Martinca, if you like the look and understand the problems of tile, go for it! For me three years of living with tile in Europe was enough! I had ceramic/stone tiles on every surface in every room that had water. Nine feet of tiling on 10' bathroom walls, as well as tile on kitchen, bathrooms, and maid's room floors. Since we rented I scrubbed every grout line (they *really* needed it initially) and regularly cleaned them so have more than done my share of cleaning tile grout lines. I realize there are sealers but I still think that grout lines may be a good place for bacteria to grow and IMO the majority of people likely don't clean them well enough or often enough from what I read on the net. Teacats has the best cleaning solution altho I dislike using bleach regularly. I love the look of art tiles (Moroccan, Spanish, Mexican) altho it's such a unique look it would be a resale challenge.

Neely, your photos are lovely, and I think it was about time for a break from all that moving/packing/unpacking. Have fun! Sleevendog, your taco night looks fresh and good. Cookebook, now that's how I remember a seafood boil should be, yum! Jasdip, I'll bet that cast iron pan made some nicely crunchy pizza crust. As for eating leftover chicken, well, we must be in sync somehow, because I had leftover chicken. Elery and I were cutting trees from along the pond bank today and so we had a crockpot full of beans cooking. I decided to make chicken enchiladas to go with the beans. Leftover chicken, a chopped zucchini and some seasonings, rolled up in a low carb tortilla and covered with AnnT's green sauce from her Stacked Enchilada recipe. That sauce can make anything better, even those oddly stretchy low carb tortillas! A spoonful of guacamole on the side: Of course, nothing makes supper taste better than a good appetite and hauling wood all day kind of helps that along, LOL. 65F and sunny, it was perfect. Annie

bpath, My GD plays with that doll and all her other ”stuffdies” all the time. I have had to repair several of her stuffed animal but not the Avery Lamb. It is in perfect condition. I’m pretty sure that the little pocket on the lamb is closed at the top. I won’t be able to check on that until after next week. My GD is definitely a cutie and she is precocious for sure. (Not that I am bragging 😊). I wish I could show her face but her Mom and Dad would not want that. I took up cake decorating 10 years ago when my first GD was born. I haven't taken any classes but as we all know the internet is full of instructions and ideas. I have started teaching my GD how to frost and do various piping techniques. They love making cakes for their mom and dad’s birthdays and other occassions. Maybe I should start a thread on homemade decorated cakes. ETA. I just noticed that I had commented 4 years ago on pocket on the Avery Lamb Doll. It is not open at the top.

I think you can, yes. We splurged on custom cabinets(small space, U-shape, wanted maximum efficiency)-but saved on appliances (hunted open box etc). We also had another cabinetmaker that we knew already from another project and that would do same job for cheaper, but our GC insisted on going with his guy-not that I regretted it, he was an amazing cabinetmaker. Just echoing that it's possible to get somebody good and pay not a lot more than for IKEA,when all said and done. IKEA can be quite nice too. A friend went for IKEA with Semihandmade doors(not that cheap either really, but then they DIY ed everything, all the house)-her kitchen could be in a magazine, both in terms of style and function. She's a great cook, pro level. They also made it much bigger footprint and completely redid the layout. I think that them DIY-ing everything helped a lot, a lot with the budget. But not with timelines, obviously. I think our kitchen was around 30K , I'd say it's a bit smaller than yours. But that not including electrical, plumbing and paint-the kitchen was a part of a much bigger remodel, so it's hard to separate the costs. That's if I put together cabinets, countertops, backsplash tiles, sink, faucet and appliances-in short materials only. We're in So Cal, I have another friend who remodeled several years ago in Milwaukee and from what she told then about remodel, seemed very cheap, surprizingly so. I don't know details though, and several years ago might be a different story.