You'll definately want to check out the California Cactus Center. They are pretty close to where you'll be staying, and have a mind boggling selection. They tend to be rather high as far as prices go, but even if you don't buy a thing (which trust me, you *will*) it is worth going just to look around. You can make a nice day out of it by going to the Huntington Gardens too, since they are so close. If you are up for some driving, there is the Cactus Ranch out in Reseda, and some smaller one on the Westside. As far as transporting them, check to see if WA has any import regulations. Beyond that, package them well so if some tsa idiot decides to have a powertrip that day, you can just check it...

So, it's been a tough few days, as we went back and forth with the PB. They mucked up on the measurements, but - hats off to them - they have owned their mistake. There's no avoiding the fact that we are going to lose more than they, but my interest is in getting a great final product, and I guess the price we will have to pay is a little steeper than we had anticipated! In addition to having to cut about a quarter of our Pergola away, we are also going to be losing nearly half of the remaining lawn, as the WHOLE pool has to move over 2 feet. Instead of a 18' by 7' lawn area, we are now left with a 16' by 5' area. Big bummer. So, end result is we have lost all our swings, and a quarter of the Pergola, and a half of remaining lawn. that's the bad news... The good news (there is good news!) is that the PB came out on Saturday, admitted his error, and we negotiated that he will certainly fix everything so it works functionally and aesthetically (step 1), but also that he will undertake to make some other tweaks that would normally have meant overages, at no cost to ourselves. Additionally, ANY and all further surprises or necessary fixes will be covered by them. So, I've lost a lot of the functionality of my garden, but I'm getting (I hope!) peace of mind for the rest of the project, no financial overages, no surprises that I have to deal with, and the pool I contracted to have built. Granted, we're far from done here (we've only just begun!), but the PB's willingness to step up and take responsibility was admirable. They could have disappeared, as so many contractors seem to often do. They could have forced me to take this to court. Instead, they conscientiously sought to find a solution that would be acceptable to all of us. They are certainly getting the better end of the deal, but they are also sharing some of the pain! So long as the rest goes (no pun intended) swimmingly, and we get a fabulous end result that lasts us for years and years, I'm cool! My daughter's enjoying it, at least!

There are a bunch of stoneyards in the SF Valley. We bought our kitchen granite from Global Stone Trading on Keswick in Van Nuys. Hamid there was great to work with. They aren't a large place, but had some very nice stone at good prices. My friend used Pacific Shore Stone on Raymer in Van Nuys. They have some nice material there, although they didn't have the particular one we were looking for. My friend was very pleased with her dealing with them. We were able to get interesting granite countertops for about the same price as HD charges for their bottom line granite. YMMV, but it doesn't hurt to do a little shopping to get a feel for things.

Cost/SF is a metric used by appraisers and Realtors attempting to value a home based on sales data for similar homes recently sold in the same market. It's a lousy metric, but it's simple and so it gets used for their simple comparisons. Estimating anything on a cost/SF basis gets builders, architects and home buyers in trouble. The only thing we purchase by the SF is flooring materials and even then, the installed cost/SF is affected by a number of variables such as orientation, material or roll width, pattern, type of substrate, etc. The best way to infer the likely cost to build the home you have in mind is to tour similar homes that are under construction or recently completed in the same area and ask the builder about the cost difference to construct it on your building site. The experience shared by kudzu9 illustrates why its' a good idea to have your builder involved early in the design process. I highly recommend it.