Reading your story makes me laugh out loud. My husband, bless his heart is not very mechanical. He installed a ceiling fan above our brand new cherry table. Looked great but he didn't attach it to the beam. Needless to say we bought a new table. I do alot of gardening. So I buy mushroom compost by the ton. Hubby set the trailer up for me and said "your all set to go". Went to go pick up the compost (which is about half horse poop), went to leave the parking lot and felt a huge tug on the back of the truck. The trailer was BOUNCING up and down the very busy highway. I thought I blew a tire. NOOOOOOOOOOOO- hubby didn't have a pin for the trailer so he secured it with a STRING. I am not kidding. I ended up spreading 70 feet of horse poop-no wait- stinking horse poop down the one lane of a very busy highway. Cars were sliding in, honking at me, some guy gave me the finger?!?!?! Fines + tickets+new trailer+cost of cleanup = $3500.00 Needless to say I bought a new trailer and it came with a pin on a chain. I laugh now, but I could have killed him. Your father is right. I say if it's not cancer, then it's not worth the worry. Remember, he will rope the moon for you. He could be trying to please someone else instead of you. Don't beat him up over it, he is already doing that to himself. They really do want to be the knight on that white horse. I read "the proper care and feeding of husbands" CHANGED MY LIFE, MY ATTITUDE, MY MARRIAGE. I fully and whole heartly recommend to any married woman who wants to improve their marriage. Get it on cd and listen to it over and over. Be sure to shut off your own internal dialogue, so you can really absorb. I am NO ONE to give advice, but I try to remember this stuff when I want to "verbally smack" him with all of his mistakes. Forgetting to remind him of how absolutly wonderful he is to me. Again, I am no one to give advice. Women think they know everything and WELL WE DO. Men are far less complicated than us. However, they are deeper than we realize. Make him feel like your hero or someone else will. Why risk it?? Your going to spend $$$$ on a kitchen remodel. Spend the $15 on this cd. You will recover 2,000% of your investment on the cd. Maybe 85% on the kitchen. I wish i would have had this book BEFORE i got married. So put on something sexy, make his favorite meal and let him how much he is appreciated.

I tried to quickly scan through. I don't know if someone made this suggestion yet. Can you put doors on your cabinets? We had open shelves on either side of our fireplace. I had my husband make doors for them. He made frames and covered the inside of the frame with cane. (we had to since they hold our tv components and I was afraid that they would melt down if no air got to them.) But, you can get tons of different sized cabinet doors at the restore or something similar. With the ones my husband made, I just painted them and put them up with regular old hinges. They look pretty good. I was going with a more natural/coastal theme. So, they work well in here. Oh! I was thinking. If you have odd sizes (like we do) you could just have lowes cut you new doors out of that mdf and paint them. Just don't get really super thick mdf. It paints like a dream with a roller and you could get the odd sized cabs covered. Melamine doors if you don't want to paint. But... you don't have to do all of your shelves. Maybe just the bottom half. It will break up some of the visual clutter. And, you can hide actual clutter (like we do!) which is really the main thing. :) Kim

Unfortunately Onlineaccounts found out the hard way about the installation process. I'm very sorry to hear about your hardship Onlineaccounts. It only adds another knife in the back of us who really care about our work. I am part of a circle of installers trying to get the word out on the installation of windows. If you spend your money on the best windows todays market has to offer (Schuco). The improper installation of them can make them worthless. Even an installer who's referred to you can turn out as a bust. Since the applications are usually different and people look at quality different sometimes. The bottom line is hiring a company that stands behind their installers. Sometimes the best installers have an issue or even overlook something. A great company will be back out to make the repairs no questions asked right away. A bad company will make excuses and do everything in their power to pass the buck and walk away. Find companies with good track records and get positive feed back from friends, neighbors, family and anything you can think of. Go out and physically look at jobs done by the company your hiring. You'll be much better off having some knowledge then none! Sparticus there are a bunch of other manufacturers out there making custom sized windows other than Marvin. Depending on your location in the US there are local manufacturers servicing smaller areas across the land. Here in the upper midwest we have a handful of them. There are also some nationally distributed windows made by Pella, Kolbe & Kolbe, Weathershield & Vetter. You just have to see if they are available in your area. The custom window verses stock sized window is some what of a joke. Most manufacturers make their windows per order in most cases. Meaning they load your sizes in a computer and it's spit out in the fabrication line. Stock windows are just the everyday windows they have pre-programmed in the computer. They also have the glass pre-made and ready to go. All custom sized units need to have the glass made specially. This is where extra time and money are needed. So your extra fee is really just a set up charge to change the production line over. You can also choose a vinyl or fiberglass window, if they haven't been tossed your way as a choice already. The downfall to vinyl windows is they only come in Tan or White. I've also seen some Sandtone colors out there. The inside's can come with a simulated wood grain which is really a laminated sticker that won't ever peel off. Some look better than others do. Fiberglass windows can be painted on either side to match your decor. So it does have an advantage over the vinyl. The best thing they offer to the home owner is Maintenance Free up keep. No more painting down the road. If you want that real wood on the inside I'd recommend Pella. They are very critical on the installation of their product today. If you choose Pella make sure your installer follows their installation instructions to the "T". If not done correctly it will void the warranty. Hope this helps & Good Luck!!!

Just do an entire wall of curtains. You can do a ceiling mounted track or you can buy a rod and then get an extender to get the width you need.