By KIM PALMER, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Two teenagers, both seriously injured a week apart while playing hockey, remain hospitalized at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, where their family members anxiously watched their every movement, hoping for signs of improvement.

The hue gurus have spoken, as they do every year, scanning the spectrum to anoint one color that they predict will make a splash in the months ahead.

And for 2012, they're bullish on bright orange -- or "Tangerine Tango," as the Pantone Color Institute has dubbed its "Color of the Year."

Pet owners who fail to pick up after their pets can no longer stay under the radar at some apartment complexes. Their landlords are scooping up the evidence and sending it to a lab for DNA testing to determine which dog did it.

Most people who update their homes want them to look bigger, better and newer. But Brita Hansen and Eric Hazen wanted their remodeled Minneapolis home to look like its small, 1880s self.

"We really liked the proportions of the original house and the gables," Hansen said.

"Great views and lots of glass." That's what first attracted Bill Lutz to his home overlooking a tranquil pond in Victoria, Minn.

The last time Wendy Berghorst appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, in 2006, she was sharing a candlelit bath with her husband, for a feature on "Love Nests."

That was then. Now Berghorst is moving into a nest of her own.

Tips on how to display books:

Start fresh. Jim Noble of Noble Interior Design is an advocate of pulling all the books off the shelves and then arranging them by color and size. "Balance is the object here," he said. "Things should have the same visual weight." Do your arranging on the floor, then put books back on shelves, he said.

The library/sunroom in Jim Noble's 19th-century Minneapolis house is all about the books. Leather-bound volumes, many of them antiques that have been in his family for generations, fill floor-to-ceiling shelves that line an entire wall.

Santa red and pine green are holiday staples. But today, many are putting a fresh spin on that traditional palette, using different shades, such as berry with lime or red-orange with acid green.

Great rooms. McMansions. Jumbo mortgages. The American home -- and everything associated with it -- got supersized during the housing boom. Big was good. Bigger was better. Biggest was best of all.