I seldom watch home decor on TV anymore but have saved over 150 pics from Sarah's site - and I'm not done yet! Will continue once winter comes. I like much of what she does and would love to be able to afford her to do my entire house. Or have her budget to do it myself. When she did the Oceanview Estate for a charity fundraiser lottery in the Vancouver area I was smitten with that house - of course I didn't buy a ticket on the lottery so I'm not living in it! LOL The link below shows a few pics from it and other houses she's decorated altho doesn't show many parts of the house that I especially liked. Schoolhouse, I love the style of your sofa that you posted once and IMO it's definitely a keeper. If you live near a school of upholstery I wonder if a student would take on your projects for less money than a fully qualified upholsterer. You might also inquire into trading for services if you have something of value you don't need/want. DIY is always an option and I've heard the most important part is taking lots of pics as you disassemble so you know how to put it back together again correctly. If you start with a small piece such as a chair it might give you the confidence to do all. Here is a link that might be useful: Sarah's portfolio

Started stripping in December of 2004,two 30 yard (BIG) construction dumpsters and 14 days straight with a sledge hammer and my favorite (YEP) pry bar, we were ready to START our remodel. All new drywall and insulation. Rewired almost everything, removed 2 closets and 2 windows to reconfigure 2 bedrooms to end up with walk in closets in both. Removed wall between bathrooms to make master bath larger.EVERTHING in 2 baths new including all plumbing.Solid concrete slabs down here to bust up to redo octopuss of plumbing to rerout it all.Repoured concrete floors when done.ALL windows and 2-12ft,2-8ft and 1-6ft sliders replaced.Front door and laundry room doors replaced and had to make the opening for laundry room door bigger,can we say more of the old sledge hammer through solid old hard concrete!ALL new lighting throughout as well as paddle fans replaced.Every light switch and electric outlet as well as their covers replaced.New Cabinets(NIGHTMARE ON PRIMA VISTA)and THEN we hire someone to remarcite our pool and they POPPED it 3 ft out of the ground and destroyed it and the entire patio and screen room,you would not believe the pictures if I could figure out how I would post a few!We have just paid $10,500.00 to have it taken out and have hired an Att. to sue their Ins co. as they want to pay me $34,000.00 an amount that will not even pay for another pool let alone take the old one out, pour a new patio and the screen room alone is $17,000.00.So that has been an ongoing nightmare.All new flooring and then painted most of interior.Have'nt gotten all the wallpaper up yet.Trim still needs to be caulked Then painted and the gameroom ceiling still needs drywall and the drywall in the cabanna room(used to be) and laundry still needs to be finished.The tile in both showers still needs to be done AND the stucco on the outside still has to be fixed from installing all the new windows and doors and THEN the outside painting can begin!OH YEA they still have to form and pour the new patio(minus my pool)and pour the new driveway that the tree took out when it blew over in hurricain Francis.Then the landscape lighting and plants can go back in. ANYBODY WANT TO TAKE A "FREE" VACATION IN SUNNY(HA) FLORIDA THIS WINTER!! OVERWELMED? I CAN STILL LAUGH!!! I hope this puts it in perspective for you, as someone else said somebody always has a story worse than ours. OH YEA did I mention the new security system that they got the dates messed up and hooked it up on MONDAY when it was supposed to be hooked up on FRIDAY? We were robbed on Saturday night!!! NO KIDDING!! BUT my to do list is shorter than my GOT ER DONE list!!! Oh well I live in the land of the FREE and the home of the BRAVE and I can get on here and get it all off my chest and fell better (HA!) about it all tomorrow when they start forming my new patio(NO POOL) and driveway. Did I mention NO Pool? OH WELL I will jump in the brook behind our house in Vermont(if I ever get there!!!)

Hi, I know this is an old post, but I it sounds a little similar to my problems. And I wanted to get this board's opinion on how I should proceed. I've been lurking reading as much as I can for a bit now. We have an old pool in our house (don't know exactly how old it is, but I'm guessing about 30 years old). It's been re-tiled once. And they poured concrete around it at least once that we know of before we moved in. The concrete was poured incorrectly (or not sure exactly what), but the tiles are popping out it seems that it doesn't have the layer to help it absorb the concrete expansion. And after one of the last earthquakes we had there are a couple of cracks as well. I recently put in all new equipment (pump, filter and heater) because I thougt at least this way we could keep it clean and functioning. I've gotten a couple of quotes (somewhat close in $) to re-cope, replaster and retile. The issue is that none of them mentioned doing a leak test. As a matter of fact one of them went as far as to say that they would not guarantee that the cracks would not come back and that they will not leak. There's a deck that surrounds it partially. I paid for someone to come and wash it and stain it but they found that it starting to rotting in a few places. So now, I'm thinking that the pool is indeed leaking and I need to get the pool done before I try and rip out the deck and put a new one. But re-doing the pool and deck is a huge job and I will need to do it in stages. My question is: what should I watch out for in regards to the pool? should I call one of those Detect Leak places before I call a PB? How can I stagger the work over a few years to spread the cost? At the end of it, is it worth it to spend around $15K to get the pool done when it might still leak. thanks for your input!

kroer2016 I'm thinking that the furniture and accessories is available for purchase by the homeowners, but it really is just for staging. I agree about the budget. It always ends up that they misquote because they conveniently find something major wrong. I would never agree to such a purchase without a home inspection and knowing ALL the details possible up front. ******************************************************** Yes, the finished hse is staged for the show and HO's can purchase the items if they chose. If Jo commissions something from a vendor like Clint, that is a gift from FU Curious, other than a piece of furniture, does anybody know what the HO's appearing on the show get financially? On HH Reno, they get $25,000 towards the reno. I'll bet dollars to donuts the home has been inspected and any issues that come up are reality show drama. As an aside - do you notice how often they say 'You know'?