I logged in here tonight to seek out inspiration for my home office and found this thread. TRUST YOUR GUT! Many years ago a newcomer to town befriended my father. He was an older gentleman who talked at length about his family (wife and daughters) back home in California. Lots of money to throw around and before you knew it he was treating dad and I to dinner (my mom worked nights), bringing over pints of ice cream to our house for a treat, buying me stuffed animals, etc. My mom hadn't met the guy, but she had a funny feeling about him. I was all of 8 and I had a funny feeling about him. He'd tell me things like I should always wear dresses, I should hold my cup with both hands when drinking because it made me look cute (I think he was trying to make me appear younger than my 8 years by doing things a smaller child would do), and I should call him Uncle. We were planning a family vacation and the man (who we knew as John) came over and offered to take me shopping for "vacation clothes". I was at a friends down the street and my mother declined, citing that as an excuse. He offered to go "get me", she declined. He grew argumentative with her for not "allowing him" to treat me to the nice gift of new clothes for our trip, and she tossed him out. She then called the police to make a report. It seems he had shown her family pictures of his wife and girls that were easily taken 20+ years ago and could not possibly be pictures of his real family, if they existed, based on how he had described them to us. Turns out he was not "John" but Russell Maquire Jr., heir to the Thompson Machine Gun fortune and I was one of 2 girls he had targeted that summer after coming to the area and befriending my family and this other family. He was arrested shortly after for molesting a girl 2 towns over, as shown in this news article I googled online: ....Millionaire Thompson machine-gun heir Russell Maguire Jr has been sentenced to nine years in prison for violating his probation for the fourth time.... ...Maguire, 71, has been in and out of the Florida courts, jail and prison since 1984, when he was charged with molesting an 8-year-old girl in Clearwater. Since 1995 he has heen on house arrest in Redington Shores. The house arrest stemmed from the 1984 molestation case.... ....Circuit Judge Lauren Laughlin last week found he had violated his house arrest. Maquire had not been receiving his court-mandated psychological counseling, Assistant State Attorney Doug Ellis said. And in May 1996, Ellis said, Maguire violated his house arrest by spending two hours in a grocery store, trying to talk to one underage girl who walked away from him, then blocking a checkout line for 15 minutes to chat with the 16-year-old cashier.... That could have been me, if not for my mom trusting her instincts. -Colleen Here is a link that might be useful: News article

SD25 is not upset because of what DH put in his divorce papers, she has no knowledge of what is in the divorce papers. That was not a topic of open conversation with DH and his kids, he is a pretty private person. SD25 is very difficult to be around. If you say something is black, then she argues that it is grey. She is asked to leave apartments about every 6 months. She moves about every 6 months, I am guessing because she cannot get along with her roommates. She tells us that there were "problems and she had to move". We keep hearing the same story. If she wants to move every 6 months, that is her business. But I don't feel that I have to be her storage unit. I sent a brief email asking her to begin to move her things into her own place. Instead of taking responsibility for her things, she found somewhere else to store the box of china and the rocking chair. Mind you, that she did not give thanks for the 4 years that I did store it, but rather anger, that I would no longer store it. I got my own place when I was 21, after I graduated from college. My parents insisted that I gradually start moving boxes of my things out after I had my own place, at age 21. They were my things, it was my responsibility to either go through them, and get rid of things, or move them out of my parent's way. She will be 26 soon, has a master's degree and a good job. When does she take responsibility for her own things? Maybe I should clarify about the china. There seems to be alot of undue focus on the china. It is difficult to get across an accurate picture of what is going on. She wasn't angry that she had to take the china anymore than she was angry that she was asked to start moving her other boxes. There was no particular special anger over the china. SD25 has always said that she wanted it. She has boxes of old Christmas ornaments, board games that she wants to keep, old blankets, etc. She has the same anger over being asked to start moving those things too. She feels that we should be her storage unit. Her reasoning is that since she moves every 6 months or so, she will have less to move. I don't understand why we have to codependently enable this behavior of hers. She needs to learn to get along with her roommates, and stop moving so much. It is her issue, not ours. Storing her stuff just makes this pattern of her easy to repeat. But that's not the real issue. The real issue is that she is almost 26 years old, and if she wants her things, she needs to make arrangements to get them. It has nothing to do with whether or not she is a step daughter, or a birth daughter. I'd be saying the same to my birth daughter if she had so much stuff still at home 8 years after she had moved out. My 21 year old daughter has 1 box here. I think 8 years after you leave home, is time to start taking things. It's as simple as that. Has NOTHING to do with whether they are step kid or birth kid!

I wouldn't like the counters and as a buyer would start looking at how much else I would have to replace in the kitchen. The reductions in offer prices will be more than counters. Something needs to change before you put it on the market, so you might swell make a short term change and get to enjoy it in the mean time. Counters are the most obvious because they are fighting the wall color -- maybe the floor too, and they are not what people are used to seeing on white cabinets these days. Wall color would also help, but I'm seeing the colors differently on my monitor than the poster above. I'd be looking at a green to an aqua, but I may be seeing it wrong. There is a hybrid of these two fixes -- paint or coating for laminate counters. I've seen it on TV and I think at Lowe's (which means Home Depot and paint stores probably have versions too). Maybe you can cover the counters with a dark grey or black and do nothing else -- probably less than $100. It probably isn't a long term solution, but I bet it would get you through a year or two. IKEA butcher block is another possibility for a lower cost counter solution. Maybe a combination -- butcher block on the island/peninsula and a dark color on the remainder?

Three coats white on wainscoting, three coats seapearl on walls... This is not fun. On the plus side, looks amazing. A light warm noncolor, just strong enough not to wash out at night. Fishcow, I know what you mean as peninsula cabs are usually on my hit list, but these ones don't hurt my feelings. They're relatively unobtrusive and they just really block the view of the TV from the kitchen, but not the views or the seating in the living room.