If it's any help, nothing to be embarrassed about. We don't all have a kid in the house to show us these things:) I'm bad enough with the camera I bought that I haven't even reinstalled the software for it since buying a new computer in Fall - you don't see photos coming from me. Maybe the privacy option went the way of actual birth dates, or is still tied into the change that puts all the strange symbols when someone tries to list measurements or temperatures. There are some very savvy people on Computer Help forum but this isn't an actual computer problem as opposed to GW glitch I think.

Oh, wherever things can possibly be complicated or delayed, I'm sure to find them! I was looking for advice firstly with the right "look". Once I knew what I "should" be aiming for, I figured I could fudge or approximate it somehow, depending on what the contractor told me/was willing to do. If nothing else, I now know what I need to aim for. The black option that I posted above is pretty wide, so I thought that would help give the impression of being wider-mounted, and in fact it's from a line called "Old Sturbridge", which should read traditional/colonial enough for the house. I also thought I had a better chance of using the existing wire hole to satisfactory effect if I got a down-arm or armless lantern. But maybe it's too authentic for a revival house and only really works on 1700s saltbox? The paint is alligatored and we aren't replacing or sanding the siding, so I was going to go with a sort of dark color to try to camoflage the condition. But now I'm rethinking that, in light of Teacat's suggestion that I make the entire surround off-white. I wouldn't want a lot of contrast on the house, so if we do whitish trim we'll go for a lighter colored house. We did sand (with a palm sander!) a house once. But that one was already down to bare wood in some places. This house has been painted at least once since it started cracking; the alligatoring is now effectively preserved for the long run. We are older and less ambitious now.

Roopa if you bought that oriental rug with the bright red and the aqua background, I would go with a pale aqua or pale blue wall. Off white, pale yellow or cream works very well too. It's the daytime light with all the beautiful windows you have to feel airy during the day and a pleasing wall color to look at night and enjoy, not overpowering!

Some observations: * Houseplants can't be blamed for fungus gnats. They appear as if by magic when the grow medium is capable of providing for their populations. They like wet/soggy soil and decaying vegetative matter like unfinished compost or any of several soil amendments the purpose of which is to provide soil structure or nutrients. Feather/ hoof or horn/ blood/ alfalfa, cotton seed, and other 'meals', fish or seaweed emulsion, ...... anything with an organic component that breaks down quickly, will have them swooning in orgiastic delight. Your plants don't like to be as wet as fungus gnats prefer, so a lighter hand on the watering can will often be all it takes to eliminate them. * If you're watering when the top inch or two of the grow medium is dry, you're over-watering. What's important is how wet/dry the medium is at the pot's bottom. Use a wooden "tell" to "tell" you when it's time to water instead of your digital device (finger). More below on using a 'tell'. * As noted, they need full sun to bloom, or at least to bloom with profusion. * In containers, avoid high-Phosphorous fertilizers (bloom boosters). The plant cannot use all the P they provide, and the excess can very seriously diminish any potential to be an advantage. A fertilizer with a 3:1:2 ratio (like Foliage-Pro 9-3-6) is all you need to satisfy all your canna's nutritional needs in containers. To be appropriate, any nutrient supplementation for gardens and beds should be based on a soil test or what you provide amounts to little more than a SWAG. * If your plant was outdoors for more than a week, it may have suffered from the rapid decrease in light load. If it developed 'problems' the same day, day after, or first day of full sun, it might have suffered from sun burn, a chemical reaction related to light overload (photo-oxidation). That's all for now - time to get dinner on the table. Best luck. Using a 'tell' Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need plenty of air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support the kind of root health most growers would like to see; and, a healthy root system is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips leads to avoid over-watering leads to a residual build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil from tapwater and fertilizer solutions, which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma. It creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor. In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water. Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'. One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) would work better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half and serve as a pair. Sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell comes out dry or nearly so. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue. Al