We have a BainUltra Thallassa 60 and love it. I don't believe that you can get them online. My unsolicited advise is to get what you like, make sure it has a solid warranty and of course use this forum! When you amortize the cost of a tub over 20 or 30 years, a few hundred here or there doesn't really matter in the scheme of things. I paid $2438 including chromatherapy and drain assembly. Worth it. Here is a link that might be useful: BainUltra air tubs

"Why is the return on investment losing ground?" Because the raw materials for renovations are not going down, but up...but housing prices are going down. That'd be my guess. I know several people personally who were affected by ARM adjustments and simply decided that they didn't need something as badly as they thought they did. They're putting their expensive houses on the block and buying more modestly with fixed rate mortgages, and they don't expect to get out of their old homes anywhere near what they expected when they got their expensive mortgages, so the clean-up/fix -up is bare essentials to get their old houses sold and ASAP. It's like watching the stock market steadily drop, they get to a point where they think they'd better fold. Home Depot losses? Well, seems they were making a major push to move into rural markets, and typically place their stores as closely as possible to existing Lowe's, who had existing customer bases. You gotta pay the piper sometime and I think it's just catching up with them. There is only so much market out there and you either move where there is more market than suppliers, or you hope to catch a piece of the existing market share from somebody else. They moved in this area with a lot of promises, and the "more jobs" bought them an in. There aren't more jobs, because the market is small and no new shoppers came in. So, they just trade employees and a lot of people who expected to work full time have been caught in the typical retail, no customers, cut hours dance.

I was recently remarried, and my wedding was exactly what my husband and I had hoped it would be. For us, being with our immediate families was the most important thing, so we planned a wedding on the East Coast (we live in California) at a time when all of our brothers & sisters could attend. There were 35, including about 12 nieces and nephews. Our wedding was held at a Victorian Bed & Breakfast near DH's mother's assisted living facility so that she could attend. We reserved the entire B&B, had the ceremony outside on the patio, and had wine and hors d'oeuvres on the large porch of the house. We had a classical guitarist play during the ceremony and the cocktail hour. Dinner was supposed to be back on the patio, but thunderstorms threatened so our caterer quickly set up the dining room and a smaller adjacent room for all of us. We had an iPod programmed with a playlist of music to play in the parlor for our first dance, which was a swing dance. After that, no one really wanted to dance, but that was fine. We had cake on the porch (no thunderstorms after all!) We didn't have attendants, although I asked my 2 teenage sons to escort my mother down the aisle, and DH's son escorted DH's mother. I wore a simple white dress (Craig's List) and DH wore a white jacket. I bought flowers at a wholesale florist and put them together with a freelance florist (Craig's List again). I had a bouquet, DH and my father had a boutonnière, and our mothers had small corsages. My young nephews passed out wedding bubble tubes which our guests blew after the ceremony. I cringe when people clap after ceremonies, and walking through a cloud of bubbles was one of the highlights of the evening. DH spent a lot of time searching for a photographer, which is easy (but time-consuming) to do now that so many post their portfolios on the web. We were so happy with how unobtrusive the photographer was, and looking at the photos never fails to warm our hearts. It was hard to find a venue from across the country, but once we settled on the venue everything else just fell into place. Oh, we also made our own wedding invitations. My parents weren't involved in the planning but contributed by purchasing the wine and champagne (they offered, we gratefully accepted). Best of luck to your D on her wedding - have her focus on what's most important to her, as the possibilities for a happy wedding are almost endless.

What kudzu9 said. What seems like a moderate repair job will turn into a complete tape removal(it is bubbling because it was not mudded properly when taped) and remud/retape. If several rooms are affected, you are looking at moving out furniture/contents, stripping all the loose tape(and there is more than what shows) remudding/taping with at least three sandings/applications, primering the walls, and painting---all in all, a HUGE mess.