Oh the culling of one's books thread. How many variations of this topic have we had, and almost all with the same results. If one is a bibliophile, it's really, REALLY hard to part with those books on the shelf. Josh, how could you get rid of James/Jan Morris? His trilogy (written when he was James) on the British Empire will be in my library forever. I'm pretty brutal about the fiction I keep. If a novel doesn't really speak to me, out it goes into the boxes that go either to the library's used book store or into the boxes of book that I'll donate to the AAUW used book sale this fall. My downfall is the noon-fiction. Gardening books cascading off the shelves & ditto for the books on history. And yes, all this information (or most of it) is on-line, but I know which book it's in so it's easier for me to take it off the shelf than to wade through 1,000 Google search results. Right now I've gotten hooked on a series called The Modern Library Food - a set of books edited by Ruth Reichl that cover all things gastronomic. I just finished Endless Feasts a collection of 60 years of writing about food from Gourmet magazine & now am into Remembrance of Things Paris which is a ditto only covering that magazines essays about food in France. It's a little bit of fantasy: how to have the perfect French christening party (with recipes), the utter joy that was the old Les Halles market, and little reminders about inflation when I read that a dinner check at Maxim's in 1947 was $16.00.

Thank you all for such thought-provoking comments. They are really helping me work through this undertaking! Sandy, all of your info is appreciated, and I especially liked your comments, "Your land will actually speak to you" and "The right plant will present itself to you when you're at a nursery sometime." I know these are true, and I need to not be in such a hurry! Your spacing and color info is very helpful, but I have a couple more questions (for greenhaven, also). I've seen lots of pictures of perennials mixed in with roses, or a clematis twining through a rose bush. Doesn't this make it harder to care for and prune the roses, and doesn't it limit the air circulation? I have 3 Carefree Wonders that look gorgeous by themselves. Can I plant them closer together since they are the same rose? I have 3 Quietness (very lovely pale pink) and 3 Winnipeg Parks (a pretty red that looks beautiful with the Quietness). I have other contrasting and/or blending of 3 or 4 single bushes that look good together IMO. Is it possible to have multiple focal point groups, separated by low evergreens or green perennials in the space I have and have it look good? I really like informal gardens more than formal, especially with our setting. I've seen lots of pictures of parts of gardens with roses, or formal rose gardens, but I've not seen any plans showing predominantly rose gardens, interplanted with other perennials. Any ideas where I could look at such plans for roses? greenhaven, DH nixed the manure, so I'll put peat in the planting hole in the 12" of top soil. Thanks for the specific info! sunnyrose, thanks for the heads up on the Roundup. I'll check into it further. alisande, thanks for the pic of the large spruce. This, with greenhavens warning, motivates me to go back out and more carefully look where the sun will fall when our spruce is mature. We got our estimate for building a wall today, so we've decided to bite the bullet and do it. One more thing, any opinions on whether I should have structures for my climbing roses mentioned earlier? Or do you think I'll be ok trying them as very large shrubs in the more open background? Anne

You led me to believe there was a crisis but there is none. When you said that the kitchen was dark, I thought you were using a very dark grey. This is not dark grey. As long as the room is light and pleasant and functional in different light situations, there's no problem. Light can be introduced in different ways, including sconces and countertop lamps and more wattage in lighbulbs. If you find the paint needs to be lightened to an even lighter grey, you can always do that with some more paint. You have no urgent need to do any changes for a while. An inspiration picture is for inspiration, not for dictatorship. Go in peace.

mairin - I guess there's a chance they'd mess up the finished floor if they did that now? Anyway, I wanted the newel just 1 step up, same as it would be if we had a bullnose step and volute/turnout, they could still notch it out to snug up to 2nd tread. But 1st guy didn't want to do that, wanted permnission in writing from building inspector (and now 9 months later I'm even more reluctant to go asking), 2nd guy never got back to me after coming out for a quote and nodding his head yes the whole time, and my cousin who has been doing all the trim in my house (and building new window jambs and stools where the builder didn't do them right) says that he doesn't want to do it, even if we put blocking under the first tread. I guess when they're on the floor they actually are attached to a joist? I showed him pics of crazyhouse6's newel and he didn't think it would hold up to lateral forces (swinging), though it was fine for someone just pulling straight on it. So what do you think of my newel options? Which should I choose? It will be 2 weeks to get the oak contemporary newel that I posted first. The 2.5 x 3.5 blocks of cherry are here, just need to get cousin to cut and route them, I can put clear finish on and get them up but I don't know how they look with oak rail. My favorite is still the vertical volute with a newel somewhere near the bottom, but I haven't even thought of balusters (BC newel and rail with oak balusters?), and I need to find someone to install it.