We sci fi/fantasy readers NEVER give back books, but collect them and love them, returning to them when nothing new has come our way. I rarely get anything new here in Israel, so I rely on the one, maybe two used shops in Haifa, where the pickin's are slim and new stuff is a luxury and very expensive. My partner wails and moans over the state of my two bookshelves (messy, crammed, etc.) but I know exactly what is where. Years ago, my beloved books, which I laboriously brought with me overseas, was stored at an acquaitance's home while I relocated. There was a family fight, and her brother in a pique threw every book into the garbage, and I only found two survivors to tell the tale. Woodchip first edition of Our Bodies Ourselves, other jewels of sci fi fantasy from the seventies, you name it, GONE. Since then I've never let anybody have power over my library. I would curl up and fade away without my books, like without my garden. WHat I can't explain is my refusal to throw out a huge amount of old magazines, like The Whole Earth Review (I have them from when it was the Coevolution Quarterly); Mothering; the Sun, etc. Why do they mean so much? NO answer. Oh well, if this were only my wierdest quirk........

LOL, ZAMSX is right. That goes for everybody living in the house. It is a pain to live staged. I used to spray the closets with Fabreeze "Linen & Sky", pour Pine Sol down the bathroom drains, and mop all the way out the door for every showing. Yup, certifiable. LMAO today. When we were selling a staged house my DH kept asking: When am I going to have my stuff back?!!! I'd say: Soon Dear. As soon as we sell. Soon. LOL Silicon Valley. Wow. I'm in NE. Two different worlds. How's your market? MB- Euro shams would be nice, and 2 regular, with the purple one popping the finished look. -Do you have a couple of white or light slipcovered Parson's chairs for the FP area? Borrow them. Any small chair slipcovered for warmth(Target has slipcovers) will work. Kitchen- Stand the 3 paintings (12x14 or so)leaning against the backsplash wall, vertically , but not completely straight. If you have lights shining on them from lights under the cabs would be nice. The reason I mentioned BM Silkien Pine in the kitchen is because its considered a neutral green. Some buyers are sensitive to green, some are sensitive to blue. You can't win. A couple of light rooms with pale grey/blue, or pale grey/green are fine. The rest should be in the off-white/ cream/beige family. You shouldn't have a problem finding paint to go with Ivoire. Any BM Neutral Whites will work. BTW- I read where you're considering making one of your sons' bedrooms into an office. Don't do it. Leave it as a bedroom. One den downstairs is enough.

I think you should subscribe to some deco blogs if you're not reading them already (there are some great ones coming from young adults and who are on a budget...lots to learn from them -- where to splurge, where to save) and also find some home magazines and/or decorating books to look at. Not so much because I think that you should try to copy what you see, but so that you can get a better sense of what your own style is. You'll get a feel for what you are really drawn to. And you might be really suprised at what you find your style to be... Don't just go out and buy the first leather couch you see because it's leather, brown, and on sale. What style of couch do you really want? Something with straight/modern lines...or big and poofy? That's the sort of thing you should be thinking about before you start spending cash. There's not much worse in decorating than realizing that something is absolutely not your style after its been in your place for just a few months but now you can't afford to replace it!! Save your money, get what you really want the first time...or what you can live with for a set number of years. Take your time. You are lucky because you have a few things to hold you over until you can afford different.

I've got the sofa downstairs now. I covered it with what I had on hand - a huge black blanket and a smaller white one. The red thing behind the sofa is a mattress. It's a safe place for the baby to sleep at night (I block the way out). Now I'm wondering if it makes sense to buy a table and a lamp for the armchair. This part of the living room could be the actual 'living' part, while the other side is dedicated to children and their play. How about some kind of a wall art? I'm sorry, and it probably sounds like I don't know what I want, but I would like this room to look more 'finished'. Do I expect too much? Maybe it would be best to wait for four or five more years and then redesign this space? But can I wait that long? I wish this house was arranged and I didn't have to worry about it all anymore! :( We've been living here for three years now and it upsets me that everything looks so awful. We don't even have a hardwood floor upstairs - just go with carpets on concrete floor. We are currently having a bathroom made, but imagine living all that time with temporary solutions :( There are only a few things that we actually bought for the house - the rest are hand me downs - nothing matches, everything old and not to my style. I'd like to turn this house to home at last. Maybe I should go to ikea, look at those timy flats they have there and order everything there is!!! I'm sorry I just needed to vent :(