Now it's beginning to work! Luv the rug! A few more red showstoppers, and I luv the post about matting your family pic, and larger frame for it. Looks like you might be a bit uncomfortable with the great post idea of moving your sofa out into the room away from wall. If so, could you accept putting it diagonally from the entrance doorway, across that corner where it is, stopping at the edge of your window? That's a bit of a move outward, still can see the fp and tv, and show off your new rug, which could go diagonally in front of the sofa. Then, if you like that, after a while you could move it on out as Deb K suggests. Sometimes intermediate steps are more doable for us than those big changes.Same with painting; if you could first paint just the fp wall, then later paint other walls...seems some color would really make it more homey. Would you cosider a quite contemporary fixture for the light in the center ceiling? Maybe a bit of red could go there!

I won't bother with lattice, barrels are partially obscured from the street by fencing and if I put it up I would have to work around the lattice in order to turn the valves for water. If I can just make better use of collected water I'll be happy. We are at the end of our growing season so I should be cleaning up the garden and putting it to bed for the winter, just can't seem to get motivated. We had our first frost last week. Usually, our average early frost date is 1 November. I got almost no produce from garden this year, but there is always next year. Chookchook2 I've seen some of those decorative metal panels and they are gorgeous, sure hope your budget will allow you to get some before too long. Most of our state has been on fire for a good part of the summer. The closest is across the river from us and they have been battling it for almost a month. Some friends have had to evacuate repeatedly. We've only been concerned once, a small grass fire on our side of the river on a day we had wind gusts up to 65mph. Fortunately, it was put out quickly. Australia and New Zealand have both sent firefighters to help with the blazes. I can't begin to tell you how appreciative we are. The closest fire was fought for almost a week by local volunteers only as there were no other resources available. They were all on other fires. The Army National Guard (reserve troops) were called out to help with support duties and for the first time ever the federal Department of Natural Resources (DNR) asked for civilian volunteers to help with non firefighting tasks, cutting fire breaks, moving supplies etc.

To answer your question I would paint the body of the house blue, all trim white, and then the "fringe" which I think ties into your porch decking, I would paint it the gray. It is a good "grounding" color for your home. Sherwin Williams has a cool web tool. Take a pic of your house and load it onto their site. You can "color" away on your house. When I painted my house for the first time, I did not want the garage door to stick out, wanted it to blend into the house. Everyone said it would look weird, needed to be painted the same as the trim. Used the Sherwin Williams site and realized want I visioned looked good. I have neighbors of dubious design skills! Ha! Ha!

How about a horizontal weave-style fence for privacy, plenty of seating for dining and relaxing, with separate sections for each function. Moving the trees is a good idea, to open up the entire space.