Holy cow Pat! You've been an energizing busy little bee! That sounds really beautiful all put together the way you've described that. It makes it feel like a new home and I bet everything likes very inviting and now you want to go to bed, LOL* I remember about idle hands and the devil:) I haven't been doing a whole lot outside other than giving some extra water to some roses, squishing budworms, watching the toads 'meet & confer' they're good for a few laughs, pull a few weeds as I go along the front of the large garden and squirt the bedding verbena every day. How's that for a run on sentence, LOL* I have had grandkids and a SIL visiting me and staying with me almost non stop since June. My Mom and Dad will be here next Fri. The kids have worn me out... I had two grandkids staying non stop for a solid month until last Wed. one after another. No, I haven't had any time to be digging any holes, *laughing* were it even cool enough. The kids here start school on Thurs but it's bad. The 5 year old, Courtney can't go in the am Kindergarten. So the 9 year old, Brian goes to school at 8, Courtney goes at noon, then Brian is picked up at 2 and Courtney is picked up at 3pm. Oh sorry but we can't do anything about putting her in a morning class just because it's inconvenient for you. Oh you and your exwife work?? It's your problem to figure out a way to get your kids to school and get them picked up 4 different times each day. Am I ticked off?? You bet because guess who will be doing this 3 or 4 times a week..... My ex-DIL put them in school across town, grandboy used to go right around the corner which would not have been as big a deal. Sorry I had to vent and I'll take that hug Pat!!! Les

Lazypup, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree in your family....... I have heard lately that women in show business have been fooling the public about when they had their baby. You will hear talk show hosts say to someone like Heidi Klume that she looks wonderful and only had the baby 4 weeks ago and just did a charity runway event. How DID she do it? I always believed these people were on illegal drugs to do that and also had plastic surgery. Now, it is rumored that the some of these women had the baby months before so they lied. Also, some of them are letting someone else carry their baby. I was shocked. This is akin to the movie stars who say they have never had a facelift. Their admirers would believe it is true. Joy Behar of the talk show The View will bait the stars and ask what they do to look so good and would they consider surgery. She is sitting right next to them. The answer is they eat right and have good genes and no they don't believe in plastic surgery and hate needles. Well, that could be true and then again maybe it is one woman lying to other women.I wish it wouldn't be that way.

If you've ever fallen on stairs, both carpeted and not - you would want carpet on them. I hate carpet and have wood everywhere but carpet on the stairs. When I was building my house I did a lot of research and discovered the bulk of it recommends carpeted stairs for safety. I considered wooden stairs with a runner, but I've had that before and found all the nooks and crannies were horrible to clean. And I've had a 1920's era wooded staircase (two sets actually - one for the family and guests and the second hidden one for servants that sadly didn't come with the house when we purchased it) - had to add these rubber stair treads on them so they weren't so slippery for my older relatives which sort of ruined the beauty of the wood. rubber non-slip stair treads

We recently went through a major renovation/addition to our house. I agree with Jannicone about having a 25% contingency. We definitely went 25% over due to many factors, some that could not be predicted ahead of time. My one piece of advice to you is not to micromanage the builder on every detail. Select a good, experienced builder and let them do their thing (within reason). We did our hw on our builder before signing the contract. He was upper mid-range in price but very experienced. We got along well with him and the GC on our project, which now I realize is so important. It makes the whole process so much more pleasant. My husband and I both work full time and did not have the time to micromanage every single item. I think trusting the building team to do a good job while also staying in close communication worked out really well for us. Our project finished over 3 months ago and we still have a good relationship. They come by to deal with issues that come up and are pretty good at acknowledging if they messed something up or forgot something, mostly small things.