I would appear your house is on a corner lot, yes? Yet the orientation of the bed is entirely full frontal. I would add more plants around the side, some simple, low maintenance flowering shrubs would do it. I agree with the comment on proportion. Is the tree in photo #1 still there? If so, it might suffice as it grows. Don't put giant Phoenix canariensis quite so close to the house as pictured. My next comment is not directed at this homeowner in particular, so please don't take it personally, it's just a general observation of photos I've seen posted on this board. I don't understand the penchant for tacking these kidney-esque beds to the front of a house and leaving the rest of the garden untouched. This example is better executed than most, but I see these as not much visual impact for probably a significant investment, which is unfortunate. I suggest to anyone looking through these threads for ideas to spend just a little more for a professional designer with a lot more imagination. In this case the homeowner wants low maintenance, and maybe that is the overriding design concern, and well met here, but the space has so much more potential.

We have a very similar berber carpet in our basement family room but it has small flecks of blue in it! We didn't go with blue paint because I couldn't find a blue that was light enough to be in the basement but had the look I wanted. Instead we have a beautiful Pratt and Lambert paint called Havana Cream on the walls, the ceiling is lighter and we have a blue paterned ottomon and lots of blue in our art and accessories. By the way we love the look and function of the carpet. It looks great after 5 years and lots of kid and pet abuse. Even survived a nasty orange soda experience!

The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier (1969) I first read The House on the Strand the year it was published, 1969, not knowing or caring what genre or subgenre it was considered to be. I have since learned it is classified as science fiction/fantasy, neither of which I usually like a whole lot. It's a good thing that I was then ignorant of such classification because I might have passed over The House on the Strand, a story that has given me immense pleasure in reading and rereading over the years, as well as contemplating it at times between readings. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to write a full-blown review of THotS for this thread, so I looked through some of my earlier notes and writings about it and found a summary that I wrote in May 2005, something that I probably posted here at Reader's Paradise. I can't believe that was almost nine years ago! Reading through that piece again, I think it remains pretty much what I still think after yet another rereading. So below is what I wrote then: The House on the Strand has been classified as science fiction and fantasy, neither of which I ordinarily like a whole lot. Okay, I will concede that the story has elements of science fiction and fantasy -- after all, the main vehicle of the story is time travel. However, I will venture that the main theme is capturing the essence of a time and place in the past, in a way that we as moderns can never quite grasp even when we really and truly want to. Daphne du Maurier used her own house in Cornwall as the focal point for imagining not only its history but the history of the region and its inhabitants during the first half of the fourteenth century (just prior to the Black Plague) -- a brilliant stroke, in my opinion, and one that makes me trust her storytelling more. Not that I expect this story to be a "true" history, but I find that the details of the landscape, time, and characters have the right feel. So much so that I, as a reader, am right there with Dick Young, the twentieth-century protagonist, as we accompany Roger Kylmerth, our guide and the original 14th-century owner of du Maurier's "Kilmarth," on his rounds of the surrounding countryside. Roger, a steward to the widowed Lady Joanna Champernowne, the primary landowner of the region, has the advantage of being able to insinuate himself into all camps. Roger is not always a sympathetic character but he is all the more real for it. Likewise, our contemporary Dick is not always sympathetic: he's married to an American woman who has two pre-teen sons from her previous marriage. We get the feeling that although Dick might love his wife and he has a certain fondness for his stepsons, he would probably do just as well -- or be as happy -- if they just disappeared from his life. He's between jobs and is ambivalent about his wife's plans for him "on her side of the Atlantic." Thus, he accepts his old school chum's offer to take a breather at his family...

I would post in this forum. http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/kitchbath There are people there who know their stuff.