A dime huh? Now is that a dime round wise or flat. I have baseboards around all the rooms and inside the closets. I'll have to recheck everything again. I haven't seen the little bugger in two days now. Hopefully he went back to wherever he came from. I still have yet to find any droppings so I'm hoping that's a sign that those two, now one since the other got electricuted by my nice box, where just passing thru on their way to never come back! If moth balls would help keep them at bay what about that ammonia. I imagine that smell would be much worse. I'm glad my be is up high if it weren't you would have me scared to death! Please no more talk like that! LOL It sits a full 38 inches off the ground and the legs are large so not easy to wrap around to climb. The wood side board is a full 15 inches from the ground. Anyway did laundry today and just removed the bedskirt and won't put it back on until I've had three months of no sitings. The men that came out to rodent proof the house are exterminators. My building is in like a little community type thing with shopping etc. They have regular maintenance that clean and such and then other departments for pluming, cabinetry, painting, exterminators. I actually had to wait over the weekend because the exterminators don't work weekends. Anyway thanks for all the great advice and I will be doing another check and visiting Home Depot for some steel wool and that foam stuff. Just in case I find anything. I've seen them do it so I can take care of it myself instead of waiting for them to come out. I actually got my phobia later in life( recently actually) My job had the biggest RATS I have ever seen except in the subway. I stepped on one coming out of the office once and well it was a scene for Americas Funniest home Videos. I was running in a circle trying to get away and it was runnign in a circle I ended up running into a pole because I was looking behind me to make sure it wasn't going my way. The thing that got me was they were around the office and didn't seem to mind us seeing them. Why come out when there are so many people around. Made me think they are not scared of us. Didn't help that a coworker then told me a story how a place were he worked a big RAT was on its hind legs screeching at them. She was protecting her babies. Yup since then I've got the big time fear!

Hey Everyone! Wow, I haven't been here in a couple years!! Lots of new names, and some familiar ones too. Tami gave me a heads up to come check in so here i am! I hope everyone is dong well. Lets see, what's new with us? Grant will be 8 next month (July 19) and is going into 3rd grade. He's growing like a weed, has his dads mechanically inclined mind and loves tools and machinery. He's very smart and is a hard worker!! He's independent and sweet!! Camryn was 5 in January and is a spitfire! She's funny and outgoing but she's got a devilish streak in her for sure. She's stubborn and wants nobody to be the boss of her, so she says. She's starting Kindergarten in August and is super excited. She's not a girly girl AT ALL!!! Our dog, Harlow, is 2.5 and is, I swear, Dakota's twin. They act almost identical in every way. It's almost scary because sometimes I feel like they're the same dog. She's super curious and playful, and adorable. As for me, I'm just staying busy with the kids. We just moved out of our house 2 weeks ago into an apartment temporarily while our home undergoes a massive remodel/addition. Well, it's more of a slight rebuild. We are adding on almost 1500 square feet (building a 2nd level) so we are living in an apartment for 6 months. It's interesting but so far so good!! Hope everyone else is doing great!!! I'll try to check back more often!! :-) I'm on Facebook if anyone wants to find me there. Lots of kid pictures. Just give me your KT name or I probably wont know who you are! :-)

Wow, thank you all so much. Lavendar_lass thank you for posting that layout, I really am liking it (thank you Buehl as well, yes I have two growing sons and a huge husband, never thought of leg room!). Rebunky thanks for posting the pics I'll have more to say on that later because I love love love that buttery black counter with those pretty white counters and am guessing you are deciding backsplash? :) I am dying to see your kitchen. Excuse my absence, we've been in heavy duty talks. Thanks to the so many of you that posted, each and every one of you has given me something to consider, that's what I was looking for. I was dragging my feet on ordering cabinets (which is about to delay us), and I realized it was just that I wasn't really happy with the kitchen layout, but couldn't figure out why. I am really starting to get a better grip on the issues, challenges, and space requirements. I am embarrassed to admit we just didn't re-visit the issue of expansion of living space vs. screened porch, and I think this has to do to the evolution of our project. Which has been less than ideal. We spent months and months thinking based on one contractor) that it was out of reach. I think we just let that dream go, and didn't go back to it. DH who I thought might kill me, based on yet another design change, just loved it. Of course it comes down to numbers, for my interior contractor, I'm approved. I need to verify with the framers the true cost difference. He was talking additional baffles (?) and flooring framing (it's not over heated living space) however we wonder if treated vs. untreated wood and some other things may just really offset it. We will see. This has gotten me actually excited about the kitchen. Finally. This is the whole reason I love to have other eyes on a project, sometimes you just really gain a fresh perspective that shakes you up and lets you think out of the box. I'm notorious for getting stuck in that box, so I try to compensate. Main Line, I appreciate your opinion, I agree that professionals make a difference. I did go to a professional for the original design. She did know my thoughts, and designed accordingly without critique, so I see the downfall. We did buy our bath vanity from them ( it fell in budget). There were a few bath drawings with all this extra cabinetry. My husband said from the start, her job is to sell cabinetry of course she is going to add additional pieces in. Hmm, never thought of that. Good point DH. I certainly thank you Main Line for the point that this could've been designed in a similar but more efficient and more inexpensive way. Perhaps I got a bum designer. That's a shame, I really like working with her. But, I wouldn't know, unless I went on a board like this. As I said, I like to have FRESH eyes. I'm trying to learn A LOT to be an educated consumer, in a short period of time. This board has been truly sanity saving in the amount of generous people willing to share. Some of the best features in our previous home, and this current home, have been due to our own design work. Now there are code and clearance issues, as seen in this kitchen example, that we aren't educated in. And I did have a professional KD. So I like to get more than one opinion. I have more to say on this, but I won't here. I am going to post some pics, which show our floorplan. Again, we hired a designer, but honestly I gave him our window dimensions, and I don't think he drew them correctly (even after a prelim revision). Whole point was to see how the big windows would look placed in the space. This was an expert recommended by a neighbor who used him on numerous home flips and had known him for years, and I had visited her home he designed. So I'm sorry Main Line, maybe I've had some bad luck, but when I base work off of recommendations and it doesn't work out, well there's problems. And I'm the one stuck, so I prefer more than one recommendation on design. Thanks to you all, pics in follow post.

Well, I managed to build an entryway table this weekend...so there's no going back now - no more couch on the wall! Oh and those unsightly sidelight curtains found their final resting place in the trash too. Whoever came up with these window films is genius! Thinking maybe chalk painting the table, sanding a few edges to expose the wood and some storage baskets below for blankets and such.