Wow. First time home owner here. I bought a really old house that I knew I would need to put a lot of work into which, for me, meant a lot of money because I am nowhere near a DIYer. First up was the kitchen. I had the kitchen measured, went to Lowes and bought a bunch of cabinets. Then I interviewed about twenty different handymen and contractors before I found one that I liked to install them. I had no idea how to work with a contractor but I did know how I wanted my kitchen to look. He allowed me to buy some things and he took care of the rest and I was pretty pleased with the final result. I asked him to quote installing the master bathroom and not only was his quote very high, his finishes were also not broken out and I suspected they were basic builder finishes. While looking for another contractor for the bathroom, I started accumulating things that I liked from Craigslist, eBay, thrift stores and online suppliers. By the time I found a contractor, I already had the majority of the materials I needed. I explained my vision for my bathroom and showed him all of my materials. He was absolutely fine working with what I had. For the remaining items, if I didn't have a preference, he would buy it but if there was something specific that I wanted, I would buy it for him to install. Anything that was the least bit questionable, he would look at it before I bought it. It is certainly taking longer due to scouting out materials but he understands that this is not a builder bathroom and has bought into the vision. Now that I've been through it, I wouldn't work any other way with a contractor. I stayed in touch with the first contractor and while we both agree that he would have had the bathroom done by now, we also agree that I wouldn't love it as much as I will when it's done because he wouldn't have allowed me the kind of flexibility that this contractor does. That was a very long winded way of saying that I agree with what was stated up-post in that if you can find a contractor that will allow you to purchase materials and you clearly establish who is responsible for what, it can work out quite nicely.

I was right on #'s 1, 2 and 3. I thought #6 was 'stand off'. As for #4, it's kind of funny. "Back to the Future' did briefly cross my mind, but then I read Fun2B's hints. Having no idea of what 'McFly' might be, I figured my idea was wrong. No way I'd ever come up with 'midwife' for #5, but it makes perfect sense when you see it. My mind was hung up on something to do with splitting up with the wife, divorce, something along those lines. Rusty

I never did get #2, and oddly enough, Jasdip's hint of 'split' made it even more confusing to me. And it is so doggone obvious when you know the answer. Apparently my brain was on vacation yesterday. Rusty ETA: I did get the rest of them right even though it took me most of the day. And it took Jasdip's hint for #3 to clarify which of my guesses I would stick with on that one.

Sometimes it takes a pretty good stretch of the imagination to get an answer to fit the clue. Or vice versa. And sometimes I think the puzzle creators don't have a very good command of the English language. Or maybe it's just how different areas have different sayings, or speech patterns, or whatever you want to call it. I've always said 'color inside the lines', too, but I'm calling that a correct answer. Roxsol, I had the right answer for D2, but wasn't real confident about it. I was trying to decide if he was hinting at something else, or whether I would stick with what I had or try to come up with something else. I decided to quit fussing with it and just stay with what I had. Wed. was not a real good day for me, and I think it kind of came through in my posts, sorry. Rusty