Brian @ NotQuiteaTearDown's Profile

The key is to get it in a honed and not polished. I owned polished in my last kitchen and it was really annoying. Water spots stuck out like a sore thumb. We have honed Carrerra in our kitchen and love the look. It does leave an etch mark if you leave water sit for 20-30 mins and things like lime/lemon juice can etch it very fast (almost immediately), but when it's honed you don't see it that much. Ours has been installed for a few months and I only notice the marks in certain lights - usually at night. Natural light during the day I don't notice it all that much if at all. Still can't beat the way it looks! We considered various quartz options, but weren't as happy with the look as we were with real marble. You can always get it rehoned to take away the wear if you want. I've actually been curious as to what the finish would look like if I rubbed lemons all over it. Not willing to try, but curious if it would hide everything.

Check out our blog for pics!

Loctite PL construction adhesive should work or the Gorilla Glue (the brown kind) like the others mentioned. My only issue with Gorilla Glue is that it expands as it dries so you have to be careful it doesn't get all over the leg of the chair. Although you can scrape it off with a razor blade once it dries.

Oh and our renovation is located just outside of Washington DC.

http://wellfed.typepad.com/well_fed/

Well Fed is my go to blog. They always have great things that are explained and photographed well. My favorite which originally took me to the site is the pot de creme - so easy to make and always a crowd pleaser.

Instant espresso powder in anything chocolate makes things taste much more chocolaty without having any coffee flavor at all. I usually add 1 tablespoon to choco lava cakes or brownies - 2 or 3 if you want a mocha flavor.

My camera is inside so it can't be stolen. Plus if they stole the cameras you would have them recorded stealing the cameras. Maybe they'd be smart enough to wear a mask, but I wouldn't let that stop you. They make housings for the cameras that make them weatherproof and tamper resistant. Our neighborhood isn't the greatest either, but I've had more problems with the yuppies that I live with than the low income housing neighbors.

I had a big problem with squirrels last year on our patio garden. They would dig up all the planters and make a mess. This year we put rocks in all the planters and haven't had a problem at all. That and every time I'd see them out there in the Spring I'd get my hose out, sneak up on them and blast em with some water! At first that seemed to irritate them even more, but eventually they gave up and moved on to somebody elses patio.

We have an LG washer/dryer combo unit and absolutely love it! It replaced an OK stack unit in a closet, but we wanted to save space since we have a small condo. This gives us a better unit and we now have an extra half closet we use for a linen closet. The things we like about the LG - it's small, you can set a timer for the loads so it washes/drys while asleep or away, everything is done in one swoop so no loading wet clothes into a dryer, less wrinkles (as long as you don't overfill), and it's more efficient. We are 2 adults and having 1 unit is plenty. We do a 3-4 loads per week and using the timer is key. You can set it so the laundry is ready when you get home from work or wake up in the morning. The unit is quiet although we usually have it run while we're not home so we wouldn't hear it even if it was loud. The model we have is an LG WM3677HW - http://us.lge.com/products/model/detail/home%20appliances_laundry_washer|dryer%20combos_WM3677HW.jhtml.

We paid about $1800 for it, but it was completely worth it in our opinion. I highly recommend these to anyone. You can hook this up to a standard 120V outlet and it does not require a vent at all. The unit creates almost no lint and every few months you have to clean the lint from the water pipe filter (very easy). The last few times I checked the filter there was almost no lint at all. Your clothes are the slightest bit damp when the dry cycle completes, but as soon as you take them out they dry instantly before you fold them.