to do with it (or to it) to spiff it up enough so make it presentable, if necessary? (If I can't find a suitable piece for some use, then we usually do without until a solution appears.) In general I find that my old stuff tends to look well with my other old stuff, providing the scale of the piece is right, particularly in the context of it all being old stuff, in an old house. And to some degree, after attending to comfort and practicality/feasability and cleanliness (which can include cleaning up a wood finish or redoing upholstery), I really don't care to do more. The only place where I can fall in with the forum's decorating mania, is color. That really lights my fire! I can spend weeks and months thinking about, testing and generally feeding the decorating part of my brain while contemplating which color to put on my walls. L

I can't believe I'm having so much trouble getting buffalo check drapes! First I was going to buy them ready made from Country Curtains. Then I saw they sell the fabric itself. Well if you can sew a semi-straight line you can make curtains, so I decided to make them. Then I thought $20 a yard is a bit much... lol, down the rabbit hole I go. I pinned up my little swatch from Country Curtains and it seems rather dark up on the wall. It's next to the windows so not much light hits it. Maybe vibrant will work better in this room after all. So I went ahead and ordered a swatch from fabric.com to see how it looks in real life. I've not ordered from there before but I ordered some other fabric while I was there. I found a 15% off coupon online so I got about $5 off on my order. And free shipping since I managed to make their minimum. I sure hope I can love Lipstick Red. I need 18 yards, so it'll be about $250 cheaper than the Country Curtains fabric if it works. All the other fabrics they showed in Lipstick looked tolerable. I'm crossing my fingers. We'll see. Thanks for the help!

Hi, another "ignore the rugs" person chiming in. :-) But do as I say, not as I do. Even though theoretically I ignore rugs, I always lend half an eye and try to play along, at least when piling more than one rug into a room. They usually have to be a similar style...tribal + tribal, for example. And I do admit to buying an orange chair to go with an orange stripe in the last house. Call me a hypocrite! I think you should revisit the gray idea. And I think that the way to love gray is not only to find the right one, but to use either full spectrum paint (Ellen Kennon) or maybe Farrow & Ball. Now that you seem to be fully into the paint addiction thing (welcome!) I feel comfortable suggesting that. You talk about "glowy" and that is exactly what you get with one of these more complicated paints. If you could find a warm gray or a greige in a paint that has a lot of life in it, I bet you would really love it. If you don't have it, I suggest sending away for the F&B free color card. There are a couple dozen really interesting neutrals that might be fun to explore. Yes, these boutique paints are not cheap, but if you're willing to spend the $$$ to change the rugs/furniture, fancy paint will feel like a bargain! I worry about using the deeper colors, particularly blue, on a thirty foot wall. That scares me a bit, but I don't know the space. In that regard, my guess is that a mid-tone would be better, but a mid-tone blue? I just don't know. I love the rugs and think the pink sofa is really refreshing. I'd hate to see the wall color take over, IYKWIM. How's that Georgian Green looking today?