There are plenty of shopping streets/neighborhoods here that going to a mall is not a necessity. Not all malls are all covered here either, particularly Century City Mall, which has a parking structure, but you walk outside to go from store to store. Third Street Promenade is all outdoors, as is Rodeo Drive. Melrose Avenue is one of my favorite shopping streets, but I also like Sunset in the Silver Lake district. Hollywood and Highland also has a large central area that is open to the sky. There's really no need to cover these areas, since we don't have cold weather, and it's usually not too hot. Lowspark, you are not a weather wimp if you can handle living in Houston in the summer! I lived there when I was going to Rice, but I never managed to stay there in the summer. Rice closed for the summer when I was there - they didn't want to subject the students (and professors and staff) to the heat and humidity. DB had been telling me that Circuit City had been late with all their payments to Sony, and so we were not surprised when we found out that they were going into chapter 11. We bought a new TV recently and ended up getting it at Best Buy because they have a brand (Insignia) that got good reviews and was well under the employee discount price that DB could get from Sony for a similar LCD widescreen TV. I gave our old widescreen TV to the neighbors, for helping us move it out of the house. It was a rear projection TV and was huge!! I'm much happier with the flat screen TV, and our old TV, even though it was HD, was not compatible with Blu-ray. DB had bought a Blu-ray player a couple of weeks ago at a company sale (at Sony) along with an AV amplifier, but we could not get a picture on our old TV with it. Finally, I broke down and bought a new 47" Insignia flat screen LCD TV, and we're much happier with that. We only have a few Blu-ray discs, but we're starting to collect them. The old DVDs are supposed to look better on Blu-ray player, but it's difficult to tell. Lars

I'm ISO a nailhead bed like the Collette Bed from Crate and Barrel. It's $1600 plus delivery, which seems like too much to spend since I'm not sure that it's a "forever bed" for us. So I found I really similar one at The Company Store for $949. (Link below.) Have any of you bought furniture there? I only know them for linens. The thing is, the upholstery is custom, so I won't be able to return the bed if I don't like it! Any thoughts or suggestions? Or does anyone in this forum happen to live in Wisconsin near a CS outlet and have you happened to see it in person? Thanks a ton for your advice!

Their quality is wonderful but their shipping costs are not. It recently cost me $38 to purchase then return a quilt and two shams. For such a big company, I wish they would offer free shipping like LL Bean, Zappos, etc.

I make jewelry and have lots and lots of stones and glass beads and findings. I bought a bunch of the plastic drawer sets on casters at Joanne Fabrics or at other hobby-type shops. I then bought some plywood at Lowes and had them cut it to the right size to make tops for the drawer sets. I took the wood home and sanded the ends smooth and then put on a nice dark stain and several layers of polyurethane. Then I went to Joanne's and chose a beautiful fabric that matched the family room. I really hate sewing hems, so I used Tacky Glue and folded back the heavy fabric and glued the hems and side seams. I made skirts for the drawer sets, stapling them to the plywood tops. You can then glue ric-rack or rope trim to hide the staples. I made the fabric into a flap in front of the drawers, but mostly just made straight, heavy skirts that were stapled to the tops. Then the top just sits on top of the drawer set. I sat plants on one, family pictures on another. Using this idea, you can hide all kinds of small things. They make the drawer sets in tall, narrow sizes, as well, so you might be able to find a space in the corner of a guest room or den to put one.