Fiona, Australia's Profile

I want the home to be 'ours' not 'mine'. So although I have most the creative energy, I don't make decisions without his input. I tend to develop the vision, and he helps me make it happen with structural support. We both have right of vetoe. And over time, he has learnt to trust my (to him) wild-er ideas, while I tone my larger flights of fancy down so I don't frighten his more conservative tastes too much.

They need to be a bit seperate (unless they are cook books). I'd hate to see books destroyed by a 'plumbing incident' or spitting fat. But I think books go anywhere else, so a bit further away, like next to the table is a great idea.

Try living in a mouse plague where no matter how clean or dirty you are, everyone has mice. Our terrier was great and killed many so we were only catching 30 a night. Our neighbours were catching more like 60 a night. According to the long-time locals, this wasn't a 'real' mouse plague - that there weren't that enough mice to be characterised a plague.
Every known trap type was used. The best were the ones that caught them live because you could keep catching them in the same trap all night. The ones that kill - once it's sprung, it is sprung and needs to be reset to catch more. Our neighbours swore by the wine bottle method - where you put a sock over a bottle to halfway with peanut butter at the other end and balanced on the edge of a bucket of water. The mouse runs along the sock part of the wine bottle, keeps going on the glass until it slips and falls into the bucket of water, where it drowns. I prefer to catch them live and drown them myself so I can make sure they at least die quickly, rather than swimming around and around.

Take a tip from when the cold-loving British were in hot India pre-a/c - use natural fabric curtains (linen, cotton), and leave the ends in a bucket of water. The water wicks up the fabric, and the breeze from the open window blows cool into the room. Doesn't help on still airless nights, but works a dreams with even a light breeze.