My sister did a clever thing with her bathroom - don't know if it would work for you, but it worked well for her... She used a board (I think it was actually styrofoam) and she glued ornamental glass "stones" of various colors & sizes to the foam in a pattern she liked. She then had her contractor secure them to the wall/grout them. It turned out great, and I've thought that if I end up going with any kind of "random" (or not so random) pattern that I might do that myself. Here is a link that might be useful:

I mainly use an OXO brush. It has a little holder/drainer that it sits in. My scrubbing pad and Brillo/SOS pads sit in a flower pot under the sink with the draining dish underneath. I occasionally put the OXO brush heads and scrubber through the DW. I should do it more often but about the only time I hand wash is if I need to wash something while my DW is running. I do try to remember to pop it in there if I'm turning my DW on at night after all kitchen work is done for the day. Maybe I'm missing something about the bacteria issue. Don't you all rinse your dishes in hot water when you're done hand washing them? I know they say to keep your hot water tank at 120 for energy savings and due to potential burns but we keep ours at 140 as that is hot enough to kill bacteria. When I hand wash dishes, I rinse them with all hot water so the water is at 140, or pretty darn close, and will kill any bacteria left on the dishes by the scrubber or brush. I also use the sprayer to give the brush and scrubber and good, hard rinse. If you google around, there is evidence that certain diseases, like Legionaire's, thrive in hot water tanks set around 120. But a 140 tank of water is hot enough to kill them. We rarely get sick around here. I've actually been pleasantly surprised that we haven't gotten sick more often lately since we had a 5 year old move in with us last summer and she started K-grade in the fall. People warned us that we would get sick from all the germs the kid would bring home from school but it hasn't happened. She has had plenty of colds but the rest of us haven't caught them. I wash my hands in the water as hot as I can stand it. Just short of scalding temp. So maybe that is helping with spread of sickness, too? I dunno. Food for thought, I guess.

I am in the middle of a whole house reno. I wanted to paint the kitchen cabinets and the attached crown gray, but the kitchen opens to the living room, which will have white box paneling and also white crown like the rest of the house. There is a corner where the two rooms meet (a recessed bar niche between the living/kitchen. I don't love the idea of two colors of painted crown meeting up, is there a good way to do this? Or does anyone have a picture of a similar situation? I have seen stained cabs/meeting with painted and that looks ok but two different paints seems like a bad idea. I can't seem to find any photos of this situation. Kitchen is the the right, bar niche to the left with the pretty white pipe running through it, living to the far left. (Dining is through the cased opening with window) My current thought is to do the bar area cab/crown white and extend the white over the tiny bit of wall between that and the kitchen. Then the gray kitchen cabs would start on that wall to the left of the wires. Thank you!

I tried both smoothing/blending and tried pouncing/dabbing with the Beauty Blender but I still like a brush application better. I recently switched liquid foundations. I've been using Estee Lauders Double Wear liquid foundation and switched to Bare Minerals liquid foundation. So far really liking it. Maybe I'll give the BB another try with the new foundation. oh, just an FYI, using the BB with powders and powder blush etc, I pounce/dab on products.