Home

Like a lot of us, Jack Smith and Valorie Marschall work all week. So when the weekends roll around they like to relax. The couple spends a lot of time in their RV, traveling across the country. But, when the weather is warm, home is just as much fun. After moving from a downtown Spokane condominium into a 1970s house at Liberty Lake, they updated the interior. "The house had been used as a rental," Marschall said. "It needed work."

Remember "Cinderella"? The fairytale about the young, mistreated step-sister who – helped by her fairy godmother – gets to attend the big ball where she, beautiful and unrecognizable, captures the heart of the prince? Well, in our neck of the woods "Cinderella" is real and her name is Donna Souza. She lives in Coeur d'Alene and works as the day-shift scanner cashier at the Spokane Valley Fred Meyer store.

Native plants are all around us. They are the plants we take for granted in the fields and forests and on the roadsides we pass every day. They are a big part of our quality of life in the Inland Northwest. With the warmer weather finally upon us, our native trees, shrubs and wildflowers soon will be splashing the countryside with color. In their honor, Washington is celebrating Native Plant Appreciation Week this week.

Pieces of history Employ bits of older architecture in your modern life for variety and elegance.

Other shoppers walked right by the vintage lemonade crock sitting on a vendor's table at the spring "Everybody's Bazaar" at the Warehouse Sports Facility in Spokane earlier this month. The yellow crock, decorated with green lettering, was interesting, but it was missing its lid. So, what could be done with it? Marilyn Hutchison decided she would take the crock home with her and find a use for it later. For Hutchison, who collects vintage crockery, color was the key.

Last week I joined my daughter in an auditorium at Gonzaga University. We were there for a lecture by Kent Severson, an archaeologist who specializes in conserving ancient artifacts. Severson showed slides of excavation sites in Turkey and Egypt. It was fascinating to look at photographs of beautiful columns, the bleached bones of ancient buildings, crumbling stone walls and rows of marble seats in a sunken arena. These tangible, sometimes fragile survivors of cities and lives from the past are starkly beautiful.

"Blowout sale!" If you're like most of us, you lace up your sneakers when you hear those magic words, especially for big-ticket items like furniture. But these days so many stores and their online competitors are offering furniture at attractive prices that it's hard to know which way to jump. It may be helpful to think of furniture shopping as a game of trade-offs: Some of the biggest bargains are found online. (The deepest discounts tend to lurk in the clearance sections of chain-store Web sites.) On the other hand, your local retailer may offer discounted floor samples and personalized service. Some will even give you free decorating advice in your home. So where are the best places to look? Real Simple consulted nine industry experts to find the most promising sources for bargain furniture. Here's a rundown of their recommended sources.

I have 50 dahlia tubers to plant and a similar number of gladiola corms. Spring, up until very recently, has been cold, wet and windy. When will the ground be warm enough to plant these flowers? I don't want them to just sit and rot, but don't want to miss the earliest opportunity to get them into the ground. Also, I have six "own root" roses I planted last summer. There is very little green on them right now, and the rest of the stems are black. I know they are supposed to grow back from their own roots. Do I prune back all the black canes now, and wait and see what happens?