Oh, yeah. I can completely relate. I find it's especially hard, at this time of year, to get motivated. Our kitchen has been 95% done for over a year (main install was early summer 2009; backsplash done winter 2009/2010, then no more progress as we battled other reno projects) and we are FINALLY getting around to finishing the pantry this month. Ive been living with open, door-less cabinets (filled with stuff) and a grimy plywood scrap counter with sharpie marker drawings on it all that time. It's true, your eyes start to not "see" it after a while. But if you are anything like us, once you start, and one little part gets "finished" (for us it was finally putting the trim on a new window) you will get excited again. Here's what I do: -make a list of the projects that are unfinished or that we want to do within the next 6 months. -Sit down with DH and prioritize what should come first, re: what funds are available, weather, time available to work on it, disruption, etc. -Re-order the list, then break the first project into steps to take. Thinking this through helps us to overcome that "AAAAHHHH! Where do we begin?!?!?!?" feeling :) If it makes you feel any better, I've had, or am facing, not only the unfinished kitchen, but two total gut bathroom renos, three walk-in-closet renos, major landscaping projects including hardscaping and landscape stairs, living room renovation with tile and built-ins, chimney relining, building a deck and two porches, and I'm sure there's more. Talk about OVERWHELMED. My DH was really burned out on stuff. Of course he'd procrastinated the tricky bits (how to make the cherry counter corner, how to fit it around existing cabs in a tight space, etc) and it had been hanging over his head for 18 months as a worry. But once he finished something (that window) and saw what a HUGE difference it made, he got motivated to continue. Which is good, because I have learned I can't nag/force him to do something or he gets reeeeeally resentful. Now everyday he says, "doesn't that look so much better?" and I feel like we're back on track :) Good luck.

This is making me laugh. I got the e-mail the other day too. I had to get right up and check. Sure enough the plastic and the foil had em. I stood there in the kitchen and said 'no way!'. How could we go all this time and not know that. All that past aggravation over the plastic wrap flying out of the box and landing on the food I was trying to cover, only to have the roll get all mucked up from the food. Don't I feel silly now

We listed in May of 2007 with a local realtor with a good reputation who had been in the business for a few years. Our asking price was $10k less than the house two doors away which was a bit smaller than ours and did not have a new kitchen, bath, and other features ours had. We saw three houses that were in our neighborhood, one listed at $5k more than ours and the other two listed even higher sell in the first 3 months we had ours listed. I'm very realistic and just knew that ours wasn't being marketed effectively. Also, I could look at the good and bad in our home and knew ours was in much better condition and in a better location than two of the three that sold. Two of them were on a busy street while ours was on one of the most desired streets in our town. We ended up cancelling our listing after promises similar to yours of people who were "really interested" never materialized. We were going to forget about moving for awhile and relax about the whole selling situation. However, I saw an article in a local paper the week after our listing was cancelled about a real go-getter in the RE business. She didn't promise to sell in any specified amount of time but this woman sold houses that others didn't, even after being listed for months. Two months after listing with her and having had three times as many showings as we had in 7 months with the other realtor, we sold our home. The couple who bought our house wanted to look at it after driving by, they hadn't been looking in our area but our home caught their eye. Their realtor called ours after hours and they saw the house at 9:00 P.M. on a Saturday night because they were scheduled to fly home the next morning. When she asked me if I would leave the dining room drapes, I knew we had sold our home. She said she walked in and knew that was it. We had come down in price about $40k, but it was only 5% of our original asking price so I was happy to sell when we did. We had also cancelled a contract we had on another home that we were going to build when our home didn't sell with our original realtor. In the long run, we ended up getting a bit less for our home, but we also bought our new home for less than we would have and received even more builders' incentives so in the long run, things worked out for the best. I know that is hard to hear but I kept telling myself that everything happens for a reason and it is true. We just need a lot of patience to believe that and keep telling yourself that whatever happens is meant to be. I'm not making light of the situation for those who have to sell and haven't been able to but I really do believe everything happens the way it's supposed to in life. If you're not happy with your realtor, evaluate the situation and think about finding a new one if you don't think they are doing their job. Take a good, hard look at your home with a critical eye and ask your friends to tell you what you can do to improve your home. We had friends offer excellent advice but because we lived with it on a daily basis, we never saw our home the way others did. Most of all, your home has to be priced right. I've noticed in the area we left, homes have come down an average of 5 to 7% since we left and some of them were on the market at the same time ours was. If it's not priced right, it won't sell, no matter how nice it is. Good luck to everyone and may the new year bring you a buyer for your home!

I have a double trash pullout, the front is used for garbage and the rear is used for recyclables (glass, cans, bottles). Looking at my sink, the trash cabinet is to the left. The dishwasher is to the right. A couple times a week DH dumps the recyclables into a bin in the garage, which he either leaves at the curb on pick-up day (we pay for trash pick up) or he takes it to the transfer station. We are not required to separate the recyclables when we put them at the curb, so we don't need 3+ bins. I love Linda's setup, though.