sylvangirl's Profile

You forgot to mention the Span Gateleg Table at Crate & Barrel for $299 (http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=14227&f=32913)

So sad that the previous owner took such pains to keep the character of the home to have the new owner want to destroy it. Why buy a 19th century home when you would have been happier in a 21st century condo? The kitchen looks great - it has nice transitional look with the blue backsplash and modern appliances. Try just changing the cabinet hardware (new pulls can make a big difference).

Just want to update that I decided to settle for the tiles, even though the color wasn't what I had expected. Hakatai made the extra effort of sending me some loose (non-paper-backed) tiles so I could see the color better. It was lighter than what I had seen online, but I decided to settle for it. Hopefully it will look nice anyway since the other tiles I bought (which just went up) look gorgeous. I also noticed they took my comment about the color looking incorrect to heart and changed the picture online so it more closely resembles their product now. I'll be more careful to find out the color in the future, but I'll still recommend people to Hakatai.

They do look cool. I checked out the Inhabit website to look at some of the other patterns and I like Chrysalis.

I did get annoyed, however, at the eco-friendly selling point. I really dislike when products are described to be "eco-friendly" when they should just be touted as "less environmentally harmful than [fill in the blank]." Inhabit calls the tiles "good for the environment" because they are made from 100% bamboo pulp (renewable and biodegradable and chemical free). I can't help but look at the product and wonder how they bleached the tiles white (bamboo isn't white) -- bleach is bad for the environment; the pulping and bleaching process uses a lot of water and dumps a bunch of waste chemical into the environment. Also "renewable" is an interesting term -- where does the bamboo come from? Bamboo farms? Were forests clear-cut to make room for such farms? This product is touted as biodegradable, but how biodegradable is it with paint and thinset on its surface? I think the real eco-friendly policy is less materialism and consumerism and taking some pause before buying.

I just had a disappointing experience with Hakatai and their ashland-e series. I bought their Lagoon colored glass tiles, expecting to get some beautiful aqua-blue tiles as displayed online. Unfortunately the tiles I received were not only NOT aqua-blue, they were generally clear. I had expected the tiles to look at least somewhat like they did online because I had purchased from Hakatai one time before and gotten what I had expected to get.
Hakatai did offer to waive the restocking fee, but I will have to eat the cost of shipping if I decide to send the tiles back. The cost of shipping to and from is $85 ($45 dollars to my home, and $40 to send back via UPS), so I will lose almost half the money I spent. I would have been happier if they gave me a few alternatives, including offering to have me pay less for the tiles given that they misrepresented their product. I'm not saying don't purchase from Hakatai, but please be warned that what you see may not be what you get.

How would these colors be used together? Are red and blue the accent colors? Could you use the red for walls and have blue furniture or vice versa? They're contrasting colors so I think the combination might be hard on the eyes...

I just notice you have the same zebra rug as your Round 1 competitor... http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/small-cool-2009/small-cool-2009-nathan-andrews-serene-masculine-teenytiny-division-20-082004

Do you get something for winning other than the pat on the back?