Lindy and Amy, thank you so much! kats, I'm on Kauai. And I agree, the porch (we call them lanais here) was VERY important. I did the floor plan and the layout for the deck, and gave all that to the architect. So he had to design the roof to fit the deck. :) It's 8 ft wide in front of the living room, 6 ft wide in front of my bedroom, and wraps around three sides of the house. It's ipe wood, and my GC is talking about just letting it go gray, but it's so gorgeous I'm thinking about trying to keep it up (per John Hiatt's instructions in the deck forum!). I'd appreciate feedback on painting the deck railing and house. I've got one color and a trim color. The painter is recommending only the pillars get painted the trim color, and the rest of the railings be painted the same as the house. I don't like that idea, and think that at least the top of the handrail should be painted the trim color (which is an off white, the house will be a sagey green). I know the red dirt here is going to be a challenge, but I don't think it will look right if the entire railing is painted the same color as the body of the house. What does anybody else think about that????

Years ago I drove a Mack truck, which we affectionately called the "PuppyDog" hauling steel on a flatbed. One day I had to make a short trip so I took my 4yr old daughter along for the ride... I was pulling up a 5 mile long hill, with about a 10 ton overload so I was in the right lane, lights flashing and barely making 30mph. My daughter was sitting there watching all the cars pass us and she looked at me and says...."Daddy, today you are a LazyPup". Later when I related the story to my wife, she painted the name on the truck, "LazyPup".

That is lovely. I wonder what the wood in the kitchen cabinets is. It looks like the same that was original to our house. We replaced the kitchen cabinets with natural cherry but still have it in the utility room, pantry, built-in book cases and interior doors. It seems like a wood and stain that was common then and not used much now. We've never been able to figure out what it is. Any ideas? I wonder if the cabinets were originally self pull. The shiny (nickle?) pulls in the kitchen seem a bit busy to me. I'm not a fan of self pulls - not as easy to use and over time the wood gets marred by the hand oils, but something less shiny and quieter would be better for that kitchen.

It's doing great. Ours are Papyrus color from Zodiaq -- not a true white like some of the Caesarstone and Silestone colors we looked at. It has some variation to it and some small but visible aggregate that I think probably hides a bit more than the true whites. Our house is a more organic MCM with a lot of earthtones, so we didn't want a bright white. We had strawberry juice sit on them overnight and it cleaned up fine, as did some melted butter. So far I love it to death. I had granite two houses ago, and it looked great in that house, but the quartz is better for this house and has met all my expectations. Here is a link that might be useful: Zodiaq Papyrus