Chappage, thank you for the compliment. The home is in a historical district called Pass-A-Grille Beach. It sits on one of five barrier islands on the west coast of FL (30 min. from Tampa) on the Gulf of Mexico. All the homes are different in the neighborhood. We have older beach cottages mixed in with beautiful estate homes. It's a great beach community. It's also a very desirable location because the town is only 1 1/2 blocks wide and 22 blocks long. Great sunsets too!

My choice is definitely an artificial tree. But I don't think they last any longer than real ones. Virtually every year my husband of 38 years goes downstairs to bring up last year's tree. Then he comes back up a couple of hours later, empty-handed, sadly shaking his head, and explaining why we need to buy a new tree. The 1,000 lights are the usual suspects. Although the manufacturer swears if one burns out the rest will remain lit, you know doggone well he deserves coal in his stocking. Sometimes the cause is a combination of entire sections of burned out lights and impossible-to-identify colored tips that are key to the assembly of the prickly little beast that seals its fate. Judging from the six human-body-sized, bulging boxes in our storage room we've amassed an impressive collection of at least six full-sized trees. My sweet, well-intentioned hubby, who works 80-hour weeks, has vowed annually to donate the old trees to charity, but his intentions seldom make it upstairs these days, which has a lot to do with our son, our only child, being a Marine. He doesn't talk about it. Like most men, he holds everything in so tightly, he clamps down on his lower lip with his front teeth to keep his feelings from popping out. Perhaps he opens up to his kindred spirits, the lonely trees, while he's downstairs pondering their fate. I hope so. I've begun looking forward to our annual trek to Home Depot to "chop down" our newest artificial tree from their pile of boxes. Our son got leave this year. I pray he makes it home safely. He'll be home with us and with his little girl. I can't imagine needing anything brighter than the lights in my granddaughter's five-year-old eyes. But Grampa will surely pick out a shiny new tree, with 1,000 blinking white lights, guaranteed to remain lit even if one burns out, by a person destined to receive coal in his or her stocking. M

Oh and I can't imagine why these people offering slippers would think anybody would wish to wear slippers that could of been worn by anyone else. That seems like a bigger hygiene issue to me than friends and loved ones wearing shoes inside? The places where this culturally occurs may be filthy overpopulated cities, not sure, just saying that a good door mat would take away any worry of dirt where I am, unless farm boots or dirty work boots, then obviously they need to come off.

So, kind friends, my landscape-architect friend is coming for Labor Day, but I'm still brainstorming, so what do you think of this? (1) yes replace CLFence w/ white lattice and nice trellis entry, but mainly (2) move big planter with statue to side under mulberry, balancing the Mahonia on the right (toughest plant they cd sell me at my request), and make rustic stepping-stone pathway up to very top near fence, then pave that little area and put bench or 2 ice-cream-parlor-sized chairs and table? Balance in front of right hand side Mahonia by cutting maple down to graduating heights from path, with plants on top of each trunk, or maybe plants on two and interesting topiary frame currently on top of too-tall trunk; (3) stick 3 potted plants, maybe all in one planter (have silver one on hand decorated with green leaves & little red berries) on top of grill for when not in use (usually!). (4) Consider same white lattice fence ()slightly higher than current) to replace current natural lattice fence in back of new furniture OR replace natural lattice with garden wall in interesting color such as I've been seeing on this site, maybe with short lattice strip across top. (5) I'll go out this weekend and get a patio table umbrella to see if it helps. If not, I expect I'll be stuck paying at least $5K for a pergola. I plan to be in this house for the duration, but for the sake of resale value, I wonder wd it be worthwhile to design pergola so that it's basically just the underpinnings of a roof, in case the next owner wants to cover it. Comments, anyone?