Marti I thought the ebay fabric was similar...surprised it was exact!! Based on your photos of the MBR, I think your drapery vision fits beautifully. You may need to alter from your original inspiration pic as that was likely a stationary drape and you want functional (to be able to open & close them often). Follow your heart on using the fabric you bought and when you decide how best to construct your drapery, start out cutting & sewing only one side of one window. (I think you said these will meet in the middle...called center open? correct?). It's hard for me to say whether or not the burgundy will work at the top. For my sewing skills, it would be a real challenge (I'm a novice). Drapery (especially lined) for large, tall, windows can be heavier than most people realize. On the ebay site, those drapes are all one continuous type of fabric (not a different, heavier fabric, pulling from below). If you can interline/underline (whatever is the correct term) that burgundy to make it stable and strong (as the gold stripe), I think it (the burgundy) can go on the top. It looks like the ebay drapes may be a euro pleat at the header? A pinch taken at the very top of the header? I think they look good. I think you should make one side of one window the way that feels right to you...burgundy top, gold bottom. If it doesn't come out the way you had hoped, you can have a plan B or C. My plan B would construct a new side of the drapery reversing the fabrics (burgundy on bottom). Plan C for me would be...take all my fabric & lining to a local professional & say, "Help me, please!". You already know how I feel about the floor lamp in your MBR....that lamp deserves these drapes (along with the rest of your beautiful space). Some day, I would love to see a larger pic of that lamp : ) Laurie

I like LiveWireOak's layout with the sink arrangement. Now two people can access the sink at the same time, and the DW is easily accessed being placed to the side of the sink. However, I wouldn't want to live with a fridge off by itself in that far corner and would put it back where you have it in your layout, homebuyer. My suggestion is that you reconsider putting the wall oven under the induction cooktop. I have that situation using a Bosch oven built in under a Bosch induction cooktop and have found it to be not bad at all in actual use as I had previously been concerned. Granted it's not quite as nice as the oven at eye level but not a bad compromise. This thought is coming from someone who had two built in wall ovens for 35 years previously so I know the different trade-offs between the two arrangements. The only caveat with the Bosch wall oven under the Bosch induction cooktop is that the countertop height should be raised one inch to allow the recommended air space allowance between the two appliances. However, I found the higher counter to a more comfortable working height for someone like myself who is 5'4". That leaves the question of where to place the microwave and would depend upon your frequency of use and preference. I would put the pantry in the far corner either with, without, the MW. Anyway, it looks like you're coming into the home stretch and wishing you the best with your final layout.

If these are ready made sweaters that were manufactured by sewing together cut pieces of knit fabric, you might be able to alter them. A serger would be helpful, but I'd probably sew any seams with a regular machine first, then, after checking for fit, resew the same seam with a serger. Or, trim off the excess and finish the seams with seam binding or bias tape to enclose the cut edges. But two sizes is a lot of altering, and I suspect that what you'll need to do to make them fit goes beyond just taking them in. You might need to alter the shoulder seams and the arm holes, also, at which point, we're talking about completely remaking the sweaters. A quick test you can try is to stitch a stretched piece of elastic in the sweater along the shoulder seams, to sort of gather that seam. This will help the sweater hang off your shoulders properly, eliminating a pronounced drop shoulder from a too-large size. Depending on how bulky the sweaters are, this alone may improve the fit and allow you to wear these sweaters for a while longer. CMC

I'm sorry this is happening to you. This happened to me a couple years ago. So I recommend you do the following: Tell the contractor (whoever hired the tile people) to stop work and schedule sit-down meeting. Make the meeting be something like Friday so that you have some time to prepare. Do this communication by email. (Do every single syllable of communication by email from now on. Nothing verbal. If any verbal words are exchanged, confirm them by a follow-up email confirming your understanding of what at was said/planned/promised/agreed, and ask for confirmation in the email.) Get ready for your meeting: Document your understanding of everything that was done wrong. Put all the blue tape all over in the bathroom. You can download an online version of the TCNA handbook here: https://www.tcnatile.com/products-and-services/publications/218-english-publications/188-handbook.html It's a manual of industry standards for tile. It's less than $40. It also includes information about waterproofing. It's long, but you don't have to read the whole thing. Read the introduction (about 50 pages) and the stand-alone shower sections. You can skip all the other parts such as swimming pools, etc. Read about waterproofing and tiling on this forum and on the John Bridge forum. You need support for the meeting. Ask someone (a spouse, adult child, friend, neighbor) to attend the meeting with you as your support person and as a note-taker. Create your list of questions/concerns. Make them open ended and a bit broad, such as "How did you waterproof my shower?" "Do you have your TCNA manual with you; can you show me in there what method you used?" (probably he doesn't know what this is) "Why does the tile look so messy?" "What is your plan to fix all the problems?" Let the contractor talk and make sure your note-taker writes everything down. Don't interrupt of start arguing with the contractor. Always stay business like and calm. If the contractor gets upset that's his problem. Have the meeting. If they don't show up, send an email inquiring why. Go through your whole list of questions/concerns. If the contractor gets off track, always come back to the important question: "What is your plan to fix all the problems?" If the contractor gets upset, says things like "You're too picky", "We've never had a complaint before", or "You're too hard to please" ask them to stay on track regarding the sub-par work. If the contractor yells at you, stands up or starts pacing around (happened to me), ask them to stop yelling at you in your home and tell them to take a minute and let you know when they are ready to proceed calmly. If, through your research and the contractor's answers, you are reasonably convinced that the waterproofing was done wrong, and/or the tile mess can't be fixed without compromising the waterproofing, ask the contractor to re-demo and start all over with a new, qualified, certified and experienced tile professional in charge. Your contractor doesn't change; you don't pay more; this is on the contractor's dime. If they say anything about you paying more, or making a payment now, say that you don't feel that that is reasonable given the problems so far, but that you look forward to the new, competent crew, and if the work is truly professional you don't foresee any reason why full payment would not be reasonable at the end of the project. They will either agree to redo it or not; or they might want more time to think about their plan over the weekend, etc, etc. You might not get a definitive yes or no during the meeting. In our meeting (which was on a Friday), the contractor went off the rails several times saying we should hire someone else to re-do the shower and they would just finish the rest of the bathroom; that they didn't want to touch the shower anymore. DH kept bringing them back to "We hired you to complete the whole project and we trust that you will be able to figure out a plan to fix the waterproofing; so what do you think you will do?"...stuff like that happened 4 or 5 times. At the end of the meeting the only agreement was that they were going to work on their plan over the weekend and would contact us on Monday. After the meeting we confirmed this understanding by email. After the meeting, send an email with a general summary of the meeting, based on the notes, and re-cap any agreements, quitting, or what you perceive as the result of the meeting. Keep all your language business-like and clear. They might have agreed to re-do with a new, competent crew. Great! In your email, express how please you are at their business like approach to these waterproofing and tile problems. Say something like "We look forward to seeing you and the new tile crew on Monday for the re-demoing and starting fresh on the project. Have a nice weekend." They might flat our refuse and get mad at you (refer to the yelling comments above). If they flat out refuse, say "Oh my; so you are quitting the project?" After the meeting, confirm this by email. They might have huffed off, in which case you also confirm that my email. Something like "We were disappointed that you left our meeting this morning without letting us know what the plan is to fix all the waterproofing and tile problems on our bathroom project. After you have some time to thing about the project, please let us know how you plan to proceed. If this means you are quitting the project, please let us know right away so that we can start the process of hiring a new contractor. Hope to hear form you on Monday..." After the meeting, whatever the conclusion was, post the contractors answers here and/or on John Bridge where I hope you will get continued support from the pros on the forums. In our case, the contractor wanted to think over the weekend and then they quit by email on Monday. We had to start over. Months later they later sued us saying that we fired them illegally. We had no choice but to respond. It went to District Court where we were awarded ALL our money back plus extra for materials that they ruined. Why did the judge award to us? Because ALL communication with the contractor was done by email, and the judge could clearly see that they quit; she threw out their suit and award us everything that we put in our counter suit. Another huge reason is because our new tile pro, who is an experienced, over-qualified, certified pro, testified as an expert witness about all the things done wrong by the quit-GC. And don't be scared - we did all the legal stuff ourselves. It's not as hard as everyone thinks. Again, I'm really sorry this is happening to you. We also live in a Wild Wild West area (North of Houston) and the township doesn't care what anyone does in their house. You could string extension cords all over the house for every single thing, put an outhouse inside your bathroom, install a firepole in place of your staircase, and no one would care til you sell the house and finally an inspector comes inside.