@judyg-- only "sometimes" ?? I'm afraid our two dogs firmly believe they own the bed, as they constitute an essential part of our heating system. A bleachable white sheet for them over the duvet is thus crucial.

Anyone who has raised a bunch of boys know that white bleachable sheets are the ONLY way to go!

Boy am I late moving from 1/13 to 1/14! Love that blue! I had to compromise on color in my kitchen, because it had to go with green ceramic tile I didn't feel like having to replace .. and then I carried that "Pale Teal" to the 2 smaller bedrooms.

That pale teal is pretty, astraea!

My dog and two kitties sleep with us. The kitties like to be foot warmers and my pomeranian sleeps in between us, so as not to get kitty cooties.

I love that green tile astraea, Does it have a crackle glaze?

bobbi, here is a link to the Oprah show… http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Mackenzie-Phillips-Secret-Her-Family-Reacts

feeny, No, I just said sometimes, but it was a typo for allthetime. :>). Love my baby kitty who is almost 5. She came along at a very bad time for me. I had gone 8 months, undiagnosed, with a horrible tumor on my adrenal gland. (All the specialists I saw, after it was determined I didn't have brain cancer, ALS, MS, etc) decided I was mentally ill. It was awful for me, but more importantly for C P and my wonderful daughter. My primary care stayed with me and kept searching and finally came up with the diagnosis…a two in a million tumor, one found by good fortune and one found at autopsy. Meanwhile , I finally concede that there is something mentally wrong with me and find this absolutely fabulous psychiatrist, Chinese, and she stuck by me, also, saying I was okay and it was something wrong with me, physically.

After my diagnosis and after my surgery, we went to the Animal Rescue League adoption day and I found this little adorable kitten. I named her after my psychiatrist. Probably should not have told her (I thought she would be complimented, but I guess the Chinese NEVER do anything like that.) Anyway, I still see her once a year, just to keep up, in case I get this tumor again. Love her and love my kitty.

See what I mean, busylady? Decorating, laughing, counseling, sharing, the best.

Hey, it is 5:40 here, anyone having a drinkie poo?

Judyg, I hope you meant biopsy...not autopsy:) What a blessing that you had a physician that was willing to dig beyond the obvious. I have white wine in hand!

I need help on a green paint color to coordinate with Costa Rosa granite. Kitchen and cabinets are BM Acadia White. http://www.linley.com/CostaRose.htm

Hi judyg, I am so glad I found this group! I like it that you all chat about everything under the sun! I hope your health continues to improve, what a terrible time you have had. I am pleased to see you have kept your sense of humour- naming your cat after your psychiatrist! They say pets are good therapy!

Creeser – Have you seen the silly TV commercial, where the guy comes into the office looking like he’s wearing mukluks, but it turns out it’s his cats hanging on to his legs?

No Michi, no crackle glaze .. just too green for me.

Judy! That's awful! I'm glad it turned out ok, but you must have been beside yourself with worry, and C P and DD too. Holy moley!

Morning all. It is overcast and grey here too which I hate because, although it is on the cold side, it means it is really muggy. Actually cold during the night and that was with my heavy doona on!!!!

Gosh Judy, that must have been a terrible time for you, so glad all is well now. So much is luck of the draw with doctors and the help you get. From what I can gather of your health system, it isn't easy to do the rounds of doctors either.

Welcome busylady, your name sums us all up. You don't happen to come from up round the Isle of Harris do you? My grandmother's family came from there and I am interested to know anything about the place.

Astraea, I think I mentioned once before in a discussion somewhere that you can paint your tiles. Not sure now if there is a special undercoat that goes on first and then you paint the tiles normally, or if the paint is a special product as well. They are a nice green and look an interesting tile too, just not what I would call a 'morning' colour that I like kitchens to have. Are your cupboards a pink or a beigy/pink or is it the light?

Thanks for the support MP, I always defied the "blue and green should never be seen without some other colour in between". So far the walls are devoid of artwork except the timber wall which has a lovely painting on it I love - it is an Aussie bush/billabong scene and the colours look great on the timber so it stands alone and opposite the lounge so isn't part of the 'lounge scene' in the room. I then have one wall of glass which will be curtained in a pale cream, so the L of the lounge goes along the other two unbroken walls and any artwork will be above the lounges. The entrance to the room is in a corner and part of the timber wall on the left. The glass doors come down the room on the right, so looking diagonally across the room is the corner of the two solid walls with the lounge going into that corner. The two walls are the full impact of the room - if that makes sense.

I like to have photos of the grands in the room as everyone loves to see them so was thinking of putting them on the side wall opposite the glass doors. On the back wall (as I call it) and the one opposite the entrance the jury is still out on. I did a photography course and on a photoshoot one day we went to a nearby beach which has an amazing rockshelf full of rockpools teeming with life. My camera battery had died and I was using the photographer's camera to play around with so never got the photos I took but have had it in my mind to do a collage of these rockpools, they look so restful and would be very cooling in the room too. Have to get around to going down and taking more photos as the colours may not be right for the room, too green/brown. Would still like to keep to a beachy theme and DD said she and partner will do canvas prints for me for my birthday she has a lot of photos she thinks would be good and her partner is a camera buff so he has heaps too. Just need the time to sort through them now. I have saved a few ideas from house -

[houzz=]
[houzz=]

Ooops hit the trigger too soon -

[houzz=]

Actually looking at the first photo now, they have patterned cushions and it looks ok. I think it might be the busying up my room needs.

mm, autopsy, not biopsy. The tumor is called a pheochromocytoma, or as I affectionally call it, a pheo. And, your favorite wine? red/white/anything?

bobbi, pix? i know you are camera shy, but you love that ochre so much and I would be afraid to use it…love to see how it looks with the white.

Girlfriends, please look at the granite link I posted. Need help there. Very grey/sagey green.

Mornin Roo, afternoon and evening to the rest of you crazy people! :)
oh and welcome to you busylady! If you like nuts, you'll love us! lol

bob, you are just painting everything in the house now, eh? take a flippin pic of the living room or your guest room or something. I keep hearing, but not seeing...hello? maybe it would benefit you to let me see some of your crib, mama! that's a hint.....

I had a dog and a cat on my legs this morning while sitting on the couch. they love me. and Nala is paranoid now that we had those abandoned cats in carriers at the house that day, after we cat-napped them. she thinks we are bringing in competition.

and creesy, i know how you feel...i haven't seen boo mappin either. she just talks on a play phone to me. she'll walk around the house like i'm on the other end. talk about making me feel guilty..

and bob, mal's bday is tamale.....coffee and shower time! hahaha!

judyg and michi...don't get to wild with your cocktail hourssssssssssss!

leavin work....been trying to build a website all day. I am so NOT good with technology. I have no idea how to make a button go to another page from the menu, etc. this is going to be interesting. You'll probably click a button and go to some weird site! oh my

nitey gals! love ya, mean it!

roo, can you make the photos monotone...don't HAVE to be black and white...can be blue and white or something crazy!

@astraea. I like your kitchen! You even got a little rug for the floor to coordinate! :)
Nice color in the other room, too. Calm.

After not having any precipitation at all since Christmas, today we had SNOW! This morning it started out as little cold spits, then went to heavy wet flakes, and is now very fine, powdery stuff. Of course today happened to be the day my handyman and my yard guy could both come on the same day - it is a two person job of hard work trimming back a 30 foot (about 10 meters) span of Silver Lace vine. I also needed them for lots of raking out of the French drains (about the same amount of space as 16 parked automobiles). I had to leave before they were finished. Came home, everything was tidy, except I had to shovel snow off the walkways. I used to be person number two for vines and do all the raking myself. I loved it. Arthritis.

ez, I just saw your weather on the news! It's kinda weird that you would have snow, no? It's bitter cold here too, but mild to warm in the east. Strange!

MP, yes, I'm painting everything! R's family will be here in late May, early June, I'm thinking, so this is the time I have a bit of leverage with R. Yes! These things MUST be done before your family comes!!! End of discussion. I will post pics when all is done, thanks for asking. Don't need another fan tearing me a new one, ya know? I am waiting with baited breath to hear about the bathe and brew gift!!! You must tell all. What are you putting inside?

judy, I will check out your granite as soon as possible, I promise!

roo, your lounge sounds so fabulous. What a shame your battery died before you could get the pics! We really need to see pictures. You really are all about color, aren't you!

Know I can do sepia not sure about anything else, have to play around. My problem is I just love colour too much so when I see a photo and love it for it's colour as well as everything else I have withdrawal symptoms letting go. I'm getting where you are coming from though, I was looking at the second photo and how carefully it seemed the photos had been chosen to go with the striped cushions ............... AAAGH!!! it just hit me desat would be the way to go. I had a photoshoot of the kids with normal, desat and black and white and a lot of the desat photos looked better than full colour, but now I can't find them, hope I haven't deleted them thinking I had put them on my external hard drive. Found these which are a bit similar.

Whatever I put on the back wall though, I would want in full colour, but if it is a beachy scene, it won't have a lot of different colours anyway.

Uh uh. Photo #1 is the best. What a cutie!!!

Bobbi, I am a colour person, it makes me happy. I love my garden for that reason too. I think the light here, our weather (be it all over the place at the moment), and general outdoors lifestyle just makes colour work. It is 23 here now, supposed to be 28 tomorrow, 30 Thursday, and 37 Friday and then drops again to 25 Saturday. Too much!!!!

Photo #1 is the full colour where photo #2 is the desat. Can't tell much with these as there isn't a lot of colour anyway. Just wish I had the other ones - worrying me now where they have gotten too - as there was a lot of colour in them, the desat toned it down without taking it all away.

She loves the camera - always has.

@olldroo. I like the third Houzz photo you chose. Restful artwork. As for the grands, I like the Houzz photo you chose that had no picture frames. Just the photos on canvas. If it were my house, I would use full color for the photos of those precious children. Black and white photos always make me think that the person has died.

@olldbobbi. The region where I live gets only 10 inches (~250 mm) of rain per year. High mountain desert. Snow in the city usually makes the news.

WHO IS THAT ADORABLE CHILD? Is that your granddaughter roo? Or is this just a random sepia test photo? Utterly darling!

judyg--some colors for your beautiful sagey-gray granite.
What about BM Gray Horse or Moonshine? (or a 50% color in between, which we used in our sunroom) Depending on the light, they can go either gray-green (Gray Horse in our foyer with morning light) or blue-gray (50% in our sunroom with western exposure). Sorry, no Houzz photo of Gray Horse, but it is on the same chip as Moonshine, just one step more saturated.
Or could you go more aqua with BM Beach Glass, Silvery Moon or Cool Breeze? Or SW Rainwashed or Sea Salt? Those are all in my beloved pale aqua palette.

Thanks ez, I've been stockpiling photos of artwork more for the layout than anything, but that one is nice. Definitely not into b & w photos, I like them sometimes as a statement photo but that is it. That is funny, sepia photos make me feel that way as they are very common for old family photos. It will just depend on how everything goes together, don't want the two walls fighting each other or dominating the room either. I was thinking of mounting a board on the wall, painting it a darker shade of the wall and putting the photos on that. Just have to choose all the photos first ................. that will be a massive job in itself.

Thanks feeny, yes that is Miss 6 taken at 5. I actually love some of those greys you have chosen, particularly the Rainwashed. No idea about the granite so can't comment there.

@olldroo. Please put the jellyfish drawing by Miss 6 in the photo collage.

@judyg what is kitty kat's name? Dr. Wong ?

Here R 2 attractive kitchens using green granite, only one has a green paint, though. One kitchen is called "Cape Cod". !! lol.

Roo. Here R colored photos on canvas...my landlady is a photographer. We rent a second home (tiny 1 bedroom cottage) on the coast and go there 2 weeks every month.

Ez, yes, the jellyfish, problem is though that with 6 grands if I put something on for one ..............hmm. Maybe the others have nothing to contibute, but then one dd might have her nose put out. I have to tread so softly.

j22 I do love the canvas prints and would like to go that way but they are really expensive here, especially for the sizes I would need. A 75cm x 100 cm for example is around $300 and my wall is 14.5ft long so have plenty of room. Some online places are happening now that are bringing prices down a lot but delivery is an issue here, so that adds up. We aren't meant to win.

j22 Her name is JING. How cute is that for a doctor and a kitty?

Not any kitchen I have seen here on the Cape.

Feeny, thanks for suggestions. Too dark now for me to get a true comparison, but will do it in the morning. Appreciate it. Was getting color blind and I have to have something to show my clients by this weekend.

@ roo "...we can't win for losing"....

@ judyj: yes, cute name. We had a cat named "Chang", when kids were small. Chang was taken from an adorable children's book (Tikki Tikki Tembo) that told why Chinese like short names for their children... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikki_Tikki_Tembo

@olldroo. Have you seen the picture frames designed so that art can be charged easily? Some people put up one for each child, and their artwork or good school papers are displayed for one month at a time. At our house the children chose. Sometimes it was just a report card for one. Others liked photos of their sports games, the music they had just mastered, or the drawing she had spent so much time on. Tricky to get a jigsaw puzzle up. The toddler's block towers rated a photo to go in the frame - a photo keeps him from crying when the blocks have to be put back in their container.

@olldroo. "art can be CHANGED easily." The frames have a hinge on one side.

Just sticking my head in before I settle down. Hope everyone had a great day! Roo, what an absolutely beautiful little angel! Personally I love the duotone, the third photo. But I'm a huge black and white person, love the contrast in them. Sorry Etzia... :). I have a wall upstairs of a collage with blk and wht family pics plus various art around of blk and wht.

Ez - that is so cute placating the toddler with a photo of his blocks.

That actually makes me laugh thinking of the things I used to do to convince my joeys of things or to placate them - reverse psychology was good too. Now my 2 dds ask me how I managed things and I have to give away my secrets. Can't believed they never guessed but they are really learning now.

I haven't seen frames with hinges at all but they would be perfect because I do like to change out photos as they grow and at least printing photos is pretty cheap here and the quality is excellent. Most smaller frames can be easily taken down and the back removed to change a photo, the bigger photos could be a problem.

The first photo I posted was in a featured house where the lady was a professional photographer so I asked her how she had mounted the photos but she didn't reply. Answered everyone else's questions but mine so maybe it was a trade secret. If I can't find anything I have a couple of photographer friends I can ask for ideas. I do use a double sided adhesive tape for my scrapbooking that is removable so even something like that might work, just have to use it all around so there is no bucking in the photos.
THERE WILL BE WAYS!!!! I'm determined!!!

Thanks TK she is a pretty good kid too. Very caring and considerate.

I'm hoping BH might have the CD of another lot of photos that do feature quite a lot of desat ones for you to see the difference. He's 'gunna' look for it. Keep breathing.

Good morning ladies!
judy, my next door neighbor had a horrible time to what boiled down to tumor on her adrenal or pituitary gland. Took them a year or more to even figure that out. Turned out to be a tumor, the size of a pin head in her pituitary they finally got out. Not before she had put on nearly 100 pounds, lost a lot of her sight, couldn't walk, etc, etc.. Horrid. I'm so glad you are better. Amazing how much our fur babies add to our peace of mind.

feeny, loving those beachy colors! If our house wasn't so rustic, I would have used colors like that throughout. I did use something like the Beach Glass as the bedding and drapes in the bedroom. Gives it such a restful feeling.

roo, your grand is adorable! I wanted to do something Andy Warhol-ish with our grand-girl's photo. Now with Boo2 baking up, I'm going to wait and get both in the photo before attempting that.

Roo – The cabinets are what used to be called a “pickled” finish, but I haven’t heard that expression lately, maybe there's a new word for it. It’s a light wood with a slightly white-washed finish. In photos, the color is different depending on the lighting .. “beigey” is a good description. Adorable granddaughter!!

Eztia – Thanks .. That’s just a rubber mat with a beach/shell theme! It actually looks ratty now, and isn’t something you can wash .. it’s gotta go. I need to take my 20% coupon to Bed, Bath & Beyond, and replace it!

The kitchen soffit is that same teal color, as the guest bedroom.

Ladies, I'll start 1/15.

Astraea - I remember that pickled finish did it on floors too. I always liked it, it was like a wash.

I love your "smaller" bedroom, too, wish my 'small' were that big. Do like your lamp, I've been thinking a bit of coral colour for the loungeroom too will depend on how things pan out. I was watching TV tonight and realised the lounge takes up more room than I thought, although it hopefully will be better once all the extra carpet for the rest of the house goes, but I'm really not going to have a lot of room for too much in accessories. At least it helps with the budget.

The guest bedroom is a very generous 15' x 16'; not much smaller than the MBR. The down side, when I was decorating, is that the room looked empty, with the normal furniture you'd put in a guest room .. queen bed, 2 night tables, single dresser & chair! I wound up getting that sleeper loveseat & padded storage bench in matching fabric, not only to be useful .. but to fill the space! The lamp was on sale, when I went to the local lamp store .. I thought it was cute, and the coral picked up on the loveseat fabric.

Hi all. The fancy word for "pickled" furniture. As far as I know, applies only to oak:
Cerused oak furniture -
has white paint added to finish that is wiped off, making the grain of the wood show up more. A long time ago, white lead was used.

Eztia - guess I'm lucky I never ate paint chips, if they used white lead for it!!

@astraea. All paint had lead in it prior to 1972.

I just looked it up. Lead was banned from residential paints in the USA in 1978.