hi! I Now it makes more sense,seeing the entire space. Glad you are putting up new art. Just one large piece. And not too bright a mat, if matted. I am reading between the lines you write.....and am i reading that you dont want neutral drapes? Right now the door is a square with a bold wgite line around it. If you put teal or paprika or any color then you will have traded the white square for an even larger colored square which will compete for attention with the teal wall. Put the colors you are trying to work into the room on cushions and or a color band on the bottom of the drapes if you really want the color but the teal is enough. The last livingrm i did had a teal wall and the accent color was orange and it looked fab! Find some bed sheets that are a similar neutral color to the wall (buy some at thrft store if need be) and tack them over the door and watch your room look bigger and less buzy immediately. Then tack up a red or teal fabric and all you will be pulled to look at will be the square. I do really think that a strong color will make the room feel like"....somethings not right but what is it...", Maybe go to walmart amd a panel of each to try and then return them? I think the carpet is beautiful.

I just recently found out about our Dear Spencer. I am so sad. She had great design sense and knew her style!. I got her. I am so very sorry that I never got to see her of which she invited us several times. We couldn't wait to help her here on houzz and I got excited to see where her creativity would take her next! I am so happy that I wore leopard pants in honour of her, when many of us met in Nashville where she had tried to join us. I had talked to her several times and felt she was a good friend. She is missed! My love to her family!

What a great idea! It is hard to teach children not to trammel plants and beds, but my parents' garden (and houseplants on the winter windowsill) is where my siblings and I learned much. We started with the names of colors, and over time where our food came from, about seasonality and, as we grew older, the difference between annuals, biennials, perennials, cuttings for propagation, planting seeds, the difference between bulbs and corms and tubers, digging and storing these. Perhaps most of all, we learned about patience. We pressed colored autumn leaves and grasses between wax paper (waxy sides inward) and taped them in the kitchen windows. When older, we kids figured how to dry flowers. My mother bought one of those Four Season's salad dressing bottles (or was it Seven Seas?) and threw away the flavoring packet. We'd fill it to the lines marked for vinegar and oil, and she'd let us choose what herbs we liked from the herb garden. I imagine we had some odd combinations! When my father brought in lettuce from the garden, and it had been washed, we kids loved swinging it in one of the those french wire baskets to get the water out. That was before salad spinners. You've hit on a rich vein! But you didn't want sentimental recollections; you wanted ideas. Raised beds, pots and flower boxes will help the trampling issue. A calendar and schedule and a quart kitchen pitcher for watering will teach useful skills including measuring volumes and some beginning math. For fun, consider a winding tunnel of hoops with vines trained over it. Crawking height will be high enough, but have an exit at the half-way point for kids who loose their nerve. Consider a teepee of poles with vines on them. Scarlet runner beans and purple hyacinth beans provide showy flowers as well as beans. Be aware that any enclosure like these needs to have a clear view into them for you to keep track of the kids, and for kids to see you for a sense of security. Maybe a friend can cast concrete disks for a garden path, with numbers inscribed on them. Or the alphabet letters in them along with images of leaves, flowers, fruits, birds, insects, animals with names that start with that letter. Then you can develop counting and word games around them. Gift shops can probably find for you those stones with engraved words on them that you can tuck around the garden for kids who may be ready to sound out their first written words, or you can invent your own versions of with paint. You can look up online every plant you use to find out ahead of time whether it is toxic. It will be useful to search by the binomial Latin name. Water can be an insurance and liability issue, and a maintenance task. But if you think it through carefully, there are safe ways to use it. For example water that flows down a verticle surface and through a surface grate into an inaccessible trough for recirculation. Anything where water gets no deeper than 1/4 inch. Kids will love to stick their finger against the sheet of water it to watch the pattern in the flow change. Pretty tiles from the local kitchen store can give it visual appeal. Don't forget the idea of an indoor fish tank on a sturdy surface up at kid's eye-level, and with nothing to climb on that would give them access to the top. There are plenty of interesting insects to learn about. If you have one of those do-it-yourself ceramic shops near you, and you have some artistic talent, you might make tiles with familiar insects on them to place around the garden. There are some children's rhymes that go with these: Itsy bitsy spider; lady bug lady bug... there are websites full of such rhymes and folk sayings. Pressing leaves with a hot iron is definitely not for little kids. But it is something you may want to have kids watch you do (put the waxy sides toward one another). It is a great chance to ask them to compare and notice the different kinds of profiles and veins. They can be posted in your windows, or cut up and sent home with the kids (in which case it might help to tape the edges shut). For rainy days, you can have kids cut out and tape (or staple together) three dimensional flowers of their own invention, if their motor skills are far enough along. That might be for older kids, but I'll never forget the teacher who had us put all of them together on a the bulletin board in a big bouquet that cheered us through March! Or the kids can shape them from PlayDo while you read aloud to them. If you have a fenced yard -- you probably will -- there are some thornless roses with a sprawling habit that can be trained horizontally across the top of the fence (which encourages bloom). Rose hips (fruits) are non-toxic, rich in Vitamin C, and so sour the kids won't eat more than one! But they can be used in little bouquets in autumn and winter. As for fairy gardens, what great miniature project, if the kids' handskills are up to it. Bark, twigs, lichen, dried grass, moss can make a pretty effect. Maybe an indoor rainy-day tabletop project. And there must be reading aloud opportunities to go with that, or a chance for the kids to make up stories to go with it. If you plant trees, do your research to locate ones with pretty flowers and pretty fall color. If deciduous, you can add twinkle lights to cheer the scene when days grow short. If you live in a snowy climate -- or even if you don't -- don't forget that childhood favorite of making paper snowflakes with ordinary printing paper and scissors. But around the holidays you can get shiny foil papers, which kids like working with. The first thing kids learn to write is their name, even before they know their alphabet. Signing art projects gives them a use for writing their name, and if you decorate with their work, it helps you sort things out when it is time to take them home. A lot of these ideas may be too old for the age level you'll be caring for, but you are the expert and can sort that ideas. I hope this gets the creative juices flowing. Have a great time with it!

You are so kind. I am sorry about the laying down. I often lose my breath that war but yours seems so severe with a partial lung. I wish you you happiness and lots of support and love. I live your orchid idea. I worry about direct sunlight so do you think the pool should have a trellis or overhand that offers part shade? also, this website sounds phenomenal. I have 0 income and am past 1k dats for SSDI as they think I will get better bc of age but they don't understand that I have degenerative conditions so money and long drives are a challenge. I gave tried to find resources to help with any aspect of daily living and right now, like you,I have found very few sites that actually suit my. Needs, not just wants. Thank you so much. I found my tractor at my local Tuesday morning. Unlike the walker i can sit low enough to the ground, the chair is the right height so I can reach the plants but use a canr to stand. Because the tractor isn't power operated i must start at the top of a hill and use inertia to roll down or I am stuck or requiring a cane it my feet to move along an area. I will take photo after nap - I am highly photosensitive and can feel something coming on if I don't take s break. anithrr benefit of my tractor ...the ground is safety got 2 go