Hi all, Checking in after the weekend. Wanted to give you a quick link to the FAQ for those who may have missed it. https://bit.ly/2S2Gxm8 Important to note that not all accounts have been sent an email, but there is certainly no harm in updating your password regardless. It's a good practice to change passwords regularly and to use different passwords for different sites. For a small number of people (as at least one person noted above) their password was reset proactively because our system was able to detect that it was a weaker password. It is a good idea to check in your account settings and make sure your email is still current. If at some point you do want to reset your password, you will need to have access to the email that is registered to the account to do that. (Also, unless you are registered as a pro, there is no phone number associated with your account, so there couldn't be any connection between this incident and spam phone calls.) Emily

“He forgot to mention granite needs to be sealed, repeatedly.” This comment indicates a lack of knowledge. I mentioned above that I have 3 different granites in 3 kitchens over about a 25-year period. I never sealed any of them. In 25 years. They looked brand new all the time. There are a thousand granites, and a person cannot make a statement like the above comment as if all the thousand behave the same. Many granites do not need sealing ever. Many granites need sealing once a year, a 5-minute process. There are a handful that need sealing several times a year, and they behave more like marble, with Kashmir White and its relatives being the most known of this type. Like any choice in your kitchen - cabinets, appliances, fixtures, flooring - a homeowner needs to do a little research before plunking down their money. As Belaria mentioned, the OP should narrow down her choices, and then do research on those choices’ maintenance needs. My granites’ only maintenance in 25 years has been to clean with some dish soap and wipe dry. A choice between Quartz and granite counters really boils down to an aesthetic one. They look and feel entirely different, and each material has a myriad of colors and patterns. You said you don’t like a busy pattern - while there are a number of granites that have little or no pattern, most do have colors and patterns. The Quartz choices definitely have many more patternless offerings, and so you should focus there.

Since I never got married, I never received wedding china, and so I've always been somewhat "china poor." I have bought odds and ends at thrift stores that I liked, even though I never got more than a couple of matching pieces at a time. I have also bought small plates and bowls at the Japanese $1.49 store (It used to be a 98¢ store, but...) and I still have just barely enough to use. This means that I have to wash the dishes very often, but I also do not have enough cupboard space to store more dishes, unless I decided to store fewer food items. My mother had white Wedgewood dishes that we always used on Sundays and holidays, but my niece has them now. I did get two sets of sterling silverware from my mother, but it's a pattern that I don't especially like, and I wish I could trade them in for one set of an Art Deco pattern, like the dessert forks and spoons that I bought at an antique shop on La Brea for cheap. These were from an estate sale and had just been delivered (very tarnished), and the guy at the shop didn't know they were sterling, as he sold them to me for less than the value of the metal. Anyway, if you were in my neighborhood, I would probably take dishes off your hands and pay you for them. The house in Cathedral City came with an incomplete set of white dishes, and so I bought another set at Revivals in C.C. for cheap. The problem with all of these dishes is that they are not microwave safe, even though they are all completely white. I bought a set of stainless steel flatware for the house in C.C. from Amazon and then found an almost identical full set at Revivals for a fractions of the price. I bought a teapot there that cannot go into the microwave either, and that's how I normally make tea😞

The comments here are so insightful. Just goes to show how complex people lives are and how diverse and difficult their experiences have been. Chris M- You wrote- "my wife is depressed and angry every time she looks at the poor job they did with just about everything. I've tried to get her to agree to have another contractor come in and redo the kitchen at least, and some other things too but she won't go for it. Doesn't want anyone else in the house." You also wrote there is "hoarding in her family." That is a lot to unpack there, to choose a metaphor. Presumably you have been together a long time and you know her and her family and her upbringing well. It might help for you to know the roots of what is going here. Is she a perfectionist on some level and ashamed, even mortified that she screwed up by hiring the wrong people? Note, we don't think she screwed up, but might she? Was someone significant in her family of origin rigid/demanding with high standards? Was approval/love contingent on performance and appearance so now your wife cannot forgive her own imperfection and mistake and has poor self-esteem? Did someone marry beneath them (one of her parents or a grandparent or aunt) and always say that they came from better and coulda/woulda/shoulda so now your wife feels her station is lowered and she has lost her sense of self-worth? Is your wife the adult child of an alcoholic, so she, the fixer now that she sees her herself as having screwed up has lost her role in life because she is in over her head? Did your wife suffer a serious loss early on of a significant person? Have a traumatic event? Was she given the message from someone that ones possessions/appearance/home are how one is judged, rather than one's values/morals/behavior so now she sees herself as as trashed and worthless as her home? Anyhoo, you get the idea. No, please don't be her therapist. The above is just food for thought for you. And while you are thinking about the possible origins of your wife's psychopathology, why not think about yourself, too. Not many spouses would be willing to live in the space you describe for as long as you have with a spouse defiantly unwilling to exert a joule of energy to change things or even allow anyone else to. And why haven't you unpacked things yourself and hung up the pictures? Are you afraid of her? Do you think she is so fragile she will flip out totally if you do unpack and hang pictures? Have you done something not so perfect yourself so you two have struck some sort of devil's bargain? Think about it. If so, admit it. And stop talking about ancient history. How about this- Tell her, "This weekend I am unpacking, whatever. I would be very happy if you would help me and I could really use the help, but I will do it whether you help me or not." Then do it, whether she cries, or screams or yells, or curses your every family member. And if she hits you or throws the furniture around, you need to call 911 for a 5150 hold or whatever the numbers are for a psychiatric hold in your state because she would be a danger to you and herself. I mean it. Then another day, unpack the pictures and measure everything and where they will go, and show her the plan and say "This is where I am thinking of putting everything, do you like it, or do you have any suggestions? Take a half-hour to look at it. " (Make a copy in case she rips it up.) Then if she has comments about your lay-out, discuss it with her. If she has no comments, do it per your design, and think about using Command Hooks so you don't make holes in the wall in case you change your mind later on. Throw away any of your stuff you want. Do not throw away her stuff, or communal stuff like photographs. I strongly advise against getting a storage locker, they are exorbitantly expensive, and the odds are she will never go into it, and you will be spending $200 a month in perpetuity for things that are actually worth very little and that she never looks at and doesn't need. When you have done everything with your stuff and the furniture and dishes, then hire a contractor and kitchen designer if you need that. Invite your wife to the design meeting. Tell her that it is going to happen. Period. Tell her you would like her input, she has good ideas and great taste and she and her input is important and you value it and her, but it is going to happen, whether she participates or not, and you are not waiting any longer. And if she doesn't go, you will decide on the plans and you will not pay the added cost if she wakes up and wants to change things later on. And you tell the contractor no changes that you don't sign off on. You get the idea. She can go to counseling. You can go. You can go together. Meanwhile, get cracking. Remember Newton's First Law? INERTIA A body at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an external force.