I think you are right to keep your rating neutral. Garden watchdog only works if people are honest in their ratings. There are many excellent places to buy from that provide both great quality and good customer service. I want to be able to tell the difference between these great companies and a Van Bourgendien company..... not that I would never order from VB, I'm just saying that you have to find your own happy medium between price and rating. Oh and as far as the lily bug goes, it was buzzing around me all last spring. If I had more money I think I would have suffered a few lily bug bites.... and to think for the most part I don't like lilies, but some are so amazing. Two types stand out for me, anything that gets real tall (over 6 feet) and anything with a wild lily look to it, where the petals curl back and the flowers hang down. Color is not as big a deal as the form of the plant..... I don't really like the upward facing short asiatics. Is that wrong of me? "Silk road" comes to mind. Now that's an amazing looking lily. When the lily bug bites this is where I'll go.... be careful there's alot of temptation on this website! (although some of the prices will sober you up real fast) Here is a link that might be useful: The Lily Garden

This past year was our first time, and although it's behind schedule, and we're about to be kicked out of our rental (our landlady has another tenant coming in and didn't count on us this far behind schedule), I would definitely do it again. Some things that helped make it "enjoyable": 1. We had a great builder - honest, knowledgeable, and very communicative (although the one time he made an assumption without consulting us, he ended up eating the cost to rip out the built-in as we wanted stain grade wood). 2. We worked with our builder in more of a partnership model. For example, he couldn't find enough of the gimbaled LED lights from his supply sources and I looked it up online and found which Home Depot stores had what, and we split up and each went to various one to pick up enough quantity needed (we needed 25, and the word was that the manufacturer had some issues at the plant, and it would be awhile to get these same ones restocked). In other times, he worked with us to redesign something that he didn't like or didn't fit what the architect drew out. 3. I work from home most days, and have a flexible schedule as well as mobile technology that allows me to work anywhere. Our rental is about a mile away from the site, so I could pop in and out as needed to answer questions on site when the builder wasn't there or if he didn't know the answer, check in daily to watch progress and catch errors (of course, the one big one that I didn't catch ended up costing over $20K extra after the fact). 4. Had a positive attitude going in, along with a network of people to bounce ideas and questions off of here and on houzz. I felt that there were no issues that couldn't be solved with everyone here. I may have overanalyzed things and may have been paralyzed many times, but somehow got through it. 5. knowing ahead of time that things happen, and taking the position that sometimes you just have to roll with it and make adjustments in real time. This is more of the attitude readjustment. 6. planning ahead - know what are the critical decisions that need to be made and when, and then a month ahead of time, do your research and education so you can make the right decision. Nothing more stressful than having a short time to make a decision because someone needs it the next day. 7. have a set of "guiding principles" for those times when things fall outside of the norm - when something is unavailable, when something got done wrong and something needs to be altered, when there is too much choices available, etc. Those guiding principles will guide you back - for example, when looking for an entry light (an easy decision, right?), we were overwhelmed with choices, and we had to go back to what was the look we wanted (not necessary the light, but the look) and then use that to remind ourselves to stay on track. 8. enjoy the experience. If you go into it with dread and trepidation, it's going to turn out that way. Enjoying the experience doesn't mean that there isn't going to be bad days and trying time, conflicts, etc., but by and large, remember to treat it as a positive experience. Hope that helps.

It's 2:46 on Friday afternoon. I started this process at 9am this morning. I am still not able to order the part as I have no email from anyone requesting the information they need to charge the cost. IT seems that this process is not working at all.

So, I have had my Ariston AWD121 for a little over 12 years now. I do have to open up the machine, remove the fan unit and clean the lint and dog hair out of both that and the condensing container every couple of years, but other than that routine maintenance, I have not had any problems with my machine. It cleans the clothes, it is very stable with minimum vibrations, and it washes and dries a load in about 2 to 3 hours, depending on whether the items are heavy or light and the wash cycle selected. FYI, I am the same person as chicagobent, but had to set up a new account as my old account did not seem to survive the Houzz takeover of That Home Site. As my machine is now 12 years old, I am getting concerned because it seems that Ariston is not really sold in North America anymore. The above comments from 2014 about them not leaving the US market appear to no longer be true. That said, the Splendide WDC7100XC seems to be made by Ariston and seems to be the updated version of what I currently have. I would not buy an LG combo unit because almost everyone I know who did has had huge problems with the machines leaking. Hopefully, I will not need a new machine any time soon.