Patser is right about washing down all the walls and the ceilings, but you don't have to do it all right now. Focus on areas where he spends the most time and work out from there. Fabuloso makes a lavender cleaner that leaves a very light scent. I've used Fabuloso in my carpet cleaning machine instead of the manufacturer's shampoo (probably this kills the warranty, but I like the smell better). White vinegar works on smells that don't come out with cleaning. You can use Febreeze, but it will be more expensive. I quit smoking 24 years ago, and I saved money that would have gone up in smoke and bought myself some really expensive, real perfume. Note: Depression (weeping over old movies and things, for example) is normal after bypass surgery. It will pass, but it scares a lot of men. It helps to have a buddy who has been through it.

I even have an old metal doll house that was given to me around age 3. I still have the house, all the furniture and the dolls. But the door and windows are all broken off their hinges and lost. I kept it at my parents' house for many years. When my daughters were little, I brought it back for them to play with. Now it's in my attic, waiting for either Grandchildren or Ebay. I also have a dollhouse kit I bought some 30 years ago, but never put together. It looks like Scarlett O"hara's mansion, Tara. That is, if it ever got put together.

I, too, love Mrs. Meyer's Lemon Verbena. They even make a toilet bowl cleaner in that line. However, it doesn't help me avoid the BIG thing I'm trying to avoid - a toilet bowl brush (see original post). I've tried to find single use toilet bowl brushes which do not contain a cleaner, just so I could use the Mrs. Meyer's product. The closest I got was a patent application for one. Never could find that it had gotten to the marketplace. In my search, I found an hilarious bulletin board in the UK about toilet cleaning. It was much blunter about some of the ickier aspects of the job than we have been. One suggestion was to buy scrubbie-backed sponges at the dollar store, cut them up and use them with the wand like I have. I may have to give that a try. I also found where someone had taken a jar from a beauty supply place (the kind used to sanitize combs) and modified it to fit the toilet brush handle through the lid. He kept the brush in it sitting in some sort of disinfectant. Fairly ingenious, but just another thing to clean.

"We've had a few landscape designers come out to give us ideas, but most of them want to over-plant and turn the place into a forest." There is pressure in the industry to go in this direction and it comes from everywhere: the client, the boss, the contractors. Everybody wants to squeeze more plants in if they can. Part of this is impatience. Everyone wants quick or instant results. Part of it comes from the urge to sell product. And part of it comes from peer pressure; a designer may not feel like they're "doing enough" professionally if they aren't providing the fullest look. I felt this in my early days of work and it took a long time to resist. It's a nice looking, good sized house, but the walk to the front porch is seriously undersized relative to everything else. Unfortunately, it cheapens the look of everything else. The walk and the step should be the width (or nearly) of the opening between the porch posts. Due to the grade, it would probably require installing a small retaining wall. (There really ought to be a retaining wall there now. I can picture maintenance difficulty and erosion problems on the way.) If you ever decide to fix it, I would explore the idea of eliminating one step, by tilting the walk slightly upward as it approaches the porch. (The picture doesn't indicate if this is feasible.) IMO, there is not enough shown in the pictures to give much feedback on planting. From the overall front, it looks like you could use some large trees off the corner of the house, but neither of these areas can be seen well. Nor can the complete foundation planting area be seen. (We only see the central part from a hard angle.) My picture is not a comprehensive look, but is only addressing the walk issue.