Oh, I am so sorry, you have my sympathy. It must have been the week for water damage. After a summer of 100 plus degree temps and no rain, Monday night a wind storm took off the roof of our office building, and then the rain came. Tuesday on my way to a dr appt I get a call that the office has been flooded. This is our second floor in a month, mind you. The property restoration people showed up not long after I got there, with their fans and dehumidifers. It looked like a mess, but that we would survive. It rained Tuesday night. Office flooded again. More carpet sucking, then carpet removal, more dehumidifiers and fans, Thursday it rained again, TWICE. By now it was way past funny and on the threshold of disaster. Fortunately the computers and files were fine, just everything else was soggy and/or destroyed. Clients of ours gave us some temp space until they can rehab our entire office. It rained again last night, I ran up to check today. They had supposedly temporarily fixed the leak, but I didn't trust it, but lo and behold, the floor was dry and a massive blower with super hot air was blowing through the office. Monday we have to tackle inventorying what was destroyed and trying to decide how to store what didn't die.

Thought I'd update. Got Windows installed without a hitch, Dell talked me through it. I debated whether to put Win 7 in since I was starting from scratch but worried some of my software might not work Everything went well except I couldn't find drivers for some things such as my wireless adapter so couldn't get on line. Called Linksys and they spent over an hour trying to get the driver in and finally did. That was the best part, finally getting on line and getting hit with a zillion MS updates. I have misplaced or lost some software. We moved here in March and I could not locate my Office disk, wireless mouse/keyboard software and a few other things, might have gotten lost in the move. I'm most concerned about Office 07. I paid for it. Dell says they can't help and I could try contacting MS and see if they would do anything. I haven't moved any of my files back yet. Otherwise, I feel like the computer runs better than when it was new. Things seem different, have to fool with fonts and views, but I'm amazed how effortlessly the machine runs. This computer always seemed to have a few 'glitches' but I was used to it. Now it seems so fast and smooth (of course there isn't much running on it yet.) I don't know how to thank everyone for all the support and help I received. You are the best friends anyone could ever ask for. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks! Thanks from the bottom of my heart... Jane

katybug, you mentioned you don't want it to look bad, so from reading what you are saying, I would much rather take the time and do it right than have to look at a room or wall all the time and never be satisfied because I was in a hurry . If you have knicks, gouges, scrapes, etc. the best thing to do of course is to mud it out; or even if you are going to do a finish with joint compound you are still doing work (unless you want a textured finish). So either way, there is going to need to be work from either way you choose. Just throwing out some of the possibles. Just doing a decorative finish over your wall imperfections with paint is not going to take care of the walls condition, unless you take some other kind of steps to correct what you have mentioned above. One thing for sure after I removed all that paper, I surely wouldn't put anymore up. :)

Glacier White Corian wouldn't at all be a waste and would save you money over quartz right now with the tariffs on Chinese imports if you purchased a non-American brand which is basically anything except Cambria, and Cambria itself is expensive. You can even get the Glacier White Corian in a 3/4" thickness (most other colors only come in the 1/2" thickness). You might want to read up on some of the durability issues between the two surfaces. For starters, quartz can change color with exposure to sunlight which is something you don't see with Corian, and quartz can melt at lower temperatures (150 degrees Fahrenheit) than Corian (380 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit). Corian can be resurfaced easily, while this is much harder with quartz. Corian will develop a patina of light scuffs of which you are already aware, but again these can be buffed out whereas scratches in quartz aren't as easy to make, but if they are made, they're hard to repair inconspicuously. If your base cabinets are dramatically unlevel, then you could consider placing a narrow wood trim piece underneath your new countertop to disguise the shims. You'll want the surface level within 1/8" for any countertop installation including Corian. While Corian isn't as heavy as quartz or natural stone, it can still crack when placed on an uneven base. Another option would be to have the edge mitered to hide shimming. In any case, leveling can be done from the top as the previous commenter pictured.