Suebot - don't think i'm going to tell you anything that somebody else hasn't said, but since i've had too much experience with deer & rabbits, i figured i'd concur with the remedies that worked for me. i used to live/learned to garden on nantucket and martha's vineyard, where the deer are at least as unreasonably tame and probably more abundant than they are in ct. i've heard stories of people standing 10 ft away from them yelling at them while they chomp on their hydrangea flower buds. one woman i was talking to claimed she saw the deer attacking her dalmation!! anyway, my first thought about your original message was are you sure all damage is due to deer and not rabbits? - when they stand on their hind legs, they can eat quite high - on a couple of my client's properties on the islands, i had more problems with bunnies than deer, especially with my daylilies & echinacea. so, i also found success with the deer away spray products; i can't remember which one i used, but i believe it had garlic & mint in it and i actually liked the way it smelled. the directions said to spray every couple of weeks (??), but i found that i had to spray every couple of days or so & definitely after a rain. it was pretty time consuming. unfortunately, my other success was fencing in the gardens. i just tried to be decorative about it - i used nice cedar posts with caps, bird netting @ 4' high (you can't really see it, so the garden still looks nice), i hung rope along the top of the netting (for a nautical look...). I did throw netting on top of the gardens in the spring until things grew too tall, but i have to admit, the deer hopped in a couple of times (- that would've been a mess i kind of would have liked to see). i now live in maine and have a large cutting garden in my back yard, a good distance from my house and i use the bird netting as the fencing (simply because it was the only fencing i could find that would be high enough in one piece) and it works (doesn't handle snow load, though). i see deer in the back and they walk right around the garden. chipmunks are now my problem. unfortunately, my true feeling is that if the deer want to get to something, they will. sorry to be so lengthy, good luck. just out of curiosity, do you have phlox and is it being eaten - that always gets destroyed the worst for me. -mara

There sounds like a lot of miscommunication here. Did the GC hire the cabinet company, or did you hire them direct? Who did the measuring? Who did the designing? Did everyone get together and step off the design in the actual space before it was ordered? That's all water under the bridge now, but maybe someone else can benefit from your situation. It sounds as though you have several design errors, and then there are several order entry errors. The wrong sink base could have been a design or order entry error (and it really doesn't matter which to you). If the GC engaged the cabinet maker, then it's up to him to make it right. If you engaged the cabinet maker directly with the contractor just doing the install for you, then you (or hubby) are gonna have to yell at the cabinet maker yourself. The bar area will definately have to have some space between each of the end cabinets and the wall. Otherwise, your doors and drawers don't have enough clearance. You shouldn't need more than about an inch or an inch and a half. I usually do 1 1/2" on each end because that's a single 3" filler split down the middle and is easier for the installer. But I don't work with cabinets that are able to be customized width the way your line is able to do. For your case, an extended stile of about 1" is enough wiggle room to be trimmed to the wall. For your hutch area, I have an idea that might be an upgrade for you if you like it. What about using punched tin inserts, to make it look like an old fashioned pie safe. Or you could use some highly patterned opaque glass that you couldn't see through. That way you would be able to go ahead and install those cabinets and not wait on them to be replaced. Just remember: alcohol for the current stress, steel for the spine in the coming confrontation, and patience for this too to pass. Concentrate on the end result as being your goal, and all of the labor pains will be minimized when it's finally over.

Hmmm, let's check that out. Can you post a photo of your whole house? We could try some mock ups to see how it all looks. Think of this: lots of people paint their doors bright colors to make them pop. Their door color doesn't match anything else, yet people have no qualms about that. So maybe a wood door wouldn't look off with a white garage door. And here in colonial country, I can think of many homes with wood doors and white garages.

I am here, too! I remember the glass "flowers" being a hot item when I checked in more often. There were many, many discussion on the best adhesive to use. I still have plates, cups, pieces of rebar,etc., "ready" to be made into a flower or two. This is hopefully this Spring will see the final stage of turning an early 1950s concrete birdbath into a colorful Fairy Garden. I got it sandblasted this winter but am waiting for warmer weather to take it outside for painting. I have all the basic furnishings - including a pair of tiny Napcoware rabbits, a teeny-tiny ceramic frog, a ceramic bird house that resembles an English cottage, a twig fence, a terracotta flower fairy, a pair of ceramic butterflies to attach to the painted base, and a "found" piece of old rusty barbed wire that resembles a seahorse - or dragon! I am going to be so excited to send "it's completed" photos to my young niece that requested this project be done."