cobalt blue's Profile

The baking soda mixture will badly scratch silver. Instead, dissolve baking soda and salt (you have to experiment a bit to get the correct proportions) into water that's in an aluminum foil-lined container, and dip your tarnished silver in that. I use distilled water because my tap water, which comes from a well, has a high mineral content. I also use those aluminum-foil baking pans you can buy at the grocery store instead of the sheets of foil.

Despite its name, Murphy's Oil Soap is NOT good for cleaning wood, especially valuable furniture. Recently, someone on here provided a recipe for cleaning wood furniture, which is much better:
two parts linseed oil
two parts turpentine
one part vinegar
one part denatured alcohol

I don't know about the other "tips" provided here, but it might be a good idea to test these out on your own stuff before telling others to try them on theirs.

exactly what I was thinking

Good question! I laughed out loud when I finally realized what you were referring to.

To add to your observation: The guy in that picture is perched so awkwardly on whatever that thing he's trying to sit on is, he looks like he's got some kind of painful medical condition. Every time I see that photo, it makes me want to squirm.

I recall being in a similar situation, but with one big difference. I had close friends who were moving out of the country. At the time, her husband was traveling a lot so I helped her with the packing, and the yard sale, and we ate almost every meal together, I even ended up adopting their 11-year-old cat who they couldn't take with them. I really enjoyed our time together, but once they left, I was devastated. I missed them both so much.

BTW, "god is in the details," who didn't even use the idiom in the correct context, can go fly a kite.

These look neither lower nor softer, rather stiffer and uncomfortable. And I'm sure they're ridiculously expensive.

Haven't read all the other comments, so I apologize if this has already been suggested, and I don't know how extensively you want to renovate. But what I'd do is remove the wall between the bedroom and the living area, move the kitchen to the back wall, and partition the space to the far right into two bedrooms, which will make them closer to the bathroom too.

I know this is a bit off topic, but I was looking at the chairs on Ikea's UK website and came across this, which I think is really pretty.

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/40239698/#/20239699

It's not on the US site, which always makes me wonder why and how Ikea chooses the products it makes available in different countries.

I think this sconce would work better with your wallpaper.
http://www.crateandbarrel.com/lander-sconce/s605816

And I agree with those who said that crisp, white bedding would be beautiful.

The Latin phrase on the chairs means "love one another." I don't believe the insignia is from a college fraternity, more likely a religious group, probably Catholic. You might be able to remove them without having to refinish the entire chair. I'd use Citristrip www.wmbarr.com/citristrip/default.aspx, which is nontoxic.

The chairs are beautiful and certainly a steal at $50. If you like them, who cares who made them?

It must be nice to have so much disposable income that you can pretty much gut a more than adequate kitchen, including its new-looking appliances, and replace it with something that's not radically different, not particularly creative, and that will look dated in about 5 years.