Not to worry susanjn. Wasn't taken any other way but informative. Truly didn't dawn on me to post another question about warranties. There is ALOT of information regarding warranties on this site. annainpa--I was able to garner buying info from the county assessor's site as well, which I found to be extremely helpful in my home hunt. The condo is still for sale and my offer on the 3 bdrm home was accepted--we close in just a few weeks (right before Christmas!). No million dollar view of the river but a much better place, with a yard for me and my cat to enjoy. Now my dilemma is the lease on my current apt. It's not up until the end of Aug '07. I truly thought that the manager would cut me some slack on the lease since I've been here since the complex opened 3-1/2 yrs ago but no such luck. I'm offering a chunk of cash to any one of my friends and acquaintances if they can find someone to move in here in the next month or 2. Should have put much more thought into that problem. Oh well...

I was probably 14 or so before I actually "decorated" anything, other than covering every inch of some really horrible 1950s yellow-and-white-stripes-with-tiny-shiny-gold-flowers wallpaper with posters and pages torn from the pop-star magazines. My parents didn't really believe in wasting money on frivolous things like decorating so if I wanted anything I had to pay for it myself and work with the things I already had as-is. They were very much into "use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without" and decorating was one of the things they could really do without. (Well, my mother did decorate more - especially during her "country clutter" phase - and was the yard-sale queen but I didn't live with her because I didn't get along with my stepfather.) I had a tiny bedroom, less than 10x10, and the closet was a door across one corner of the room with a few hooks inside (which I think my folks secretly liked because it meant less shopping for clothes!). Anyway, when I was 14 I broke the bed that came with my horrible Sears French Provincial set and for a couple of years I had the mattress and box spring on the floor. :-) I put an old bookshelf at the top as a headboard, where I put my cassette player and cassettes and a reading lamp. I had a navy and white quilt made of bandanas my aunt made, just a bunch of bandanas sewn together with a backing, so I was kind of stuck with a blue-based color scheme. The (rented) house came with white aluminum blinds and once I got rid of those horrible Priscilla curtains (very much a fad about 10 years before and they just kept following me around) I just slid the curtain rod through the top hems of white twin-size sheets and covered that awful fussy white dresser with another sheet. I talked the landlord into letting me paint the walls as long as I paid for the paint and I think he was envisioning a nice girly-pink or beige... I painted the walls midnight blue and sponged them with half a dozen different shades of blue I made by mixing the blue with white paint. I did it in one long day when my parents weren't home. I liked it, it was like being in a snowstorm at night, but my dad was about ready to throttle me. (It took three coats of primer and two coats of paint to cover it up.) I cut back my posters to a dozen or so ;-) and framed them with those horrid snap-together black plastic frames from KMart, but that looked better than just scotch-taping them to the walls! When I was 16 my parents gave me a double bed for my birthday (with the intent that I take it with me when I moved out on my own) and I went through this weird little '80s-modernist/Deco phase. I bought a carpet remnant in a medium gray and repainted the walls dove gray. Found a set of Marimekko sheets in a clearance bin - white with geometric patterns in black, red, and electric blue - and ran with those colors. I still had that dang bandana quilt (and it stayed around until long after I'd graduated from college and I was SO sick of it... that whole "wear it out" thing really stuck) but I covered it with a red blanket. I got rid of that icky dresser and put all my clothes in stacked red milk crates. My then-boyfriend gave me a gigantic Patrick Nagel print (80s, remember? LOL) and I replaced the brass swing-arm lamp I had during the "blue period" ;-) with a red and black modernish one. Spray-painted a few things I had (got in deep trouble for that) shiny black. My parents moved to another very tiny house when I went to college the next year; my bed and a few small things went into the spare bedroom at the new house to act as a guest room but pretty much everything decorative ended up at Goodwill because my folks hated just about all of it. :-/

It was the first one for us too. Really loved the many decisions we made during our reno. 1) The 36" wide deep zero radius sink with a low divider really came in handy. Its amazing how much stuff can fit in this thing with still room to wash/clean 2) The double convection wall oven worked all day. Everything turned out perfect. I have no idea what conspired to make the turkey perfect this year. I am sure I won't be able to reproduce the result next year if I tried 3) The 36" 6 burner bluestar Rangetop worked all day. All six burners were in use at times, but didn't leave anything to be desired. It slowly simmered a big pot of turkey stock all day while the other burners were used to do a variety of boiling, sautéing, and gravy making. 4) The biggest "wow what did we do without this" moment came from the touch activated Delta faucet. I wash my hands after every step, especially when processing raw meat. being able to wash every 15 seconds at times without having to fiddle with the control was awesome, and keeps everything sanitary 5) The quartz counters really helped. Never a worry about spilling or raw meat juices, or spices, or anything else sitting on the counters. They were pretty messy all day through a rotation of meats, and eggs and milk and flour and cleaned up without a hitch. 6) stone backsplash - Cant tell you how nice it is to not have to worry about splashes during the various activities. Everything wiped off easily, unlike last thanksgiving where I scrubbed the paint off my walls trying to wipe off some of the gravy splashes. Things I wanted more of but just not possible in our size kitchen: 1) More counter space or a big island. Our kitchen and layout of spaces around the kitchen didn't allow for more. Its perfect for our every day, but would be nice at holidays like thanksgiving. 2) A separate prep sink - Day to day, its never one of the things I regret not having, but would have been very helpful at thanksgiving 3) A warming drawer. Maybe I will get one installed one day. Not a need day to day, but would be nice to put things once done when you are making several items. My oven has a keep warm function, but since both ovens were being actively users, a separate drawer would have been handy

We purchased these plans last fall as a CAD file, and have added many changes ourselves. 1. We added a pantry across the hall from the laundry room. 2. We removed the closet next to the laundry room and made that space larger, as it could barely fit a washer and dryer. We removed the sink in that space as well and will use it as a mud room with cubbies. 3. Moved the fireplace to where the patio doors are, and added a single patio door where the single window is in the breakfast nook. 4. Removed the tub in the half bath and put a wall up there. Used that space for a tub in the master bath, and then made the shower larger in the master bath and added a linen closet. 5. Removed the single study door, but kept the french doors. 6. Deleted the cathedral ceilings, above the living room is now bonus space to be used in the future. 7. Made the garage larger. Harper11, did you stick with this plan? Have you begun to build? We plan on breaking ground in June. Would love to hear what you decided to do.