@ worthy Thanks for your insights. We discussed the possibility of adding transoms above the bedroom doorways to bring more light into the hallway. The concern was the expense of adding more height to the second floor. A solar tube (not visible from the street) might be a cheaper option, although I always worry about roof leaks. I have mixed feelings regarding a basement laundry. I like the separation from the living spaces to minimize noise and potential water damage. However, I agree that bringing laundry up and down flights of stairs can be annoying (this is our current situation). At our next meeting with the architect we will reopen the discussion of laundry room placement with the options of: 1) keeping it in the basement; 2) moving the guest bedroom to the basement to make space for a laundry room on the second floor; and 3) using the suggestion of @MrsPete to install a dumbwaiter. Regarding the house footprint, we have tried to be as efficient as possible with the space available. With a narrow city lot (80') in the historic district (zoning requires two story) the house footprint is constrained. We also really enjoy the backyard for gardening and kids play and do not want the house to swallow the entire lot. Overall, I think we have achieved a good balance of a nice size home (3,000 sq. ft.) with most of the features we desire, that also blends into the existing historic neighborhood (the newest house on the block is 100+ years old).

I just recently found a cool Victorian mirror frame (no mirror) and am painting it a cream color then dry brushing the liquid gold over it. It will be for my grandaughter's "Cinderella" room that I'll be making over this summer in PA. My son is taking a photo of her in her dress-up Cinderella gown & crown, then I'm blowing it up to poster size & placing in the frame. Your color choice is just a matter of preference. What room is it going to be in? What color wood is featured in your room? Phonegirl..great mirror!

Hi, Val, just thought I'd show you the botanicals I've framed, just to give you more ideas, but it sounds like you have it almost all figured out. I have enjoyed watching your room come alive! I got all my botanicals off Ebay too & decided to do ready-made frames and had custom mats cut to make the prints fit in my frames. I used 16x20 frames with inserts of 10x13 openings. My botanicals are slightly smaller than the insert, so to fill it out, I used black mats on all of mine & I love how it makes them look more important. That touch of black all around really makes the botanicals stand out, I think. Whether this is proper placement or not, I have no idea, but it worked for my eye. I have framed several sets of these in this same way & will show you all the pics of how I've used the black mat exactly the same way. These were standard black frames from Michaels & came with the ivory mats inside with the glass & these had a black border built in on the inner ivory mat already, I just added another custom black mat to fill in the space that I needed to fill to fit my botanical. I know you can't see all the details on these pics, but hopefully this will help you some: This one is open frames from Hobby Lobby & I bought standard mats & again added the custom black inner mat so the botanicals would fit. HL does a great job with adding mats & glass & very reasonable. These gold frames came from Tuesday AM & they had the ivory mats with gold edge already in them, along with the glass. All I did was again add the black inner custom mat & it was done. I found this to be the most cost effective way to frame these odd-shaped botanicals.

Decolist Vinyl Wallcovering Warning! I cashed in my entire 401K to invest in Decolistic Vinyl to make our house a home. Sure, at first it looked yummy with all those pictures of leafless trees, wacky sunflowers, giraffes wearing sunglasses and antique trains on every wall, but thinking ahead to resale we decided to rip them down on the advice of our Realtor and every single person we spoke to. Easy? Ha! We tried wallpaper stripper, fabric softener, soy based paint stripper, pool cleaner. Nada. We tried sanding with a cheese grater. Steaming with a floor mop. A chisel. Lenten prayer. A flamethrower. Well, the flamethrower finally worked. Now we will have to repaint. Any color suggestions?