I'm looking back on these posts, and the links above, and I'm laughing hysterically! I thought I was the only one... When we purchased our home, DH and his best friend decide to completely gut our kitchen for a remodel. In trying to remove the kitchen counter tops from the cabinets, hubby comes up from the basement with an axe in one hand, and a sledge hammer in the other. Wide-eyed, I asked what he was doing. He tells me he's going to remove the counter tops. I said, honey, the counter tops can be lifted off of the cabinets, you just have to loosen the seal where the backsplash meets the wall, and dislodge the countertop and lift it off. You don't need an axe to do that. His engineer best friend is standing there with the same DUH look on his face, totally clueless. I had to go into a 10 minute explanation on how countertops are attached to the cabinets, trying to convince him that an axe really isn't necessary. Meanwhile, best friend is removing the wall-mounted oven (that we were planning to salvage), and in doing so, tempered glass shatters everywhere. I asked DH to saw some vent holes in the paneling on the small room built around our furnace, for increased air flow. I purchased the vents, just needed him to saw the openings for me. No problem. A short while later, I come downstairs to find that DH and best friend had sawed the openings for the vents - but not at the top of the wall or at floor level, but smack dab in the middle of the wall. Right at eye level. Because that's exactly where you'd expect to see a vent in anyone's home. We've since replaced the paneling. DH was replacing a light fixture in the bathroom for me. I was happy, thought he's getting better at his handyman skills, though I always wonder why it seems to take him so long. Finally, after what seemed to be an hour or so, DH comes out of the bathroom and tells me that he doesn't know why the light doesn't work. Turns out, he never kept the wires separate, and combined the grounding wire with all the other wires, not knowing what was what. We had to call an electrician. We have old plumbing in our 1920's home, and about a month ago, I asked DH to remove the stems from the bathtub handles so we could update them with something more modern. Instead of turning the stem with a wrench for removal, DH takes a plumbers wrench to the bolt it's attached to, totally strips it and bends it out of shape so now we can't even put the old handles on if we wanted to. $700 later and a plumber, the problem is fixed and we have all new plumbing in our bathtub. DH decided to beautify our landscaping one day, unbeknownst to me. I come outside to find that he trimmed my beautiful lilac trees into 3' high square bushes, removing all the foliage and leaving only the branches. ??????? I asked him why he did that, he said that's what his Mom always does (and she does!). DH and MIL are not allowed to touch any of my pruning shears. DH and Best friend went out to the family land this past weekend for guys night out. They purchased groceries - including a dozen eggs, put them behind the seat, loaded up the car with their goodies, and DH had to slam the front seat back (repeatedly) as hard as he could so best friend could fit in the front seat. They realized 2 1/2 hours into the drive that there were eggs behind the seat. After laughing hysterically, they said to eachother, "yeah, I guess our IQ does lower when we're around eachother".

Assuming they hired a professional designer to do the model living room, what I see is that under the best of circumstances, that living room is awkwardly set up. In the model room, there is space for three, maybe 4 people to sit. Only one seat directly faces the TV set. Look at the furniture in that room. One small sofa or loveseat. One armchair. One TV stand. One end table. One large coffee table that was chosen to fill up the empty space in the center of the room to make it look more furnished. Imagine that room without the coffee table and it starts to look a lot like the OP�s room. There are three lamps, one of which appears to block part of the TV. And then at least 4 plants, to make the room appear more furnished and welcoming. I think they did a wonderful job making that room look open and inviting, and hiding the more obvious flaws in the design of the room. The room�s layout simply doesn�t function well. Either you have the sofa on the wall in the model room, and then you have a hard time watching TV, or you put the sofa on the window wall so you can see the TV set, and then you lose the view out the windows and have an awkward layout. OP, it�s not you. It�s the room. Working with the furniture you have, the first thing I�d do is take out the two small chairs. They don�t work with the rest of the furniture. Then I�d try to put the sofa on the wall where it is in the model room, and buy a table top TV swivel stand so that you could easily watch TV from there. Move the blue chair to the same position as the woven chair in the model picture and place an end table between the sofa and the chair. Down the line, look for a coffee table similar to the one in the model picture�glass or Lucite to keep the space looking open, and slightly oversized to fill the space better. And maybe a smaller unit to hold the TV.

Gotcha. See, that's the difficulty with "talking" online, or even via text message--nuance is lost. No apology necessary. Last night I said to my husband, "Would you object if we had a wallpaper with bright purple monkeys on the walls of the powder room?" He didn't even look up at me when he sighed and said, "If that's what you think makes sense." Haha. Poor guy is so confused with all the Georgian/Federal jargon and then I throw this at him. I think I only need two rolls for my closet, more like just over one, but obviously I have to get the second roll for the extra few feet and about 5 for the powder room. I really love the dark green with the gold keys. That wouldn't make sense for the powder room, palimpsest? I can do the purple monkeys, but will it be too much with the black/white checker floor and the gilt and very ornate Adam mirror?

I see most farm sinks without the ogee followed through the cutout, but I like the look. Although you don't have measurements on your bases, it looks like narrow pullouts would make the adjacent cabinets too small. I'd consider making the entire run a few inches deeper and using all drawers. Drawers are typically more functional than opening a door with a pullout behind. Its best to analyze what you will be storing and plan accordingly. The area under the farm sink could also be a pullout for easier access.