I looked up Canna ( I am new to gardening) and they are very pretty, I think I will have to get some! I looking for more tropical plants to fill in the are that already have the Bird of Paradise and I think the Canna would be a good fit.

I agree with the others, wait until our short frost season is over before trimming any damaged growth. For the bougies, just wait until they start re-growing and cut above a nice fresh green shoot. Unknown #3 is a white flowered trailing lantana (L. montevidiensis). I'd use a hula hoe to keep those weeds under control. It's basically a scuffle hoe that "shaves" the weeds off at ground level. Do it on a warm sunny afternoon and they'll croak right away. Plus it's kind of fun. Getting some type of mulch around the lantana will help control weed seedlings too. Unkonw #4 is a Ruellia, sometimes call Mexican petunia. They bloom spring through autumn. You can trim them if you like, or leave them be. Again, I'd wait until after the short frost season is over. Keep us posted! Happy gardening! Grant

We did a similar move in December. We did what my grandmother would have called a "spit and shine", a half serious cleaning, and I am satisfied we did the right thing. Our experience would have me suggest putting off the floor refinishing until last. I've no thoughts on power cleaning.

My suggestion is that you combine the living room and dining room functions, but keep the kichen separate. Don't get yourself wrapped up in trying to replicate all the features of much-larger spaces. A dining room table can be easily intergrated into a living room and do double duty there as long as you don't try to copy the big table with chairs all around it plus sideboard. Think of a table (with leaves) that generally sits behind a sofa, for instance. Some times it's a sofa table, some times it's a dining table. The chairs need not stand around it all day long. They can be spread around the room, or even in different rooms if you don't use all of them for every day meals. The sideboard function can be handled by a cupboard, or a hutch, with some books as well as linens, serving pieces, and other DR accoutremnts. Bookshelves that are wonderful in a livng room are also fab for the walls of the DR space. You may be able to get a few seating postions (one or two) at a small island in the kitchen for those times when you have a kitchen companion hanging out with you, or when you're just grabbing a quick snack. I would concentrate on making the kitchen the most efficient and highly functional that your space allows. Since this is working area, function will really make or break the space. Think of your downstairs as having two rooms: a sitting room with the dining table in it AND a well-designed kitchen with a great place for another person to hang out with the cook. "Opening up" the rooms is a currently a popular trend, but its pouplarlity will wane (like all highly sought after and endlessly copied things). Meanwhile if you have made major structural changes in your building you will be stuck with them. Save yourself angst and money and make two great rooms -- you'll be way ahead of the style curve and you'll have two wonderful rooms that really work. Don't worry about "sliders here" or "sliders there" question at this point - think of the rooms' uses and work on those questions first. Once you have that worked out you can see how to integrate the fenestration pattern with what you already have. I think part of the current urge to open up the kitchen to the other rooms is because of the enormous size of most houses. In smaller houses there isn't as much os sense of estrangement between the people sitting in one room and those in another. Don't think you have to copy the "remedy" for the faults of houses that aren't like yours simply because that's all you see in shelter mags. Small houses are special, not the least because they are very human scaled and require you to think very carefully about your space and the choices of how you use it. I suppose you are familiar with the work of Susan Susanka of the Not So Big House fame. If not highly recommend getting her books from your library. She is a master of wonderful, small space planning. Above all else, don;t think you have to rush into a renovation. The most successful ones are those which start with a period of living n the house to see how it feels. This is the standard advice for new owners of old houses, but even less-than-antique houses have much to teach you about how they feel that you can't tell just by walking around in it a few times. Live there for 6 months ot a year -then you'll know what needs to be done and you'll have fewer regreats about your choices. HTH L.