Forestdweller's Profile

True, asinner. The things that my dogs eat!

I had a hard time locating a raised feeding bowl for just one bowl for my big, elderly dog (I have two dogs, so the water bowl is communal), so I bought a low, wooden, Chinese plant stand with chow-style legs, and I placed a heavy ceramic dish on top of it. The dish has straight sides, and is the exact size of the stand's top, and the stand has a rim around the edge that holds the bowl in place. Perfect. And the plant stand was about $12 or so, from Target.

Yes, Heather, I think it's tumbled Carrara mosaic. The cheapest I've found on line is per $14/sf sheet.

http://www.mosaicsdirect.com/Sheets.html#

That's on the very low end of what you can pay for this stuff. Then you double that (at least) for the labor to install it.

I have a shower done in mosaic glass tiles. It is terrible trying to keep the grout clean. And with marble, you have to use gentle, non-etching products and elbow grease. But these folks probably have a maid.

... and is that really double faucets over the side-by-side sinks in #5?

Mschatelaine, you bought a Togo sofa while a "starving grad student"? Not so starving, I think. I really was a starving grad student years ago, and slept on a used mattress and had a $200 futon from Cost Plus for a sofa, and ate beans and tortillas for meals.

I've coveted a Togo for many years, but have never been able to just do a complete turnover of my furniture. That is one design that does not play well with others. You need the proper "shiny and new" decor to show it off, not an eclectic mix, as I have. It's interesting to read both good and bad comments about the quality of LR, though. Down escaping? Very bad. It means that the cushion was cheaply made.

I think that the reason you see these designs listed for sale by owners is that they make such a strong statement, and are so recognizable. Not trendy, but not subtle either. If you want to change the look of a room considerably, they might not be so easy to work into the new design, and many aren't candidates for new upholstery. A top-quality classic sofa, on the other hand (kiln dried wood, double dowelling, blocked corners, horsehair padding, etc.), should last a lifetime and adapt to new surroundings with reupholstering. To tell you how far in the other direction (from the LR Togo coveting) I have gone, my living room sofa is a George Smith, in mohair velvet. I've had it for ten years and I suspect that it will survive the apocalypse. That thing is sturdy. (Will I be chased out of here by the modernists, having admitted that I have such stodgy furniture?)

On the book issue --

The housecleaner who works for a relative of mine decided to rearrange the relative's books one day during a total house dusting (for which the books were removed and cleaned). She placed them back in the shelves according to height and color because ... she doesn't read English.

Go to a paint store and get a Benjamin Moore brochure/paint chip card for historic house colors. They group the colors in complementary groups of three (for painting older houses with lots of trim work).

Or go here to look at combos. The closest I can find to your ruby purple is the "Atlantic Northeast-Metropolitan Merge":

http://www.myperfectcolor.com/SearchResults.asp

"Tourist accommodations and a tea room". Now that will be great for the community.

What's funny to me when I see something like this is that structures of this kind were where the rural poor lived, and people were very happy to escape that life. Now these ruins are quaint. I've traveled around Scotland and some of the more rural parts of England and Ireland, and have met elderly people who remember living in dark, cold, dank, airless places like this (and even smaller ones). I look at this place and I'm afraid I see misery.

Oh, and as for baking soda -- it makes a great poultice for poison oak. Mix up a thick paste of it and dribble that onto the affected area. Let it sit for 10 minutes or so, wash it off, pat it dry. It dries up the seeping and calms the itch.

I lived as a renter in SF for many years, and GDs used to be rare in San Francisco apartments. Then when I bought an old, old house, I never got around to putting a GD in. Little bits of food would get down the drain when we were washing dishes, and grease built up around that muck. We had plumbing problems in the main outflow pipe to the street, which was attributed to the lack of a garbage disposer. I now live where there is a septic system, so even though I have a GD, I can't use it for more than grinding up the small bits of food that get past the strainer. But I think it does help keep the pipes clear.

I've composted over the years, but I find that rodents always find their way into the bins. I've given up on the whole idea.

It does look like testicles, and I don't spend time around large, ungelded animals.

What a silly product, and a great way to promote slipping and falling in the shower. I'm waiting for the lawsuits to start.