Hi. rhizo mentions that peace lilies "like their soil to be kept somewhat on the moist side, [but] they despise anything that smacks of over watering, soggy soil conditions, etc. Thus, providing a very porous (meaning fast draining) potting medium will solve that issue." Having had a lot of trouble with this moisture balance issue in the past, my experimentation (and paying attention to what people had to say on this forum) led me to what I've found to be a good mix for most of my houseplants. I'm in a very out-of-the-way location, but I can get the materials locally - so they should not be too hard to find. My current mix is made up of equal proportions (by volume, not weight) of perlite, ground bark, and coir. I put these together, mix, and then use the mixture in unglazed clay pots. (If you're not familiar with it, coir (pronounced "kwar") is ground coconut shell - it's like sphagnum peat moss, but less acid, does not cake so badly when dry, and is easier to re-wet after the growing medium has dried out.) I find that with this mix, I can count on good aeration to plant roots. Plants are unlikely to show symptoms of over-watering, yet most of my plants can go four or five days without watering. My plants flourish in this mix, as long as I pay attention to their light needs and give them an occasional dose of water-soluble fertilizer via their water. Joel

Love the MCM vibe you seem to be aiming for, but I agree that leather is a great solution for dogs and young (as well as us older) people. Depending on the quality, finish & color, I've had leather wear well for decades. I'm not wild about having the TV face the front door so I'd consider placing it between the windows where the sofa currently resides, having the loveseat remain where it is with a console table behind it, placing the larger sofa on the original TV wall with enough space behind it for a low book shelf perhaps, and adding two small swivel MCM chairs or two rockers or a combination of the two styles flanking the FP so that you have conversational grouping and can opt for FP gazing. Pulling furniture away from walls invariably helps ground even very small spaces. This placement encourages multi-usage of your living space, and you can use your existing furniture until you find the more or less perfect replacement pieces over time. Since you like MCM, try to find vintage as the construction is almost always vastly superior to what is available today, across nearly the entire budget spectrum except for the truly high end. If that placement appeals to you, then my preference would be to bury the wires in the wall and hang the TV above the dresser. If for some reason you prefer to rest it directly on the dresser that can work as well, but try to hide all the cables and wires in a chase. They typically sell these cable chases at big box stores though you may find a better price one line. As far as a mantle, since your FP can be appreciated from your DR also, if you add any mantle you might consider a wrap around one. Frankly though, since the space appears small and you have young people who might energetically use the area, I'd be more than a bit worried about someone smacking her/his head on a projecting mantle. It is appropriate for MCM FPs like yours to not have a mantle but still have art of some kind (Jere style metal sculptures or more typical canvases) displayed 5' or so above the floor. Once you have the seating layout figured out, you will have a better idea of the type and style coffee table. Some unexpected MCM shapes such a a free- form kidney (which may have one length straight) or other non-right-angles geometric shapes may help soften the room. I'd be inclined to wrap that mirror in some lively and lighthearted colors and patterns even if just done as a temporary treatment that can be changed at whim. (Pullog's beautiful whimsical kitchen tile comes to mind. You can wander over to the kitchen forum and search to see if that appeals.) Lots of us GWers know that Ebay, Goodwill and estate sales may provide the perfect furniture solutions with a very high-end value at a reasonable budget but it requires a bit of patience to find your bliss as pieces are usually acquired over time. That's a great solution as it allows your vision to expand over time. Enjoy your new home!

Buehl, thank you so much for doing that alternate layout for me. It really helps to see it. I actually really like the way it looks (although I might move the wine tower to the south wall or ditch it). It allows the less attractive range and ovens to be out of the direct sightline and lets me have the back wall full of tall cabinets and appliances like in my first design. The funny thing is, as much as I like it aesthetically, it might not work as well for us. I expect the aisle between the north wall and the island will be a prime traffic area, especially if kids and guests have to walk to the far east end of the kitchen, past the range, to get drinks from the fridge. The east wall is probably a more protected spot for cooking at the range, and keeping the ovens in the southeast corner means they will not open into the middle of a major traffic path. Cheril27, my preference is to stand on the north side of the island while prepping, so I am facing south, but can easily look west into the other room. The sink may actually force me to work on the south side of the island where there is a longer, unbroken expanse of counter. I know GWers really like prep sinks, and I can see it being useful occasionally, but I also see it being in my way a lot, which is why I wanted to tuck it into a corner. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by moving the sink to the middle of the island. Do you mean moving it further down the north side, like where I show the trash pullout or drawers, or move it the center of the shorter east end? I figured having the prep sink on the south side of the island across from the big sink would be pointless, since the 2 sinks would not be very spaced out then. I do occasionally look for Gagg ovens on ebay. I noticed several GWers comment in other posts that the Gagg warranties do not start until install, but MIL was told by the person who handles sales of BSH appliances to employees that the warranties for Gagg, Thermador and Bosch start running when they are delivered to us, even if they sit in the garage for 5 months waiting to be installed. Thanks for reminding me about the 18" wine towers. I originally wanted one to the far right of the sink, since it would be very convenient to the dining room, but DH hates the idea of a 24" deep tall appliance in that spot. If he is standing at the clean-up sink, he does not want a "big, hulking thing" right next to him and blocking the view into the next room (never mind that there is a support wall there anyway). Sandn, what kind of prep sink do you have and where did you buy it? Breezygirl, I appreciate the feedback because it makes me think. Right now, I cook a few meals on weekends, and re-heat leftovers or take out on work nights. We do want to start cooking more though. It is funny to me how many times I have been told the prep spaces in my various plans are small, because to us, they are huge compared to what we have worked with the past decade. I do want to get things right with this kitchen though, as I hope we are in this house for many, many years. DH is so upset with me that I can't just pick one of the many design possibilities we have discussed and just stick with it. He tells me it will never be perfect (because I can't fit what I really want in our space) and I should just be happy with 85% perfect and move on with my life. We have always made whatever kitchen we have work, so he doesn't get why I am stressing over the best possible layout (despite the large amount of $ it will cost and the fact that we plan to live here for 20+ years). DH is really pressuring me to go with the revised design I posted yesterday and not make any more changes, even little ones that don't affect our appliance order like swapping the DW position. He is getting very upset with me for re-visiting design decisions that he considers have already been made. He thinks I am flooding our unborn child with negative stress hormones because of this remodel and agonizing over decisions. He said this morning we should either go with the design I already have (no more changes) or put a complete moratorium on kitchen design (i.e., I can't shop, discuss, or even think about (LOL) the kitchen) for at least 5 months. Of course, if we delay, we lose the 40% discount on appliances. Like I am not stressed out enough without ultimatums. The kitchen design started out as a fun research project and has just become a miserable task. The custom cabinet guy called me yesterday afternoon to see if he could pick up some magazine pictures I had mentioned and to see if I have made any decisions. At the time, I was feeling pretty good about my design (with the changes to the island) so I agreed to meet with him today (in about 1 hour). He will give me 3-D color renderings of my design and a quote for the cabinetry. If I keep making changes, he will also think I am nuts. The last kitchen design we did with him was much easier. It was a smaller kitchen with a decent layout, so we decided not to move the appliances more than a few inches to save costs. I did one sketch of the cabinets showing exactly how wide and tall I wanted everything, and that was it. Having a blank slate is so much harder.

Hi Nutmegxo. I see why you're attracted to those last pictures. The fresh colors & nice workmanship make those rooms seem very attractive. However, you say that your house is a center hall Colonial, and those wall treatments derive from Mission and Arts & Crafts style house of the early 1900s, where the whole idea was to create a completely different--a more modern--feel than the Colonial houses of the century before. Oh, sure, you can mix styles all up--people do it all the time--but while a mix of different furniture styles in a single house can work out just fine, a mix of architectural feaures cobbled together from different styles in different centuries isn't often a success, especially when, as in a center hall plan, each room is clearly visible from the other. Normal size doorways with doors that close allow you to sneak the odd painted room into a house full of stained wood, or add an Art Deco bathroom to a Tudor manse, but the typical broad doorways in Colonial Revival houses make using different architectural styles in adjacent rooms a dicier proposition. That's the thinking behind some of the posters' suggestion above. Let's take a closer look at that blue room you posted. Pretty colors, that's for sure. But there are a few things that show somebody missed the bus. One of the things that bothers me is that the door looks like a generic six-panel door out of the Big Box store. These days, six-panel doors are as ubiquitous as were hollow-core slab doors when I was growing up in the 196Os, and like those doors, these are often used where they don't belong. A six-panel door in a modern house or contemporary condo is every bit as out-of-place as a slab door in a Federal style house, and just because they're easy to find (and some people see them as 'nicer' than cheap hollow core doors) doesn't make them suitable. Even if we assume that whever combined a door style from 1760 with a wall treatment from 1900 knew exactly what they were doing--and I'm not at all sure that's the case--they still missed an opportunity to do it well. Look at the door's cross-member. Now look at the upper horizontal on the wall. How hard would it have been to raise that wall molding four inches so it would align with the lines of the door? Or, if instead of painting the door all white, they really wanted to feature the [mismatched] door, why didn't they space the wall's moldings to match the panels on the door? Doing that could have allowed the blue to flow unbroken across the door's lower panels, better integrating the door into the overall look of the room. But instead of going to the hassle of finding a more approriate period-style door--either a five-panel model with stacked horizontals, or a three-panel model with one square panel above two vertical panels--or, if this wall treatment is new, adjusting it to match the door's proportions, they just took the easy no-thought middle course, buying & hanging a generic door with little thought given to how to better relate it to the other features in the room. Those kind of details are the things that, thought about early enough in the process, can make a a huge difference in the final results, and they often cost no more than doing things the same way everybody else does them and coming up with the same predictable results. Good design isn't about money, it's about thinking. But these days, all it takes is a pretty coat of paint to make a lot of people think a room is well-designed. M.