Last night, I was "googling" a whole list of plants I have sprouting to get information on color/size/sun needs/etc and had the exact same experience - jaw dropping prices! Even when I ended up on seed sites, I was amazed to see 4.99 for 5 seeds when I'd gotten a package in trade with at least 30 for free. Makes you feel wealthy!!!!!! Bout the only thing I am still buying in my second year of WSing is promix and bulbs/tubers. The daffadils I bought and planted from Van Eglan last fall are up and are fantastic. The paperwhites I bought from them for forcing as xmas gifts were also the best I've ever had. I highly recommend them for bulbs if any WSers are looking this coming fall. I love that WSing has provided me with hundreds of free plants and then allows me to be generous with others in sharing plants from my current garden. This weekend I dug up tons of rudbeckia plants (black eyed susan) to make room for the new babies. I used now topless and empty milk jugs to hold bunches in tidy pacakages to give away to coworkers at a staff meeting today!

Thanks for the posts everyone. jessie21, I think there are various ways to figure it out, but it all depends on how tall the people are in your house, really! The recommendations I have seen say to go 30-40" ABOVE the countertop. If you go on the rejuvenation.com website and select a pendant light then there'sd a tool you can use to detemrine the length by inputting your ceiling height, etc. Also, a great tip that I am going to try after work today is to buy some balloons and string, and blow up the balloons and tack the string to the ceiling to hang them at different height. You can determine your ideal length by doing this exercise especially if you have people sit (or pretend to sit if you don't have seating yet, like me) at the peninsula (or island) counter and then stand in various places in the kitchen as well and find the perfect length. Have you DH or any other people in your house there to detemrine the right length based on their height/ability to see. You want to avoid having anyone craning their necks around the fixtures to see into the kitchen and beyond the peninsula... HTH tklahr, I'll try to see if that 12" formula works! Thanks for the tip. Anyone else have any photos of pendants that are LARGER than 8"? Thanks!

Things not looking great again. Yesterday we discovered that 2 of our 3 new Totos arrived broken. I guess it's not that big a deal as they will be replaced, but now we have to wait again for new ones. We had a meeting with the GC on Tuesday night to discuss how things are going. It didn't go well. He says that I am nice to the whole crew, but not to him and that's why he barely comes to the house. He said the whole crew had noticed 'how I treat him' and that in 10 years of business he has never had this problem before. So now I feel uncomfortable in my own home. Now I'm wondering if it's me that's the problem. He called the following day to apologize for how he spoke to me, but I really don't much want to talk to him at all any more. He is asking us to eat a lot of extra expense (including most of the $940 Home Depot bill) because of all the 'extras' he has done including 'thousands' in additional plumbing work for free (?). He says we can go over the contract again but it will end up costing us thousands because he will charge for all the extras he's done. We appear to now be paying for wiring and other items I had no idea would be on the list. I thought he was paying for behind the walls stuff and we were paying for the 'pretty' stuff (including paint, but wiring??). My husband has stepped in to talk to him and yet I don't feel satisfied with that arrangement either. GC was meant to go to Home Depot for $80 worth of unidentified stuff (paid for by us) and when the Home Depot person called for our cc number (which GC no longer has) it was for $175. For 'wiring and boxes'. Huh? The problem is I just don't trust him and I guess the GC feels that and is (understandably) offended by it. But when we ask for receipts he flashes them at us and then says he needs them back. It's like the Hone Depot receipt debacle all over again. But we DO have extra issues that SHOULD be resulting in extra charges - the problem is getting numbers out of him for the extra issues is tough. So our sunroom leak issues and retiling (over the existing) bathroom floor are costing an additional $2400 on top of the $940 which he owed us from the Home Depot thing, but we didn't know that until he's ripped out carpeting and the place is a disgusting mess and we have no choice really but to do the work. I just wish he would tell us what this stuff would cost before starting it! I don't know what to do at this point. I feel like every time we question something he has a million explanations and excuses which never really tell you anything. He talks a mile a minute and you can't get a word in edgewise. I know we should be paying for the unexpected stuff, but the way it happens is so backwards and confusing to me and I end up wondering what is going on. Why for example have we paid $500 for insulation product as part of the contract as well as $814 in insulation as part of that Home Depot bill (that's NOT part of his $940 building materials which was all dry wall) and yet he says the remainder of the insulation in rolls downstairs isn't ours. It's his? He says we have to eat the $500 for insulation that was in the contract because he underbid the installation part of insulating and because we owe him so muc for the extra plumbing (which he hadn't mentioned before and we thought was included). Another example. He ran wiring for the baby's room high hats and ceiling fan. Told me the switch was slightly off center and not to straighten it or it might short. A couple of days later it stopped working. He says it's a coincidence and the wiring must have been 'chewed by rats or squirrels' and that it's an unforeseen issue. this seems like a remarkable coincidence to me. I thought if we contracted that he was installing 4 recessed lights and a fan, that meant they should work? The house has a newer panel with a ton of electric amps, but I guess that doesn't mean no problems. Maybe we're being unreasonable in our expectations. Apparently most people around here tell him to go ahead and fix unforeseen issues and just send them a bill. It's very possible as there's a lot of money around here. But we would like to know what things will cost in advance. He seems to take this as a personal insult. :( DH thinks he's on cocaine. I would not be surprised. I am exhausted and this has turned into a book. Sorry. Just needed to vent again.

Overall, I was (tolerably) ok with the home appraising lower than cost to build, as we were using ICF, which our area doesn't recognize as having extra value, and we brought 30% of the build price to the table. We don't live in an HOA, so our subdevelopment is a mix of all sorts of styles, but mostly country ranches and city-type homes plopped onto 2-acre lots. But the comments....?! On one visit he complained about our PAINT COLORS (beige, not greige). Everyone (re)paints when they buy a home! The next, our light fixtures (again, very classic, old-world style to match the home, with only a few pot lights placed for accent lighting on walls)! He also didn't like we didn't have patio doors off the living room to his idea of the 'backyard', which would have looked TERRIBLY out of place since it is a formal living room, and my 'backyard' is 30' to the property line, while my side yard is 200' to the property line, and is accessed by a massive paneled wood door. So...our tastes just didn't match. He seemed to accept/adknowledge that we did a good job making the interior and exterior of the home match style-wise, but he really would've rather seen a greige home with minimal casings, carpeted stairs, a giant block cutout for the tv, etc etc... ...so it was weird, because we've gotten numerous compliments form complete strangers (mailman, 3rd party contractors, neighbors), from everyone but our appraiser! @rockybird - Homes in Winnipeg, MB, Canada are now almost all drafter-designed by 'big builders' who schlep together a floor plan based on the newest thing on HGTV, then use Chief Architect or other softwar to 'autoroof' the type of houses I linked to. Almost all new homes look like that - a snout garage and a million hip roof jutouts! But they have stainless steel appliances, a corner pantry, hardwood tile, and people are buying them! I am amazed when I travel to the USA (recently South Carolina) and see the wonderfully designed, classical-style, equisitely detailed homes that just don't exist up here!