When adding blown-in insulation to the attic space (under the roof), one should consider installing spacers along the perimenter where the rafters rest on the headers. The purpose of these spacers is to keep the insulation from touching the roof boards and to insure a vent space along the eaves. When my house was built (1976), the blown insulation installers piled the insulation to the specfied depth, did not install spaers, but pulled the insulation away whereever ti threatened to touch the roof. If I were to add insulation, I would specify the spacers and then the installers have more freedom to pile the insulation thick along the outer edges. After additional insulation, the next best payback is reducing wind leakage. If I ever re-side my house, wind proofing and extra external insulation will be ordered. In a 2-storey house, one place the wind sneaks in is at the joist space for the second storey floor. Sometimes, the header is not fully closed, particularily where the outside wall has a jog in or out. The wind can enter and blow between the upper floor and the loser ceiling. I had one of these that would freeze water pipes when the wind was in the right direction. (Had to cut a hole in the wall to patch this leak.) When its light outside, cover the basement windows and turn out all the basement lights. And then, carefully look along the top edge of the basement. Small openings can be spotted by looking for specs of light from the outside. Places that are sometimes missed by builders are spaces under the sills of doors that open to the outside. These spaces are easily sealed with expanding foam. Look at the sump pump outlet pipe where it goes through the wall. Often, this is nothing more than a pipe in a hole and is not sealed. Seal the outside with flexible, weather-proof, long life, caulking. In my house, the 3 largest heat loosers are two big bay windows on the front of the house and a full width, sliding patio door at the rear. The botom side of the bay window boxes did not have any insulation. It was just 5/8 inch thickness of wood between the inside and outside. I cemented foam insulation to the bottom side. The same situation exists at the top of these window boxes, but these are inacessible because these are jammed tight against the soffets. The glass is sealed, double paned glass, but that is too poor for todays needs. Switching to low-E sealed glass can reduce these loses. These bay windows have no storm window coverings. Also, the height of these windows are excessive. My best solution would be to replace these bay window units with higer effecient designs and reduce the height of the glass to about 2/3 of what they are now. Another place to reduce heat loss that is easy to do and low cost is to insulate the headers in the basement. Friction fit, fiber-glass bats work here. Use a breathing mask and protective gloves when working with fiber glass or any other fiberous bat materials.

I would definitely notice because I am just a tad obsessed with trim, and I consider a variety of trim to be a feature, not a mistake. In fact, in houses where everything matches, especially if it's boring trim, my eye desperately wanders the place in search of variety! I realize that's unusual. The rules of decorating to objective standards do dictate matching or at least harmonizing trim, and it can have a nice unifying effect. I think the primary question is really this: do YOU care if your trim all matches? Do you want to meet an objective standard (for example, to put the house on the market), or just your own? If you do care, then the other question is: what kind of trim do you want in your house? If you like the original, then you want to at least harmonize with that as per your plan. But if you don't like the original anyway, I wouldn't feel bound by it at all. It doesn't really sound like something that any other trim would "clash" with, even if it's not mitred. (Unlike Palimpsest, I'm not reading that you like the original - maybe I'm missing something). You could probably do a mock-up with paper panels to see if your idea would meet your standards. FWIW, I live in what Palimpsest describes, a hundred year-old house which already had a couple of kinds of trim when we moved in, the 100-year old and the 50-year old (in the addition). I love the 100, and hate the 50, although we have lived with the 50 for 16 years and are just getting around to changing it. But we lost a bunch of the 100 because we changed some of the doorway sizes when we renovated the old part of the house at the outset. We chose one primary style then to replace it, but already can't get that one any more... it's too wide for some applications anyway... and I like different mouldings anyway... so our house is (or will be when it's all installed) a mish mash. I look down my hallway (it's a linear house) and see four successive doorways with four different trims. And yes, I even have a couple of corner-blocked openings in a houseful of mostly miters. It's possible that it works because the house is old and eclectic anyway, or because it's the opposite of open-plan, or that I just can't see that it doesn't work :-) Mitering can be difficult if you don't have either good angles or the right tools (a miter saw and accurate ways to measure and transcribe), and takes some practice. There are right and wrong ways to do it, and a correct sequence in which to do the pieces - information is, as always, available on line. If you're painting, you can fill cutting mistakes, but I suspect it would show. KarinL

There! Computer guru finally came and I'm finally back online.. Thanks to every one at KT for all the suggestions and ideas...you were all pertty close. At lunch last day I could post, was telling friend and she is librarian...she said 'oh, that's easy - why don't you contact a university with Dept of Entomology? Bingo. Turns out I have/had CLUSTER FLIES. Got spray that says 'kills on contact', sprayed all windows, sills, doors etc etc, and wish you could see the thousands that died. DH said...'you need a hand vac like a Dirt Devil, with moth ball flakes in it"...bingo again. Washed windows & sills, most are now dead & gone. Had long planned picnic on porch for 16 women last nite, and thank God they didn't have to see the mess...too hot now (100 here on direct water!!) to finish cleaning windows in rest of house but will this week end. Glenda - can't wait to get out of this heat! Alaska here we come. end of Next week.

For me it's more I get visually bored after a while. However, moving things around is exhausting when you have as many books and bookcases as we do, so we only seem to do it every 10-15 yrs [smile]. We did a massive change of our MBR suite in 2015, but it needed it since it was a 1989 end-of-the-project-budget disaster. It was a "we can make do with this for a while" cheapo finishing after we originally bought the house in '89 and completely gutted it before moving in. Now it's the nicest room in the house, but it sure was bargain-basement ugly for almost 25 yrs. "Dated" would have been a kindness to apply to it back then! I would love to update my 1989 kitchen, but that would require a major investment in replacing cabinets, and my countertops from a 2003 update are still in flawless shape. Since the layout is still perfect, the frameless semi-custom cabs would cost 4x what we originally paid, to replace. Since the cabs are also in great shape, I have absolutely no justification for replacing anything but a dying appliance or two when it happens.