Been there, done that...lint is such a HUGE annoyance to my life. We're in a 2nd floor condo where the dryer vent ducting goes to the roof through the attic over 20 feet and several elbows. My husband bought the condo years before we met, and the ducting was clogged after several years. At the time, he decided to disconnect the vent from the duct. The resulting moisture did some damage to the cabinetry (swelling of the particle board, even under layers of oil-based paint). Soon after we married, he decided we needed to fix the problem correctly. He went up into the attic and disassembled the ducting, brought it outside, and blew it out with his air compressor. I pushed some cleaning tool through it as well. We can't be doing this regularly! I mean preferably, never again! So, I had him put a filter -- a gallon paint strainer -- over the dryer vent where it connects to the machine. This clogs every month or so, we pull the machine out, disconnect the vent, clean the strainer, and put it back. This is still an annoying chore, but not the nightmare of dealing with the whole duct run. My husband had a cool idea, that what we need to do is sew a new, longer strainer that tapers to a skinny point, so that even when it clogs at the point, there can still be air flowing past the clogged strainer, and we should be able to go longer between cleanings. We got a new dryer last summer, and pulled the ducting out of the attic to clean it -- but it was already clean as a whistle. So, our secondary filter system has kept the duct run clean for 9 years. I found you can buy secondary lint traps with a door that opens to clean them out, but we don't have room to install the box in our laundry room, and I don't think it would work any better or be easier to clean than our homemade filter. When I redo the floor, I plan to put magic slider thingies under the dryer feet to make it easier to move in and out, plus I won't want to gouge my new floor. I have researched other solutions. People claim that solid metal vent will maintain better airflow than pleated, but I think it will still clog because we need 2 90-degree elbows to get it connected to the duct in the wall. And if it clogs, how do we pull out the machine with a non-stretching vent? If we could move the duct in the wall to match the dryer vent outlet, that would eliminate 2 elbows and would probably help... I also found you can install a secondary fan in the ducting near the exit, increasing the airspeed in long ducts so the lint won't clog. They cost $150-200, but if I never had to clean out the duct run or pull out the dryer to clean my makeshift secondary lint trap ever again, it would be well worth it. I also think that our ducting is leaky somewhere, because rooms on the other side of the wall (our master bath) get crusted with lint all the time. Finding and sealing those leaks would probably improve airspeed some, plus save me tons of work cleaning the lint all the time. I think the additional fan is the way to go. In 2 other areas where we replaced an ineffective low-cfm cheap fan with a high-cfm good one, like the hood over our cooktop, it made an amazing difference, night and day. Here is a link that might be useful: example of dryer duct fan

Some pattern will give you texture and a homey feel. Otherwise, it can look like a school or hospital hallway. I think I showed you my kitchen with warm tile with a lot of variation. I think there's always going to be some gray in tiles. Either that or brown. It all blends once installed. I'm not so sure about the diagonal layout for such a big expanse though. We laid our small bathroom straight and it is calming. The store designer said that we might not want to call attention to the tile with a diagonal layout, being that it's not ceramic and some people might be able to tell. However, porcelain and ceramic tile is screen-printed too, so not sure about that argument. Are you by any chance buying from Paulson's? Are you in the Portland area? You're welcome to come look at my floors, even though we just had our washer overflow and have to tear out all our upstairs carpet and some of the drywall. Just when we had finished all our renos and planned to relax for the summer!

With my beloved German shedder I easily removed 3 to 4 ounces of fur after every wash. It did not matter that I vacuumed and vacuumed and vacuumed his bedding. The fur would collect around the Maytag's aqua blue agitator it was a half-inch thick and went the whole distance of the agitator. I think that manufacturers are fooling themselves with the idea that all of this junk just flows down the drain due to larger holes or somesuch nonsense. And besides, if it did flow down the drain, I would have to have the plumber out here every other week to clean out the main drain! Manufacturers are able to sell washing machines without filters because the filter adds mechanical complexity, mechanical complexity adds to cost, the greater the cost the fewer the sales, so to increase sales reduce complexity thereby reducing costs and too bad of the consumer doesn't end up with what they actually need; the manufacturer was able to sell the number of units they needed to sell in order to make the quarterly financial targets. Welcome to the logic of the "C" suite! Quarterly financial targets and government energy regulations trump any aspect of a working appliance/customer satisfaction . Oh, and did I mention that the guys in the C suite (and they are guys) all get bonuses for this?!?

I am so glad I found this post. Some of these comments are from those who have not experienced this, so they don't understand it. It has nothing to do with vinegar, the kind of soap, the temperature of the water, or even the brand of washer. It is the impeller as opposed to the older agitator washing machines. I am all for energy efficiency, but I now have to use the dryer to get the lint off, so there's no efficiency. I also have to buy tons of sticky lint rollers, which don't work all that well on this type of fine lint streaks on dark clothes. There's no efficiency to throwing this junk in the landfill either. I inherited what seems like a fairly new LG washer and dryer when I bought this condo last year and I will replace the washer because life is too short. I don't care if my two machines don't match. I just hope agitators are still on the market.