First off are you wanting it for full sun or shade or partial shade?? Salvia victoria blue does wonderful in full sun, it does have purple tints at first but later in the season it does look more blue. I border 6 7 and in my full sun beds it comes back each year, if I dont cut it back in the fall. Salvia victoria blue also is a very long bloomer mine blooms from late spring till frost. (mine has been blooming now for about a month) Agapanthus Lilly of the Nile is also blue, it likes full sun and it also has leaves like your spiderwort. Downside to this one that it takes 2 to 3 years to bloom from seed and germination is a very long process. Perenial Plumbago, this blooms a true blue one of the truest I have ever found in a garden. It will grow in full sun or partial shade, but it does not like wet feet in the winter. It blooms from early summer till frost and is a low grower, mine gets about 4 to 5 inches high. It spreads through rhizomes and spreads to make mounds. It also turns red/ burgundy in fall, though its late to come back in the spring. There are a few other "blue" colored plants I am planting this year but these three I know for sure are close to blue or are blue. Tricky part alot of times when they say blue its really purple. My favorite is the salvia victoria blue it has height if thats what your looking for and an extremely long bloom. Anywho I hope that helps ya. Thanks, Carolyn

If your quartz countertop is solid or just has flecks of sparkle, it's nice to bring some pattern in with the floor tile. You can also add some pattern to the floor with the way you lay the tile. Try to find a tile store that also sells quartz so you can coordinate the two. Be aware that you may have to add a new subfloor for the tile, which would make the tile higher than the hardwood in the hallway. This happened in our kitchen when we replaced sheet vinyl with porcelain tile. I do not like the wooden "speed bump" strip between the hardwood and tile. We would have liked to use porcelain tile in our guest bath remodel, but again, it would be higher than the adjacent carpet. We used Armstrong Alterna LVT. There aren't as many color and pattern choices as porcelain tile, but it it has a limestone composite base and is grouted just like real tile, so it's not really vinyl-y. Nice stuff, and a lot cheaper than porcelain tile.

terriks, I haven't made much progress, but I've played around and learned a little that might be helpful to you. I started stenciling with the ikat stencil and was really unhappy with how it was turning out. It had way too much painted area and too little unpainted white fabric. The fabric was sucking up gobs of paint, and I wasn't able to get the paint even enough to look good with sunlight shining through. I tried diluting the paint with more and more of the paint medium, but that didn't seem to help. I used the foam roller and wiped off the excess paint, just like the instructions said, but it just wasn't working. So I ordered a different stencil. I went with the kaliedascope pattern, from the same website as the first stencil. I like this stencil much better in terms of the painted-area-to-unpainted-area ratio. The result was much more airy looking. I practiced on the same curtain panel that I already ruined with the ikat stencil (thank goodness for $10 curtain panels!). But now I'm re-thinking what color paint to use, so I haven't moved forward with painting. And in the meantime, I put the unpainted white Ikea curtains up in the living room and am enjoying the serene look of the plain white curtains. I'm still planning to do the stenciling, but have temporarily lost steam. I found that I did not have to clean the stencil off as I moved it to new spots across the curtain. I thought I would, but no paint was getting on the back and messing it up. I think this was because the spray adhesive kept the stencil snug to the fabric. Even with the ikat stencil which used so much paint, I wasn't having to clean it off. I was tempted by the production stencil too, but I don't think you need to spend the extra money -- the regular size worked just fine. Hope this helps!

Lots of great advice above. I especially like the emphasis on supporting individual artisans. That's how I justify my ginormous library fines: I am supporting the local library. For me, I often will have an amount in my head, beyond which an object just seems unreasonable to me, regardless of whether or not I can actually afford it. Currently, my own dilemma concerns a 4,000 range hood. For me, this is just not a reasonable amount to spend on a hood, no matter how much I love it. So, is there any conflict in your mind about spending for a faucet what you would spend for an excellent quality dishwasher? If not, then it will probably thrill you every time you turn it on. And who doesn't need a good thrill several times a day! If you go for it, check out Home and Stone. They seem to carry some versions of it for a teeny, weeny bit less. The only thing I wonder about is whether this faucet style goes with the mission style you described above (e.g. the oil rubbed bronze light fixure from Rejuvenation). Now, I'll be the first to admit that my design style is seriously lacking, so I could be totally wrong on this! But when I saw the rough hammered faucet, it made me think of my sister-in-law's upscale western style, "chic cowgirl" bathroom in Colorado. It doesn't read "Greene and Greene" to me. But as I said, I could be totally wrong about that! :-) francy