Hey Ann, We have U-Verse. This is quite long, tried to relay everything. We just past the 15 month mark. I'm not really all that fired up about it. When they finished laying the fiber optic cables they scoured the 'hoods looking for customers. Offering more (we have U200) at what amounted to a huge savings over what we had. DH bit. Our rates did go up some after 12 months, but in comparison shopping, we are about equal or a little better off in price for all 3 services (TV, PC, phone). We are seriously considering a switch and have no doubt they'll offer an enticement to stay, but I'm not sure we'd take it. I'm comparing U-Verse to cable, which is what we had for TV/Internet for years. Landline phone was a separate provider. Pros: Internet has never had an outage (went out a little too frequently with cable, especially storms). Phone service has never been down. TV has had no adverse outages. There have been two that lasted several hours. But that was AT&T upgrades or changes, done in the middle of the night with announcements (on screen) in advance. Has a lot of cool little perks. -Call history can be viewed on TV. -If TV is on and call comes in, TV screen displays caller ID info. -You can view photos on your TV (have never bothered loading that, tho. ) -Can record multiple programming at the same time. Record via primary DVR only. Any DVR box/tv can playback. (See also Cons for more on this.) -If watching something 'live' on primary DVR/TV, and you missed something or left the room, just rewind and watch again. If the same channel is left on without disruption, it stores about 2 hours prior program memory. (Switch channels and memory is lost.) Say you're snuggled in with a great movie and something pulls you away. No need to press Record (which is a handy single red button). Just leave it on that channel, come back to TV later, press rewind, pick up where you left off (and then fast forward through commercials. ;) -Can check/play phone messages from any computer, change Voicemail Greeting, control VM inboxes, etc. (See Cons also) -We have no premium movie channels. But have gotten 3 months of HBO free during winter. And a couple weeks of others free here and there. -I'm trying to think of more Pros. Will have to get back to you on that. Cons: -We've had two DVR boxes (the Primary one) go bad within first year. Programs hesitating, freezing, and finally locking up altogether. Called C.S. Instructed us to reset by holding power button on DVR for 7 seconds and waiting about 5 minutes for it to reboot. That fixed it. Till the next time. (Which at its worst could be a couple minutes later.) There were nights DH was watching big playoff games and rebooted that box over a dozen times in a couple hours. Each time I called, they ran through the 'have you reset' script, then had me troubleshoot on our end by unplugging gateway box and powering up, then going online to a site where our DVR history/errors are logged, and read info to them. Apparently that info showed them how many resets we were doing in a single evening so they sent a tech out. Quickly, about two days later. He replaced DVR box. That was month 3. Tech said hookup job by first guy was not so good. Not buying it. Most common complaint talking with other subscribers in our area is failure + replacement of multiple DVR boxes. Now at 11 month mark for the new (replacement) Primary DVR box, it needs to be replaced. Same symptoms again. -Secondary DVR box on living room TV stopped playing back anything recorded. That happened about 4th month. Recorded programs would hesitate then completely freeze up within first 3 minutes. Don't use that TV much, but it was becoming yet another irritation. On a hunch last weekend DH replaced splitter AT&T had installed where cables come into house. Voila, problem solved. -If you must use a Fax machine in your home it will not receive faxes with Uverse Voicemail feature. I searched, I called, no viable solution. There are complaints online. AT&T C.S. said it's something they don't offer at this time. I have a SOHO and need my fax. So I had to turn off voicemail altogether shortly after we signed up. :/ Had to revert back to answering machine in order to be able to receive faxes. -Internet connection: I'm getting sporadic but noticeable slow down in connection just in the past couple months. It's not my PC, I religiously keep it clean of anything (e.g. spyware) that would bog it down. During those slow spurts when I click on links I get "site not responding" errors. (I hesitate to place full blame for that on AT&T, too many variables. Network connection status reflects a healthy speed. Could be my browser having fits.) -We have multiple AT&T email accounts between us (work, personal, and 'junk' one for web use). I don't want to log into and out of each one so consolidate, use software like Outlook Express, and now Windows Live Mail Desktop. This happened in both software programs: for unknown reasons, not all our AT&T emails come in. But if I go to AT&T site, they are there. Of the six accounts, it seems my personal and business are the ones impacted. (Only occurs with AT&T emails pushed to OE or WLM, it does not happen with gmail or hotmail, I set up accounts and tested it.) Receipt of some emails are delayed, sometimes by as much as a day. There are other annoyances (minor) so I didn't go into them. I know how I feel - despite outages cable for TV/Internet was more reliable overall. Just asked DH if he had to do it over again, would he get Uverse. He said "no way, I want to ditch it". Maybe it's our hookup. He was just talking to a co-worker who lives in a different state, the guy is thrilled, said it works like a dream. But there's a difference in hookup. Coworker's Uverse hookup is all done with phone line wiring inside his house. Our wiring to PC & TVs is all co-axial cable. (Original lines to phones were left intact, as they were.) So maybe they've changed install methods. (I'd definitely ask about that.) That's about it, tried to relay it all, good and bad. Feel free to ask if you have more questions!

Arcy, I don't know if they still sell them but we bought ds13 a phone at Sam's. When my oldest got an iPhone (ugh…that's another story), we gave her basic phone to ds, mainly for him to use if he was out somewhere and needed a ride, etc. He didn't really "need" the phone but it was only an extra $10 to my bill (first two phones on our account are regular price, whatever, like $40/each, but then additional lines are only $10). His phone is only for calling/texting, no websurfing/etc. Well, shortly after we gave it to him, he had it in his pocket while we were at a lax tournament. He brought it down to the hotel pool where there was a team party going on and a friend pushed him into the pool. We tried to save the phone, but had no access to rice/etc right away, so it died. I was due for an upgrade on my iPhone, but didn't need a new phone, so I used my upgrade to get him a new phone at Sam's Club. The salesgirl was easily able to use my upgrade for his phone, so it cost like $1 for the phone and she linked his phone number to it. Funny thing is… he NEVER uses the phone. He never remembers to bring it with him. If he does remember, it typically is out of battery b/c he forgets to charge it, or it's turned off for school and he doesn't remember to turn it on. As a result, I almost never can reach him on the darned thing. He really wants an iPhone b/c all his friends have them, but he does not need one. He is required by his school to have an iPad so he has all the features of the iPhone as long as he has wifi. So, no iPhone for him b/c he does not need 24 hr access to the internet…he can use his iPad at home, at school and even at Starbucks LOL. Wearybuilder, I'm sure there must be other options for you, like a pay as you go phone or whatever…the kind you buy minutes for. I do know that when I added dd to my account, it did cost about $40/mth for her line, and that was just for unlimited texts and calls. That is with Verizon-first two lines cost the same, then any additional are only $10 on the plan I have. Dh's phone is paid for through his work, so I sucked up the $40 to add her. Now she has an iPhone so she has a data plan also that adds to the price, but when I added the third line for ds, it was only $10 for him. Incidentally, when I went to get the iPhone for dd, I went to the Verizon store. They would only sell me this package deal that came with all these accessories she didn't need. They said they were required to sell them that way! I knew that I could easily get an iPhone from the Apple Storeand told them so, but the Verizon guys said their hands were tied. So they lost a sale. I went to Apple and bought the phone there (she was due an upgrade so I didn't have to pay a fortune for the phone). The downside was that by buying from Apple vs. Verizon, she couldn't keep her phone number and had to get a new one and it wasn't a good number. I kept her old number anyway b/c I knew I'd be using it for ds but his voicemail still has dd's message on it b/c she can't remember the password to change it, LOL.

carsonheim The cal door quote is unfinished solid maple. We were having everything site finished so it all would match but I'm thinking they offer primed doors for not much more. I hope you have as great an experience as we've had! I think it all depends on how devoted your crew is... our guys are just rock stars. They NEVER cut corners, even when I think they should! :) imjustagirl I do have some new pictures... site finishing has begun! I was planning on starting a new thread since this is getting long. Stay tuned.

Posted by jellytoast on Fri, Aug 1, 14 at 18:06 Okay, so let's say that Hippy's job costs are on the low end of the spectrum. That is still a HUGE discrepancy. How long did the job take? I must confess. The only reason I got the stair & railing along with the kitchen counters and cabinets done so cheap is. I built and installed them both myself from rough cut lumber. Bought the hand rails and Bartered for the Wrought iron spindles from a friend. I have less than $250 total in the wood and labor used on the ceiling of the living room. It came from the loft of an old barn that was being torn down. I cleaned it up, ripped to a 6" width and planed on all four sides.