My thinking when examining houseplans has evolved to the point where I automatically start changing the room functions around and moving things around to suit my needs since so many plans have rooms or layouts that I don't want. I am including a link to a plan which may or may not be to your liking, but after pondering it for some time now, I have come to like because it has no wasted space. It is the Don Gardner Whitney plan. It is too small by about a 200-300 sq ft, so I have reworked the entire left side of the plan to add a half bath, bigger pantry, move the kitchen appliances, and extend out the back several feet. This will get me the large single dining area I want, as well. There is a thread about this plan on this forum already. You may find additional pictures of this plan at http://www.flickr.com/photos/houseplansbydongardner/sets/72157624195723816/ Here is a link that might be useful: Whitney floorplan

Well, we live in a mid-19th c farmhouse with most of its original details intact, so I am somewhat constrained by that. I want a plain, workman-like space for the kitchen essentials, with nothing pretending to be something it isn't. (No faux wear marks or fly-specking details on my cabs for instance - at least none applied at the factory; we're not talking about what will happen naturally if someone leaves the doggone screen door open again! For those I've got my Spic 'n Span bucket ready.) I know this sounds drab and dull, but that's not the case since I have details like 14" tall skirting boards with deeply curved moldings; an open staircase with a second-floor gallery and the underlying (also rigid) balance and symmetry of a full-on Greek Revival building. With such strong elements never out of the picture, I have just had to learn to get out of the way. Since almost all our stuff is passed down from our families, (some period antiques and but mostly just old pieces, approaching legal antique status of their own, but not period, IYKWIM) my "style" of decorating is pretty much "what we found in the attic", combined, now, with what we've inherited from our parents. I can't really imagine what it is like to choose to decorate in a defined "style" or go out intending to purchase stuff to go with a particular style. When I read or see pictures here of what people are working on, I often wonder how you ever decided which one to choose. Seems like a lot of energy is expended working out those details. I just concentrate on 1) What do I need to make this room work for how we want to use it? 2) What do I have that will do the job? 3)(If I have more than one option for #2) Which piece looks best (mostly scale) with the other stuff in the room? 4) What can I/do I have to do with it (or to it) to spiff it up enough so make it presentable, if necessary? (If I can't find a suitable piece for some use, then we usually do without until a solution appears.) In general I find that my old stuff tends to look well with my other old stuff, providing the scale of the piece is right, particularly in the context of it all being old stuff, in an old house. And to some degree, after attending to comfort and practicality/feasability and cleanliness (which can include cleaning up a wood finish or redoing upholstery), I really don't care to do more. The only place where I can fall in with the forum's decorating mania, is color. That really lights my fire! I can spend weeks and months thinking about, testing and generally feeding the decorating part of my brain while contemplating which color to put on my walls. L

I'm lucky -- an abundance of libraries within easy driving distance. The smallest branch library is in a nice "town square"-type community (stores, restaurants, movie theater, small grocery store, arts theater, and a dog park/strolling park across the street). But when you walk in, the first thing you see is desk after desk of computers. People can sign up for computer time, and those seats are always filled. There's also WiFi, so others come to the library for "office" work. That's great -- not everybody can afford his or her own computer. But the layout just seems to push books to the periphery, and that kind of saddens me. This is the library I usually stop at on my way to work to pick up my "holds." And the libraries in that county (which is just 15 minutes or so away) have deep CD and DVD collections. A library a bit closer to home is a slightly more "warm" place -- there are plenty of computer desks, but when you walk in, there are many book displays (how many times have I picked up interesting books there before I remembered the titles I MEANT to look for? Too many!). The librarians do a great job on their book displays. And because there are two really big used-book sales a year, there is enough revenue from those, and from the county, to also have many shelves of "just released" books. CD/DVD collections, not so much. And then there's the library in the next community over, where I used to live. It was designed by the architect Michael Graves, and I was really interested in seeing it. I walked in, and I actually felt cold. A lot of glass, soaring roof line. But there were so many shelves that looked half-filled. I couldn't decide whether they were just still pulling things out of storage, or whether they'd spent so much money on the redesign that they were short of book funds! Haven't been there recently, but I trust that everything's out of storage by now. But I have to admit that even tho I realize I have a wealth of library options, none of them stacks up against my memories of my favorite library -- the one I grew up with, in Connecticut. Picture your quaint New England buildings -- that was it. Small, but it always had what I needed for school projects; the card catalogs; beautiful heavy Windsor-type chairs -- just a wonderful atmosphere for researching and finding something new every time. My dad and I went there together frequently. So for me, it's not just the building and the materials -- the best library has to "envelop" me somehow, with friendliness and warmth.

Hello! It's been a while, but save for a few pieces of trim we are waiting for, we are nearing completion on the exterior of our cabin! Here are some photos of how it's turning out so far, and a couple of the early build-including my husband hand framing the roof. We did go with black, but after much debate, went with sand colored windows and mixed it up with two different sidings and used a weathered wood asphalt shingle. The fireplace will (eventually) get covered with stone. Exterior lights will be matte gold. Still debating on a door color to go with our Black & Tan cabin.