In answer to using old plush toys filled with soil? Why Not? Plants are rather adaptive and you will find something willing to take over and be cut back regularly, returning with a vengeance to cover that toy completely. I make topiary for a living and have used alot of drainage pipe for letters like a billboard I did in SF for garden.com that was completely planted with ficus vine for a years' contract. I secured the black plastic 4" tubing to the billboard forming letters along the way, forty feet up...filled with soil, made plant holes 1 per foot,covered in sphagnum moss secured with fishing line, made a solar powered drip system with 50 gallon drum water reservoir (remote location) pumped it 40' up, another pump for 40' across...The new disney retail headquarters in Pasadena, CA has an 18' Mickey Mouse Archway at the entrance...it has alot of spare space inside and is filled with refuse plastic. the plants dont mind as long as they have soil and water to grow in. The 15' ABSOLUT bottle I did in St Thomas has basically a teddy bear lining inside to hold plants and soils in, come to think of it. 3 months later the ficus vine had fully taken over, no doubt it did not hurt using grey water for conservation methods...dark green plants after that!

I had many materials bought before hiring our gc. When he came in, day 1, I had a detailed list ready of what was purchased and what else was chosen and what else we expected to choose. I asked him for guidance on a number of items and we have had very few issues with our supplying most things. In fact, a few things on "his" list were purchased by us when I saw a steal or specialty item. He took those off the contracted price as a change order. I think it simplified a lot for him and he was comfortable because the materials were on site well in advance. I may have pestered him about a few choices but overall, he was grateful that I had things done early and was attending to my duties. The issue he hates is when a h.o. is supposed to supply something and then the job is help up because of a backorder or something was forgotten. I have a number of things that he or the subs have never worked with or even heard of (one joked to his buddy I cursed at him when I said I had a Mockett, lol). They were interested in the new stuff or new ideas I had because I think it was a new toy or something interesting for them. I did not see any eye rolling or complaints. In the future, they have some new ideas and techniques to sell when doing other jobs. I have researched everything to death and was able to provide detailed instructions on anything new. I certainly have learned a ton from them, but I contributed as well. I hope your gc works out as nicely for you as ours has. Our architect was a nightmare, but our skilled gc has minimized the pain of dealing with him/his mistakes as best as possible. The subs chosen by our gc were all top notch as well. His bid was reasonable and was equal to a few and below a few. He was the most pleasurable to deal with while bidding on the project and that has carried through to well past the halfway point (where we are now). One great thing about having materials bought in advance, is that is one area you won't have budget creep. We knew how much our appliances, cabs, etc... would cost prior to hiring the gc, so there were many fewer unknowns than most people have.

"Just wait until you have to pack up all that crap and move it." My SIL just bought a retirement home so they are decluttering their current house as a preparation for selling it--she keeps telling me she can't believe how much STUFF she's got to get rid of. When I go to their house I always admire how it looks nicely organized and without extraneous things all over. However, I also admire her tons of closets and storage space which she says leads to keeping, you guessed it, all that stuff LOL. I've decided I will play a mental game this summer and pretend we have to move; maybe that will be my motivation to get rid of much unnecessary and unused stuff in our house! I use the holidays and shopping for gifts to satisfy any yen I may have to be a retail hunter/gatherer. The past few years I increasingly feel as if I am gorging myself after staying on a careful and healthy diet; by the time January comes I feel so psychically bloated from all the shopping /buying that I need another year to rest up and recover! It's interesting to me to watch my young adult daughter who is setting up her first home. She loveslovesloves Home Goods, Marshalls, Pier 1 etc. And when I go with her I usually find stuff I could easily buy. I have a rule that I can't take anything from those places home the day I see it. That usually short circuits the purchase, I'm rarely motivated enough to fight the traffic and crowds to go back a second time!

I forgot... I do have a few in progress photos. The one where one of our sons and I are standing next to the island was immediately after hubby had just made the waterfall cut and we were propping it up so he could see how it fit. LOL! That was such a nerve wracking day! LOL! We had paid all this extra money for walnut boards that were long enough to pull this off, and we couldn’t afford to mess it up. Hahahaha! The entire kitchen project took about a year total. Hubby worked entirely from our garage and driveway. He also took off an entire summer because he finished up two masters degrees, walked for them, went on a short term missions trip to Ghana, and one of our sons competes a lot for his sport (springboard/platform diving) and there’s a lot of travel for it, especially in summer as that’s the main competition season for him. But I was only entirely out of a functioning kitchen for two weeks (well, I used my laundry room and the grill out back during those two weeks) but I lived for quite a while without doors or drawers on my cabinetry... but my kitchen functioned during that time, which was important to me as we have five busy kids. The kitchen was an entire gut job though, we took down a part of a wall, moved a gas line, moved electrical, moved some plumbing just a little bit, added ventilation that didn’t even exist prior... it was a big job. The only thing hubby hired out was the fabrication and installation of our granite countertops. (Oh, and we paid for the 60” range to be installed because there’s no way to get into our house without navigating a staircase, and we didn’t want to wrestle that beast. We got a GREAT deal on that range though, it was a floor model and we got over half off on it and the hood... we couldn’t pass it up, and our neighborhood can support this kind of kitchen.) Actually, the cabinet around our fridge, hubby made that so the shelf comes out easily and the cabinet will eventually house a built in fridge like a subzero because that’s more expected in this area. We just haven’t found a great deal on one yet and that kitchen aid fridge won’t die, LOL! I included a before/after collage photo. People say “your kitchen before didn’t look bad,” but it was in horrible condition. The cabinetry was literally falling apart, and the layout was horrible to work in, we had no ventilation for the cooktop (and we do a lot of high heat cooking) and it was just miserable to work in because the layout was so difficult. My kitchen now is a dream to work in!