Why is GW suddenly green? Or is it just my eyes? Hmmm... Sorry you don't feel well. Hope you get over it soon!! My parents bought a 1 yr old house when I was in the womb, then when I was 9, they built another. Sooo...I've pretty much always lived in new houses, haven't I?? Never even thought of that. I'm sure your parents thought they were doing a wonderful job when they were putting up that blue paneling! Gosh, I can honestly see that crud now. My in-laws have the white in their enclosed porch. We had a little of the brown in the kitchen, and a butt-load in the basement. It's all been removed, of course. Here I mean...in-laws still have theirs...lol. Some day I'm gonna have to get a picture in the kitchen and show you where the paneling was. It covered a hole, the hole was in the back of the built-in china cabinet in the dining room. My carpenter made a pretty cool door for it, out of an old original beat up door we found in the basement. Easy to describe, but takes me a lot of words, being as wordy as I am....descriptive I mean. You know what I mean Nineteen. ;-> That wall looks good, from what I can tell!! There's some really good masks, can't remember what they're called, but you can wear that when you're working on the chipped plaster, if you're really worried about it. Me? I rely heavily on the ignorance is bliss aspect of life...lol...just kidding. Long sleeves, pants, whatever you feel is necessary while working in those areas. Like I said, I had wallpaper, with some paint over the wallpaper, it all got the steamer. The foyer, up the stairs, the alcove, down the hallway and in the back area had one kind of wallpaper on the bottom, another on the top, with a border in the middle. Yack. Man was it hard to remove. Took me forever and a day. I found just one coat of white paint under, with a blue line, the line where the top went to and the bottom went. Let's not measure, let's use blue paint. Again, yack. I also had just scratch coats under that paint and nothing but the scratch coat in the parlor. But I used the NuWal, so it doesn't show. The sellers? There were times when the husband had to stop by here, and I'd ask where his wife was....she's out in the car, she loved this house tooooooooooo much!!!!!!!!! She can't stand the thought of anyone doing anything to it!!!!!!!!! eeeegaaads!! Did she have eyes?? We had a PLASTIC chandelier in the dining room! She couldn't stand the thought of me replacing that? And some of the plastic "crystals" were hanging by paper clips!!! I kid you not. The carpet in here, must have been at least 25 yrs old and wasn't showing it's age well.....she couldn't stand the thought of us pulling up the carpet to show the beautiful maple hardwoods?? Was she crazy?? me thinks so....oy.

Common pine, with knots and checks, has to be sealed first with shellac before painting, or else the sap will continue to leak out and the knots and checks will discolor and show through the paint. Pine has a high moisture content and is prone to warping. It's also very soft and dentable. Select pine is knot-free but costs more. Popular is a hard wood, more dent resistant and might be a better solution for you and your boys. Worth comparison shopping! :-)

No offense, but "... a soft bristle brush and a neutral PH cleaner..". scrubbing my textured bathroom floor is not how I would want to spend my weekend, or any part of it.. Why pay good money for relatively high maintenance materials that are going to take hours of your time just to keep clean? If it takes more than a sponge mop to keep it clean, I am just not interested. Design for safety and low maintenance. Get the toilet off the floor, don't use "fussy" materials, coat every piece of glass with something like Enduroshield to prevent water spots and etching, use only high COF (wet) tile for safe floors and showers. A well-designed, safe and low-maintenance bath trumps a fancy tile anytime IMHO.

Live wire, I mentioned once before that you should not feel the need to respond to my posts. Your time is too valuable, I am sure, because you tend to insult everyone you respond to on Houzz. So, just skip my posts please...you just don't seem to understand that builders, architects, and structural engineers are too busy with new top dollar projects to bother with my remodel. I have to hire whomever is available. I have no control over them, so I have not refused to fix anything. DavidR, I am used to Live_Wire because he does this to everyone on Houzz. It may be because he is tired after a full day of work...who knows, but it is normal. "Suggesting that you should hire someone so you can hire someone just doesn't fly very high with me." I know...that made no sense to me. I agree that when there is something unexpected, then I should pay the extra amount. The problem is that we only have so much money, and it doesn't just appear out of thin air. It will take a couple of months to save an extra $1000.00. I can't just be surprised about the new amount. We don't know anyone around here, and it is a lake community so some homeowners are here on weekends only. I have no problem taking on people who try to take advantage of me, but I have to walk a fine line to make sure I don't run them off. A lightning strike hit my Dish Network/internet dish 15 years ago and destroyed everything that was connected, then blew out two places to exit my siding. Insurance offered me $1,700.00 to repair two holes in the siding, and replace 5 TVs, 5 Dish DVRs,5 DVD players, 5 VHS players, 1 PC, and 1 laptop. We had surge protectors on everything, but they won't help with lightning. It took over a year, but I finally got the insurance company to replace everything. $12,800.00. Big difference! So thank you, David. Houzz is wonderful for people to ask questions on posts. Some people feel it is for contractors or professionals only. It is usually how homeowners look for answers when they don't know or understand something. Thankfully, most professionals are very kind and helpful. I think I can name 3 people that aren't, and 1 has been banned from Houzz. To explain why I can't get quality contractors... All of the really good contractors are busy working in Carlton Landing Development which is about 7 miles from me. Waterfront lots go for up to $245,800 plus the cost of building a home. The lots are small and most homes don't have garages. Homes cost up to $800,000.00 or more. I saw a 1 bedroom, 1 bath home selling for $270,000. That might be good for New York or California homes. If a house is not on the lake here, the median price for a home is $57,000 and many are mobile homes. We bought our lakefront house right before Carlton Landing started. Most low and medium income people can't afford a lakefront home now unless they have a lot of money or unless the lot is on a cliff with no access to the water. Carlton Landing plans to have stores and restaurants so no one has to leave the community if they don't want to. They have had a community garden and a school there for several years now. The local motels are full of contractors from farther away that drive home on weekends. So, I have few contractors to choose from. Plus, my "town" consists of a Shell gas station, a Dollar General, and a post office. Nothing else. It is a quiet, peaceful place to live...IF you don't need contractors or shopping or good restaurants. Carlton Landing $625,000.00. Those 3 homes are just a few feet apart. Very close together. The above picture is their "waterfront". It is quite a walk to get to their community dock. Mostly steep, wooded, cliffs. Lots of snakes and deer. Below picture is my waterfront lot. We were lucky to find it, even though we had to spend (so far) over $175,000 on remodeling. Not much of a slope to get to our dock. Deer walk through here all the time.