I'm leaning toward using the top one. The middle one looks awfully peach-y against the door, and it's going to look funny with the navy that will be at the back of the bench. But I think I will go down to the Benjamin Moore paint store and ask if they have any suggestions for warm whites that will go with both the travertine and the door.

Here's a picture of the three against the tile. Same order left to right as they were bottom to top by the door. I like the middle one best against the tile, and the bottom one best against the door.

We're having our entryway and the wall leading away from it painted. The wall is above our stairwell and doesn't directly connect to the entryway (there's a very short wall fronting the end of the stairwell and separating the two). I'm having trouble finding a white/off-white that I like for both areas. The stairwell wall has travertine tile baseboards and leads in to other areas/walls with travertine flooring. The entryway has a slate floor and reddish brown door and trim. I've done sample swatches of 5 whites now and the ones I like for the entryway don't look good with the travertine, and vice versa. An additional factor is that the entryway is having a built-in bench and shelves added, and I'd prefer to paint the shelves the same color as the entryway walls, and that might look funny with a more creamy white (which is what I prefer with the travertine). The wall behind the entryway built-in is going to be navy. I've attached a picture of the entryway with three of the colors I'm considering next to the door, and also pictures of the stairwell wall. The nook off the stairwell where the buffet is is being painted also.

I don't understand why Rainbow Science got such good reviews here. My 8th grader is doing the physics and chemistry part this year. The way they word the text is such that the answer to the questions at the end are often not even in the text, or require drawing conclusions that are not really laid out in the text. For example, today she read a chapter called "The Molecules of Life--Nucleic Acids". The first question at the end is "What molecules are linked together to form nucleic acids?" He answer is "nucleic acid bases". Ok...the text has a paragraph on bases, but it is not at all clear from it that nucleic acid bases are what are linked together to form nucleic acids. I'm a reasonably smart, logical adult who took high school chemistry and basic college chemistry, and I couldn't figure out the answer to that question. Question two is "What do nucleic acids do?" My answer based on the text would be something like, "Nucleic acids carry information in the form of codes that the body decodes and uses." The answer they want is "They encode information that is used by the cell to direct its processes." Which is more or less the same thing, but nowhere in the text does it even mention cells or processes, so why not pick an answer that is actually supported by the text? DD had no clue what the answer to either question was. I posted about this once before and people suggested using the questions as a spring-point for discussion, but I really don't have time to spend 10 or 15 minutes every day trying to figure out what the heck this is talking about and then re-explain all the information that was above DD's head in the first place. Also, there's a lab scheduled every 3rd day, and she hates the labs and stalls and stalls on doing them. I'm wondering if I should drop the labs and the questions and just have her read the text and accept that she won't get much out of this program, or if I should drop it entirely and have her watch Chemistry 101 DVDs.

I use Craiglist and FB Marketplace for furniture. The only furniture in our house that we bought new is our mattresses and a nightstand. A couple weeks ago someone just a few blocks from us was selling a big gorgeous buffet with a marble top on CL for $60, and it's now sitting in my foyer. Our dining room table came from CL, but the chairs that came with it weren't holding up well to the kids, so we bought another table and chair set from FB marketplace and resold that table with the 6 of our old chairs that weren't broken. DH was in a hurry to get rid of it so he dropped the price below what we paid, and it ended up costing us about $100 for 6 nice heavy chairs that match our old table in color. Single chairs were something like $79 at Furniture Row, and they definitely aren't as sturdy as the ones we have, so that worked out pretty well. Most of my decor items and my nicer rugs have come from Ross. It's near several places I go regularly so I visit it a couple times a week. A couple things have come from Tj Maxx but it's not as convenient for me to go there and I don't find much I like/want there. I've also got decor items and artwork at Hobby Lobby, always with a 40% off coupon or on sale for half off. I've got curtains mostly from JCPenney and Amazon, or by using multiple coupons at Bed Bath & Beyond. I haven't bought much artwork, but have found a couple pieces online and saved some money googling the name of the piece to find the cheapest store for it, and then looking for coupon codes to use on top of that.

This is one of the big problems. Stuff that should have been worked out before we agreed to buy the house was never discussed because we were in a really bad spot marriage-wise. Now we're in a much better place, and we need to try to have those discussions about our different expectations for the house.

We actually have several different types of paneling and wainscoting. There's blue pine wainscoting in the master bedroom and family room (which is probably what you've seen in some my other threads), dark paneling or wainscoting in another bedroom and the dining room, and rough hewn pine waincoting in the bonus room and 2 bedrooms. The rough hewn pine is the splintery stuff. None of it is cheap--the previous owners must have spent a fortune on upgrades everywhere, but they were old and some of the "upgrades" like tons of wallpaper and all the paneling/wainscotting are not really popular and not to my taste. But there are parts of the house that are really nice like couple of the bathrooms and the hickory cabinets in the kitchen.

I can do this one too, but only if I'm specifically trying to tell if there's someone in the room. Which means that DH can still startle me if I come out of the bathroom in the dark and don't know he's waiting in the hallway.

This reminded me of a phishing phone call I received a few days ago that started out, "Dear Verizon Wireless customer, your account has been suspended." Really? Then how am I receiving this phone call??

At the end of 2018 we moved from a 2000 sq ft house to a 3300 sq ft house. Since then I've spent about $2000 on decorating it, which DH thinks is way too much. I purchased curtains and rods for three rooms (our curtains from the other house were all about 10 years old and/or faded, and none fit the new windows anyway), blackout shades for the master bedroom, towels and bath mats for three bathrooms (we had two bathrooms before and only one had bath mats, and all our towels were a few years old and getting pretty ratty), a large rug, some decorative items, a few small pieces of canvas artwork. and some decorative storage items (canvas bins, woven baskets), and a few miscellaneous items. That total also included buying several pieces of furniture--coffee & end table set, ottoman, sofa table, buffet, another buffet which is a decorative piece for a big nook in our foyer, a cube shelf, a night stand, and a dresser. The furniture was all bought used except for the night stand which was on clearance at Furniture Row. I'm mostly done decorating the main living areas but will probably spend a couple hundred dollars more on some decent artwork for a couple rooms. The only thing I think I've wasted money on is curtains--each of the three rooms is on its second set of curtains since we moved in, because as I got further along in decorating I started disliking the original sets of curtains I purchased. If I don't use the curtains elsewhere in the house I'll sell them on FB marketplace and probably get back half of what I paid for them. DH has a great job and it is not at all an issue of whether we can afford what I've spent, and also almost 1/4 of that amount was covered by gift cards I was given for birthdays and Christmas. What does the Hive think...is that an unreasonable amount of money to spend on decorating a much larger house over a year's time?

Title says it all.

I am inclined to think that is not the case here because she seemed to be interacting normally with others at the last event we were both at. It was just me she acted differently around.

That is hard. I am sorry your friend did that to you. In this case I would actually prefer to know why. It's really hard to be dumped by someone I was super close to, who I thought was close to me, for no apparent reason. It would be easier for me to process it and move on if I knew the reason.

This is what I am thinking. The things that have happened may seem like small things, but I have gotten the clear message that she is done. DH said the other day that maybe she'll come around some time. I replied that I don't think it would matter if she did, the friendship is over, because how could I ever trust that she wouldn't do this again? The only way I can see the friendship being resumed on any level, is either for her to come to me and say she was having some personal issues and needed to step back and then apologizing to me for doing it, or for her to bring up whatever it is I said that bothered her and we actually talk through it and then there would need be a talk about how I need assurance that she won't do this again in order for me to be able to resume the friendship in any form. I am just really done trying to be close to people. This is the third time I've been badly hurt by a close friend (twice by the same person, who, ironically, I'm now fairly close to again after she matured a lot and choose to reach out to me and support me a couple years ago when I was going through a really rough time). Yes, I agree. I would be reaching out for her benefit really, on the off chance that she did send a response that I didn't respond to because I didn't get it, and if that was the case she's probably been feeling some of the same feelings I've been feeling about her. And also because I'll have to see her two or three times a year at events, and feeling like there's a teeny tiny chance that she did send a response that I didn't get will make seeing her even more uncomfortable than it's already going to be.

*please don't quote, will delete later for privacy* I had a friend who I've been friends with for about 20 years though we have not lived in the same area for most of that time. The past few years we got pretty close to each other. She was always super supportive and non-judgy and one of the very few people I talked to about some hard things with my kids. She's had some hard things in her life too and has told me several times that she really appreciated my support and friendship. We typically see each other a couple times a year and talk on the phone a few more times and text every few weeks, sometimes more. Last summer we talked on the phone and she didn't seem herself. Usually she's a good listener and I feel heard when I talk to her. This time she talked over me and didn't seem to listen the entire conversation, no matter the topic. A month later we saw each other briefly at an event and she was basically cold to me. Normally she's always super bubbly and enthusiastic to everyone and she acted like I was someone she barely knew and didn't want to talk to. A few days after this I sent her a text saying I felt like there was some distance between us and asking if I'd said something that bothered her. She replied that she had a busy couple of days coming up but would reply soon. I never got a response. About a month later I sent her a "thinking of you" text. Two weeks later she responded, "Thank you caedmyn". I can't really explain it but that response felt just like a slap in the face. She tends to be slow to respond in general and a delay of a few days or even a week before responding wouldn't be unusual, but normally the response is along the lines of "Thank you!!". It just felt really cold and uncaring. I haven't had any contact with her since. This was 4-5 months ago. I've really really struggled with the loss of this friendship, and I have some negative feelings toward her now. I've gone over and over that last phone conversation trying to figure out what I might have said that could have bothered her so much. I cannot think of anything that could have been so heinous she would have basically ended the friendship on the spot (and I'm pretty careful about what I say and how I say it in general). Even if I did say something that really bothered her, I cannot fathom how someone can go from telling you how much your support and friendship means to them, to nothing without even attempting to talk about it. DH made a comment about the whole thing the other day that started me thinking about how it was really out of character for her to say she would respond to something and then never respond, and since then I've been wondering if she sent a response that I didn't get, and then was hurt/upset/angry thinking that I didn't care. It seems pretty unlikely. But I've been debating about whether to send another text to her about it. I would say something like, "Hey, I wanted to reach out in case there was a misunderstanding. I didn't receive a response to that text I sent asking if I said something that bothered you, and it doesn't seem like you to say you'd respond and then not do it. If you choose not to respond, I accept that you didn't wish to continue the friendship at this time, and there's no need to respond to this. If you did send a response, I never got, and I hope that you will resend it."

We have a good-sized house with lots of wall space and I'm nearly ready to hang pictures in a few areas (waiting for painting to be finished), but I'm not sure what to hang where. The areas where I want to hang artwork are the wall above our stairway and a hallway that is perpendicular to it, the living room above the couch and above the piano, and the landing at the bottom of the stairs. I've attached pictures of each space. I don't currently have enough artwork for all the spaces where I want to hang i, but I know I want some family photos either in canvas prints or prints in frames. And we have a set of four large framed Noah's Ark themed prints (see picture). Two are 27"x44", one is slightly smaller, and one is about 35"x42". The largest Noah's Ark print was originally hung over the stairwell. I'm not sure whether to rehang that one on the same wall, or whether to hang the two that are the same size next to each other there. The wall over the stairwell is 125" long. There's a nook attached to it and a hallway that is perpendicular to it which also has an attached nook. I tend toward a less-is-more approach to decorating and don't want to overwhelm the area visually since the whole space is visible at once. I could hang another Noah's Ark photo over the buffet, or re-frame the sketch that's on it now in a larger frame with a mat (sketch is in one of the pictures of the buffet), or just style the buffet and skip the artwork entirely in that nook. I want to hang family photos on the long wall of the hallway to help camouflage the thermostat. I could either hang a couple of larger canvas prints (probably 18"x24"), or do a gallery wall with half a dozen of antique white frames (see picture) I have and put a small matching frame around the thermostat. I think two larger canvases would be less visually overwhelming than a gallery wall, but might not hide the thermostat as well. I'm thinking about ordering some small square canvas prints (either 8"x8" or 12"x12") of my kids to hang in the nook next to the hallway where the gray kids' stool is (three on each wall in a vertical line), but not sure if that would look too busy with everything else in the space. I also have a space at the bottom of the stairs to hang artwork (photo with accent table). The ceiling line takes a jag there to hide ductwork and I can't decide whether to center the accent table and artwork on the wall, or to center it on the part of the wall with the highest ceiling. I could hang a Noah's Ark picture there or look for some new artwork. I also want to hang artwork over the couch and over the piano in the living room. The wall above the stairwell faces the entrance to the living room. Not sure whether to hang one or two of the Noah's Ark pictures in the living room or look for new artwork. Seems like the style of the Noah's Ark frames goes along with the style of couch set, but open to suggestions.

I've run out of books to read and need some new recommendations. I prefer mysteries but open to other fiction as long as it's not romance or horror. Or sci fi. Looking for books that are fairly clean (limited cussing and little to no sex scenes). I enjoy reading Agatha Christie, Patricia Wentworth (another old-fashioned British mystery writer), Louis L'amour, John Grisham. I used to read Anne Perry and liked her books, but she seems to regularly pick extremely sordid crimes (probably not surprising given her past), and I stopped reading her books because of this.

So if the patterned ones are too much, what if DH wears his dress shirt and the boys just wear gray or navy polos? Or DH can just wear a navy or gray t shirt. He might even have a green t shirt and we could do navy, gray, green for colors. Or I guess I could see if Target has solid colored t shirts for the boys and it can be a super casual picture.

Ok these are the shirts I've found between digging through drawers and a trip to Old Navy. Please help me choose! DH's dress shirt is actually primarily navy with some denim and gray and white and beige. It's lighter than the picture shows. The stripes next to the beige ones look greenish to me but I think they're actually blue. I found a couple options each for the 18 mo, 3 yo, and 11 yo. (Ages in my signature are off so ignore them). The 9 yo could probably wear one of the 11 yo's shirts. And then I have a gray polo and a navy polo that fit the 7 yo, and a light gray dress shirt (minus tie) and a navy polo that fit the 9yo. The shirts that look black are really navy. Oh, and I also have a light denim short sleeve dress shirt and a navy long sleeve dress shirt for the 3 yo (not pictured). DD and I could wear dark green (emerald for me and very dark heathered green for her), cream, or possibly burgundy from what we already have. I think we'll all wear jeans.

We're hopefully having family pics done this weekend (if the weather stays reasonably warm to allow outdoor shots). My boys wear nothing but t-shirts and they all seem to have prints on them, so I was planning on picking up some polo shirts for them to wear for the pictures. Should I choose just one color, or two different colors for them? If I choose one color it would be navy. Two would be a medium gray + the navy. And either way, any ideas on what DD and I should wear? I mostly have navy and gray shirts...maybe one cream colored shirt. DD has tan, gray, dark blue (but not navy she says) and dark green shirts. DH would likely either wear a gray pocket t-shirt (that's all he wears), or his one dress shirt, which I think is plaid with greens and whites.

We're having our entryway and a connected hallway redone and I'm not sure what paint finish I should ask for. The same contractor did our living room with semi-gloss paint after I said I wanted washable paint, and it is definitely too shiny. I wish I knew what finish was in our hallway currently, because it washes ok and has a little shine but not too much, but I don't know. Is satin too shiny also for walls, or would it be a good balance between shine and washable-ness?

You might look into Gab Wireless. It's a very basic smartphone that only has a few apps and no more can be added. Idk if there's a way to limit the time on those phones, but at least they have the built-in restrictions on content which is nice. IIRC the phone are $99 and service is $20/mo.

I'm having trouble figuring out what you're saying. Are you suggesting that all the floor trim in the entryway area be changed to a taller trim if we paint it ivory, or just the trim in the closet area? Would it look odd to have different trim sizes in areas that are next to each other (ie living room and entryway...living room trim is the same trim in both size and color). I would love to paint the door ivory but I don't see DH agreeing to that. I already tried to convince him to paint the door navy and he didn't like that idea at all.

Anyone have an opinion on whether it would look funny to paint the floor trim ivory to match the walls? It's hard to tell from the picture, but the floor trim is a different color than the door trim...a bit lighter in color and a straight brown with no red tones.

We're opening up our entryway closet (up to the ceiling and removing the center partition) and adding built-ins with a bench and coat hooks, along with replacing the carpet in the closet area. I removed wallpaper in the entryway itself and it needs to be painted too. I'm having trouble making the final color choices. Entryway paint color will be Behr Exclusive Ivory. The built-in in the former closet area will have beadboard on the back wall, painted a navy, probably Behr Very Navy. I'm not sure whether the built-in shelves should be the same ivory color as the entryway, or a whiter white. DH thinks the ivory and navy won't look good together but they seem ok to me. Also need to choose a laminate wood or LVP flooring for the former closet area to replace the carpet there. Was thinking of something with grayish tones to try to reduce the contrast between it and the stone floor that's in the entryway, but open to suggestions. The stone floor has black, gray, and reddish brown in it. Also not sure about stain colors for the built-in bench. Ideally I'd like a darker brown like the inspiration photo, but I wonder if it would look best to match one of the stain colors that are already in the entryway. The door and door trim are a reddish brown which DH wants to keep as is. Floor trim is walnut (which is also the trim color in the living room next to the entryway...there is a wall separating the two so the entryway could have a different trim color than the living room. There's an oak banister leading away from the entryway. Should I choose one of these colors for the bench? Also debating about whether it would look ok to paint the floor trim the same ivory as the walls to reduce the number of wood tones in the entryway. I've attached pictures of the current entryway, my inspiration photo for the closet area, and the paint and flooring colors I'm considering.