"And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters" "Resolution and Independence", Henry Wordsworth "In sweet water there is a pleasure ungrudged by anyone." Ovid, 13 A.D. "If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water." Loran Eisley (Anthropologist), The Immense Journey, 1957 In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans. -- Kahlil Gibran The dream of my life is to lie down by a slow river and stare at the light in the trees ~ to learn something by being nothing -- Mary Oliver, from "Entering the Kingdom" And if the earth has forgotten you Say to the still earth: I am flowing. To the rushing waters say: I am. --Rilke, from Sonnets to Orpheus Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your headwith silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby. - Langston Hughes, April Rain Song, 1902 - 1967 Everywhere water is a thing of beauty gleaming in the dewdrop, singing in the summer rain. - John Ballantine Gough I came where the river Ran over stones; My ears knew An early joy. And all the waters Of all the streams Sang in my veins That summer day. - Theodore Roethke, The Waking, 1948 When you hear the splash Of the water drops that fall Into the stone bowl You will feel that all the dust Of your mind is washed away. - Sen-No-Rikyu The sound of the water says what I think. - Chuang Tzu "I'm singing in the rain, just singing in the rain; What a wonderful feeling, I'm happy again." Arthur Freed This is fun. I love the idea. What do you think of these?

I did consider dividing one of the twins closets but decided against it because I do like having 2 closets in each bedroom, makes it easier to keep rooms oranized. The floors, doors are all original so I think the original owners just wanted the easy access so they could use it as a study/office. I also like having larger bedrooms for the kids, the rooms seem to stay neater than when they have had small bedrooms. Our last house was a new house and was good sized, great kitchen and pantry, but the kids bedrooms were small which we all disliked. Buehl- Thank you so much! I have been playing with the layout and nothing was fitting how I was trying it out. I had the pantry as this long, thin space at the end of the kitchen. I never considered moving the dishwasher to the other side. Both of your plans are just beautiful, I love them and really appreciate the time you took to make my kitchen into a workable and enjoyable room. I am not even sure which one I like better at this point. We have a whole pile of leftover brick from when they built the house so we could have the windows shortened up and use the original brick. On layout 2, I could drop the counter part to table height, do you think that would look better if I was leaving the windows their current height? The pantry is heavenly to me! I would have room to have small appliances back in the kitchen instead of in the basement. Only appliances I keep in the kitchen are my kitchen aid mixer, toaster and coffee maker. All others are downstairs and I run down, bring it up, use it then return it. Very disorganized and I spend some time looking for what I need sometimes. Our house was built in 1956, has floor (6 inches above floor) to ceiling window in the twins room and a huge wall window in the dining room. Love the light and the windows, surprisingly they did 2 panes of glass in those windows and they did great on my energy audit. I keep telling DH I am tempted after the kitchen project to change our master to the twins room, purely because of the window and the view of the backyard.

Can you take one photo from farther away and one relatively close so we get a better feel for what the overall picture is? My thought was similar to Ken's, that your new plants look too close to the house though it's difficult to tell from the one shot posted. When I plant shrubs I look up the width (which is usually size at 10 years.) I then add a couple of feet so I can do any needed work on the house and also 10% to 20% of the 10 year width to account for growth past 10 years since I don't want to be a slave to pruning or have branches damage the house. Since Missouri Botanical Garden says this plant get to 8' wide, the plant's base should be a minimum of 7 feet from the house (1/2 of 8'= 4' plus 2' plus 10%-20%.) You can do similar math for the Hybiscus. For other plants, try a medium sized evergreen or a small tree such as a disease resistant flowering crabapple planted diagonally off the right corner. In between the shrubs you can plant some larger easy care shade-loving perennials such as Astilbe, Actaea simplex (often listed as Cimicifuga racemosa), especially one of the dark-leafed forms such as Brunetter or Hillside Black Beauty, hosta, ferns, Hakone grass (I like the gold one), or smaller shrubs such as Diervilla sessilifolia Cool Splash, Annabelle Hydrangea (you'll need to remove suckers annually to keep it from spreading) or Microbiota decussata AKA Russian arborvitae (though it isn't an arborvitae), a shade tolerant evergreen. Having a range of color size and texture in the leaves will keep the garden interesting even when plants aren't blooming. If you plant the non-spreaders in clumps of several, they will be more visually effective when viewed from the road.

HI. Before you buy chairs I have an observation and questions. -Looking at your ideabook, it ranges from contemporary to modern. I don't think adding chairs in an alternate style works well for you. Right now, the setup looks great, and I would hesitate to play with it more. Questions -how often do you have extra people at the table? --how much room is there around the table to add chairs? (doesn't appear to be a lot) -could you simply pull in chairs that already exists in the living room, when you need them?