Thanks, all. So, DH is the painter ... (how does one put an emoticon that denotes chagrin??) He is the most careful, conscientious person I know when it comes to doing things right. I'd have to go check out our vast store of half-used paint cans to see exactly what we used, but I believe we used Kilz as a primer (not oil) and probably Benjamin Moore or Sherwin Williams latex -- 2 coats, about a week apart -- as the paint. I would have felt very bad if we had to call the tile guy on this, actually, because this job (the tile, most particularly the shower pan that he had to do twice) was probably the biggest tiling headache he's had in a long time. Nice guy, truly. But I have to be careful not to let nice people take advantage of me sometimes so I needed a sanity check. Appreciate the advice. And thanks for the nice compliments. We are so psyched about our room!

The worst in housekeeping would be my Mom's house. Mom had a stroke about 10 years before she passed. She spent those years in a wheel chair, paralyzed on the left side. The man that lived with her insisted that he would care for her all the days of her life. No problem with me and my siblings. Jim was 20 years younger than Mom and we knew that he had cared well for his sister and Mother during their long standing health issues. All was well for about 8 years. Jim had a tendency to clutter and not do as much real cleaning as we would have liked, but Mom was happy, always laughing and Jim did keep her clean comfortable and well fed. My2 siblings and I, each from 100 to 400 miles away, made it a point to go in and clean, etc as often as possible and give Jim a little relief. About 2 years before Mom's passing, Jim got weird and a little hostile towards us. The clutter became worse. If we threw anything out (spoiled food, egg cartons, general trash, the next time we were at the house, the trash would all been taken back in. Jim would not accept any help and refused to let anyone into the house when we contacted VNA and the Area on Aging Services for an investigation. Mom was still happy and told us to leave Jim alone...she was ok with him. If we went to see Mom, Jim was nowhere in sight. Mom, who really was of sound mind insisted that we not interfere. So we did our best to honor her wishes. She was hospitalized for about 3 weeks before she died. When we went to the house to claim some of her personal belongings after the funeral we couldn't believe the conditions there. I have never seen worse, and I felt ashamed of the conditions that our Mom was living in...but that is what she wanted. We had signed the house over to Jim several years earlier, because we felt he had certainly earned it. He passed 3 years ago, all alone. We had tried to be part of his life after Mom died, but he would have nothing to do with us. The house and contents in deplorable condition inside and out were auctioned off. Of course a distant relative of Jim's came out of the woodwork on his passing to make a claim on the estate..and some $40,000 in cash. Fine with us...that relative would have to do the cleaning up, not us.

It's really tough to say how much asbestos it takes since some are exposed for a short time and get mesothelioma very quickly and at a young age. Others like my FIL are exposed daily at work for 40 years or more and don't get it until 50 years after first exposure. They do know that significant direct exposure over a long period of time makes it nearly certain. Many people have had some limited exposure without getting the disease. There are some factors like smoking that seem to hasten the onset of the disease. Hopefully your friends weren't exposed that much over too long a time. In your friend's situation and since they are so concerned I would recommend testing to see if they have had asbestos exposure. It's possible that there's nothing to worry about.

OK I am adding it all here to give credit to the person that wrote the directions. I will say I was totally freaked about doing this and put it off for several years. THEN this pink chair was so yuck looking it was either recover it or toss it. I loved the chair and the upholstery was good it just was dingy after 18 years or so being a light mauve. So I had nothing to loose and gave it a shot. It is close to the vinyl covered fabric but not as sticky feeling on your skin. The trick is in the sanding. Do it very gently. This happened to be a slightly nubby fabric and I still did it even when it says not to. I love that now I can wipe it right off when it gets dirty.And it does with the kitties getting on it. And if I change my decor I can always paint it another color. AND it is not likely to wear out now with four coats of paint on it. LOL Have fun with this . It is freaky at first why I took so many pictures of it. the first coat soaks right in. I used a paint brush not foam. The foam brush did not work for me. Chris DIRECTIONS: Here are the directions from Magnaverde that he had posted a few years back. I did the same instructions. I used a good natural paste wax to cover the chair, and if you can find a dark tinted powder to coat it that works better for a darker color. I have not had to coat the chair again in a year of constant every day use. "Of course you can paint a sofa. Forget all that nonsense about teensy bottles of expensive paint medium from the crafts store. You don't need anything more than regular latex semi-gloss paint and a lot of guts. I found a beautiful Baker Chippendale camelback sofa, with cool curved arms and a fat down cushion, but it was covered in a hideous glazed chintz in the ugliest colors I ever saw. I found some great yellow wool damask to reupholster with, but it would have cost me $3OOO for the fabric alone, and I was in a hurry anyway--people coming in 2 weeks--so as a temporary fix I painted my sofa instead. Everyone freaked out when I told then the plan, but it worked. I was planning on painting my living room dark green, so I decided to go with red leather. First, I painted the whole thing with bubblegum pink semigloss latex paint, using the widest foam brush I could find, and brushing it on in long strokes front-to-back and up + down. Think of that as the primer coat. I let it dry 2 days, then sanded it super lightly with fine-grade sandpaper to get rid of the burrs--and there were a lot of them. When I couldn't feel any more sharp things, another coat of paint, spread thin. Dried & sanded again. Then spread--with my hands--a thin coat of raspberry red semi-gloss paint I had deadened a little with brown to make it less vivid. Because it was a deep color, there wasn't much white filler in the paint, so it was almost like a glaze or stain, instead of paint, which is just what I wanted, anyway. I just smoothed it on, like suntan oil, and worked it into the pink paint. I let it build a little thicker on the back, on the inside of the arms and at the back edge of the loose cushion, so that the paler, thinner red took on an air of wear at the high points. I let it dry 2 days, then CAREFULLY sanded the few new sharp things, and touched up those spots with my fingers. I let it dry 2 days, then waxed the whole thing with regular paste wax. After it was dry, I polished it with a soft cloth, then dusted it with talcum, and vacuumed it all off. It was a little stiff the first few days, but now it not only looks like red leather, it feels like it. This worked great on my ugly glazed chintz, and probably would work on any smooth fabric, except that some may have more burrs and therefore require more sanding, but I wouldn't try it on anything with a heavy texture. And no, the paint doesn't peel off. And no, it's not stiff, either. Think about it--it's latex and essentially, that's what's in those little bottles of fabric medium." Regards, MAGNAVERDE.