Ok, I am so liking bobbi's idea of the photo taped to the wine.

creeser, you should be a proud mama! Degrees aren't that easy to come by, good for him! Match their own jackets and slacks, too funny. Too true!

MP, are you digging the Telly Savalas/ Bruce Willis look? :)

creesy, that is marvy honey!!!! tell him all the ollds are proud! i'm just considering us all aunts of his now! :)
bob, i took pics! that's a great idea! I also played around with one of them last night and erased his eyebrows.....he looks like a bearded dolphin! His brother said it wouldn't mean as much unless he shaved his eyebrows too! hahaha! but he refused to do that! So I erased the eyebrows and emailed him a pic of it! Don't know if he's talked to him today or not!
eztia...don't worry. we would never scare the boo mappin. she hates santa already and he's never done a thing to her! we will gradually expose this to her. she loves J.....they are awful together! I was supposed to give him a trim this weekend and thought about letting boo help me, but thought again and decided against it. I know what would happen. She would go home and cut her own hair. And then, I would be in deep shite! Never to hear the end of it from my daughter. I'm lucky that my visits are not supervised as it is. trust me. I keep telling her that she lived through having me as her mom, but she doubts my capabilities as a responsible adult. Ridiculous is what I say!!!

I just finished painting my little thrift store dresser red ochre, I love that color, it's so delicious! That poor dresser ($10 !!!) has had more lives than my neighbors cats.
[houzz=]

Good morning ladies - lots of interesting chatter this morning. Can't stay long, things are piling up around me and suddenly just everything seems to be going wrong. Had such a dream run for so long, I was expecting it.

mp - well only a man would shave his head in the middle of winter!!! And was the sink full of hair for you to clean up?

We all seem to be copping it this week, I got a mouthful from someone who just wasn't reading things properly. Think she may have had an English problem. She went right of the deep end ranting about absolutely ridiculous things, basically attacked me for being old and thinking I was better than anyone, told me I had insulted her and her whole family (because she had misread what I had written).

I do think a lot of the writers are leaving themselves open for criticism lately. I find things seem to come in runs. Cathy's bit on the nursery for example, sort of appropriate to pay homage to the royal baby in one way, but it didn't feature nurseries that would be anything like a Royal one would be. I just felt it was awkward tokenism that missed the mark. I was disappointed for her as I always enjoy her posts and of course the anti Royalists really had a field day.

Others lately seem to be full of flowery words and catchy phrases that get a bit snobby and pretentious to me. I know we Aussies are pretty up front people and call things like they are so pretentiousness just doesn't go over at all. It almost becomes like a designspeak, bit like people who write up on wines, they always crack me up. That post Astraea mentioned - the "thoughtfully mismatched chairs around the dining room table" got me. To us it reads more "couldn't afford new chairs so these will do for now", but it has to have all fancy words to disguise that and make out they have done something fantastic. What does it matter, nothing can be perfect all the time. We don't judge people on what they can and can't afford. I'm curious to know how you guys take that sort of thing?

Astraea - love the story behind your name, you really researched that well.

Bobbi - probably the reason my cooking is so hopeless but when I am making something like that I just toss in what looks about right or to my taste. Enough cheese to cover the dish and give it taste.

Must get moving too much to do today.

bye roo....your day will get better!
and no...i did not clean up the hair! i really didn't even want to touch it. it looked soooo much better attached to his head, than in the sink! It was downright scary looking! like a huge rat or something! I told him to put it in a box and wrap it as a gift to give to his brother! HA!

@olldbobbi. I have been replying only to posts in the "Other" category that have had no responses. If the post is too vague, I skip it, also if it looks very questionable ("rich prince in Nigeria" scam type of thing). Many just need to be referred to the Using Houzz section or the Design Dilemmas section.

boo mappin's gingerbread house or should I say her christmas crackhouse!?

I feel a sugar buzz coming on!

That is adorable and delicious! I feel a Hansel and Gretel moment coming on.

roo, I hope things get better for you. Everyone seems to be so 'testy' right now, with the holidays coming up. Why do we put so much pressure on ourselves? This year MUST be more extravagant and bigger and better than last year. I guess it's a good thing they only come once a year. And I think the economy has something to do with it, at least in my case it's true!

Mendi, that looks amazing. You guys must have had so much fun!

eztia, I'm trying! Just busy today but I don't want you do have to do it alone, I'll give it a shot.

eztia! I've gone back about a billion questions to help you, and you've already answered them all!

we had a ball! the first thing malorie (daughter), said to me when I gave it to her was, "Is it all edible or did you use some glue?"......"Can we eat it?"
I said, you sure can. The difference between me and the daughter....I would never even consider eating it! HA! There are certain things that I like that are sugar......cheesecake, dark chocolate, stuff like that, but a whole house of sugar, NO! lol
The prob now is that I want to do a fabulous one on my own. Maybe me and J can do one. :)
But I DO have sugar cookies to make! I like sugar cookies without the sugar added on top. But these will be christmas ones, so I'll have to decorate them. It will be fun!
I am not going to get stressed out about christmas. Just looking forward to the trip up north and enjoying getting out of town for a bit!

I'm not a happy traveler, but I feel the need to get out of town, too. I am mind-designing a house on the coast of Maine, a modest 3,500 sq ft with a master en-suite the size of Texas. Maybe I'll go there, it's cheaper!

And this coastal home in Maine will be tastefully painted in Revere Pewter:)

HA!!! Doubtful! I've already planned to have ALL the walls painted white (eggshell) and seriously dark hardwood floors, because in my mind-design I have a housekeeper dedicated to floors only. AND a huge flokati rug because I think they are so romantic! White linen upholstered furniture and a wall of stationary windows that looks out at my personal birch tree grove, very dense. I don't even know if Maine has birch trees, come to think of it!

Am I ever going to live down the Revere Pewter????? hehehe

@olldbobbi. I haven't done ALL of them yet! How about May and June 2012? I will start on October 2012.

How do i find May and June? I don't know how to find specific time periods!

@olldbobbi. On an iPad it works as follows: swipe this post so it will move off of the left hand side of the screen. There will be a post there! ( it might even be the one with guitar tiles). Look at the bottom of the screen. There will be a little house icon on a black bar across the bottom of the screen next to the word "Discussions." Click on the little house. Many little boxes will appear across the bottom of the screen. All of them will be "Other" posts. Swipe so they scroll off the left of your screen. Tap on one about 50 boxes away from here and see what the date is at the top of the post. The number of comments is also at the top of the post. Swipe until you find a 0 Comments, and reply. Clear as mud?

Just taking a breather, morning of phone calls I didn't need. So the new vanity that took 9 weeks to come instead of the promised 2 weeks, arrived without the soft touch doors and drawers I paid extra for. They collected it Tuesday last week with a promise to return Thursday. So Monday morning I rang again, definitely be delivered yesterday or today. As plumber is coming at 7am tomorrow decided to ring and double check, sorry can't deliver till tomorrow. Had a brainwave, told them that was fine provided they were prepared to pay for a plumber callback, AND if the bathroom wasn't finished I would have to cancel my carpet laying on Friday and I would require them to pay the cancellation fee. This would also mean the carpet couldn't be laid till January and I would have to therefore cancel delivery of my new furniture on Saturday, which would incur storage fees till it could be delivered that they would also be liable for. The vanity arrives today!!! Don't mess with old ladies!!!! Hate telling porkies but what else do you do. Didn't get as far as throwing in dd and hubby arriving from Germany and being forced to find alternative accommodation if the house wasn't finished.

Love your house mp, my daughters make them every year and the kids love them. Being older it is a race to see how quickly they can smash it up. When my eldest grandson was 16 months dd did one for his second Christmas and she used blue Smarties to make a pool in the backyard. He had never had them before but the blue must have caught his eye as he absolutely pounced on them and couldn't get them into his mouth quick enough. He had blue drool everywhere and then walked over to his father and emptied the contents of his mouth into his hands. We still laugh every time we see a gingerbread house.

Good job roo! I'm hella proud of you! Money talks, baloney walks, right? Hit them in the pocketbook where it hurts and make it snowball !!!

eztia, there isn't anything even similar on a laptop. I'll just keep checking!

@olldbobbi. Don't stress out over it. I am still stuck in a chair with my broken toes elevated. Can't put on a shoe yet. Replying to no comments posts in Other will keep me occupied.

Spent most of the afternoon outside, beautiful day just -2c. Hogie is enjoying the snow no matter what the temperature. He especially likes to bury his head up to his shoulders (like in the picture), licking the snow off his nose like a frosty treat.

Good for you ollroo, don't take no b.s.

@olldcan. I had a Maine Coon cat that used to do that. He also climbed the snowy hill with us and chased after us as our toboggan as we slid down! Happy memories. :)

@olldbobbi. I finished October 2012.

I am off to bed. Here is a wish that you sleep well tonight. :)

Oh I take b.s. - wind it up and throw it right back ............... with interest!!! As you say Bobbi, hit them in the hip pocket and it is amazing what can be achieved. Mind you it is now 3pm and the vanity still hasn't arrived but last time the courier who brought it lived just up the road so I was last on his run.

Love your dog olldcan, gosh -2 have to watch out you don't get sunburnt.

olldroo - What is "service" like where you are? Despite the down economy here, and magazines saying that contractors/tradesmen are anxious for work, and therefore very accommodating (service & price) .. I personally haven't seen that at all! Contractors/tradesmen who had a good work ethic & reasonable prices before, still do .. and the others haven't become any more accommodating to get work! Now with all the Hurricane Sandy-related reconstruction & repairs, it may become more expensive & difficult to get non-storm-related work done!

olldcan - Hogie is adorable! How old is he, and how long have you had him?

roo - Did your vanity make it?

astraea, I agree, I had a guy come out and give me an estimate on refinishing my hardwoods and the price wasn't reasonable and he wasn't giving an inch! Ok, then, you'll need to find another customer!

I haven't had the need for tradies much lately, other than our bathrooms, but we live in an area that is considered an affluent one and where there is constant building and renovation work happening so good tradies are in constant work. Most live in the area too so are obviously doing well. Most of the pushy ones are new Aussies that live out of the area and very slow to learn the Aussie way of doing things. There seem to be a lot of people with money to burn so some builders can really charge and get it but others are happy to do a good realistically priced job. I did find that people were very up front about their workload and how much delay there would be, even turning down work if they had too much on their plate. .

The guy we chose for our bathrooms was really good, we have been overall extremely happy with him and what was particularly good was his standards of cleanliness. When they were jackhammering all the old tiles out he had a really powerful suction fan in the window that drew out every bit of dust. They put drop sheets down everywhere they were walking and at the end of each day vacuumed with a heavy duty commercial cleaner. I haven't had to do a thing.

I had some extra electrical work done when the electricians were here working on each bathroom which they were happy to do for the extra cash while they were here which saved me a callout fee. One even shopped for fittings for me while he was at his supplier and didn't charge any extra and even passed on his discount.

A lot of people seem to have the money for bathrooms and kitchens to go to a specialist place where they design and build (using only the most expensive European fittings and appliances of course) and charge twice what we paid. My guy was really down to earth about things like that, and even offered to go shopping with us to make sure we got all the right fittings to suit our plumbing so we didn't incur any additional expense. He kept stressing that he was an installer and not a designer which I didn't want. I was happy to defer to his years of experience and whenever there was a decision to be made we would discuss it and he would tell me what generally worked the best and generally his way was best although in most cases it was what I wanted anyway..

We get a lot of people door to door wanting gardening work, they annoy me a bit as they won't take no for an answer and try to argue things they think you need to do. They aren't locals and have the idea that we are all wealthy and will pay any price. One time we had a stump we wanted ground out so I asked the guy to give me a price - super special deal just for us $450. BH came straight inside and rang three local guys, one gave an immediate price on the phone of $220, another said $250 and the third came straight down and would do it on the spot for $230. We let him do it and he did a great job.

From the way the tradies that were here spoke it seems the younger generation just don't have a clue, they want everything organised and done for them but then whinge about the cost. DIY is still very in though amongst certain groups. We have a DIY show on TV where a woman just does everything, whizzes through things with power tools, etc. Just as my builder was starting, she had done a segment where she renovated a bathroom in a weekend. It was quite funny as I jokingly asked him why it was going to take him 2 weeks when this bird had done it on a weekend. He said she was the bane of his life with all the shortcuts she took and people couldn't understand why it took him 2 days to tile where she could do it in 2 hours - of course no one ever saw the 20 guys working in the background.

We hear a lot of horror stories of people getting ripped off but in many cases people are their own worst enemies.

Hey, Bobbi, Eztia just knocked you off your perch. That's what happens when you go shopping, teehee.

@Olldroo – Your “stump story” hit a nerve! Hurricane Sandy knocked over & uprooted thousands of large trees in my area! One company had a contract with my town, to remove the trees on town property (along the street easements). So when I saw the supervisor around the corner, I asked if he’d look at my 4 trees down, and give me a price for cutting them up & removing them. He looked at them, and said his office would get back to me with an estimate. In the meantime, there was so much work, we had out-of-area crews around, and my neighbor & I used one to cut up the “easy” trees. So I only had the 2 that uprooted & fell together left, when the first company’s person called a week later, to say the 4 trees would be $3,000. I told her only the 2 uprooted ones were left, and how much were they. She said the supervisor hadn’t broken down the estimate by tree, so he’d have to take another look. When she called back 2 days later, she said the estimate was $3,500! I asked how eliminating 2 of the original 4 trees from the estimate could RAISE the price by $500, and she just made up some excuse that the original estimate must have been too low! I think they were “equalizing” for not having the whole job, thinking I paid very little for the other 2 trees being done separately (those actually cost $1,400).

I’m sure you’ve read a lot of comments on Houzz, about young home buyers wanting everything recently remodeled, even if they don’t want to pay the price for it!

Astraea - that would be pretty normal behaviour after a disaster, we hear stories like that here, and then you hear about others who give up a week of their time to do it all for nothing out of the goodness of their heart.

You would have to wonder what the town people paid for their services. They would have to be accountable for public moneys. Hope questions are asked

What did the trees end up costing you?

Since the trees also fell on my neighbor's gazebo, we were trying to coordinate the work being done. They are away until Christmas, and seem to be in no hurry to do anything. I'm getting a little annoyed!

astraea, I would be incredibly annoyed. You have no way to reach them? Maybe get them to agree to paying their share when they get back so you can get the work done pronto?

My neighbor on the right has so much deferred maintanance inside and outside his house. His chimney is rotting away and I fully expect it to fall on our house anytime. You cannot talk to this man, he hates everything and everyone, so......I went in his kitchen once, there were stacks and stacks of papers and envelopes and such on every surface. I hope his stove isn't gas, but I'm sure it is.

How can people just go off and leave things like that. I wouldn't be able to enjoy myself. Maybe they are not insured???? Were the trees actually on your property - that would make you liable wouldn't it and for the cost of their gazebo.

Bobbi can you go to your City Council about the chimney? Our local Councils here deal with all that sort of thing and can declare buildings unfit and dangerous and force work to be done and take the person to court. Can even throw him out of the house until all work is done, depending on the nature of it.

The neighbors spend most of the winter in FL, so I had to leave a phone message & then write, before they checked messages & called me back. You'd think that everyone away for a long period, would have a relative or trusted friend, who'd check out the property after a major hurricane. When we spoke, I mentioned that high estimate, and said I was getting another from the tree service a landscaper-friend uses. The neighbor said they'd have the tree service their business uses, also give us an estimate. I got my estimate & sent it to them, with the cost of tree removal apportioned to both of us .. never heard back about their tree service's estimate. His attitude was that the longer we wait post-hurricane, the less chance of getting ripped off price-wise. But if the trees aren't cut up at the curb, when the town or FEMA do the collection, we won't be paying for removal .. but if the trees aren't cut up when the town comes thru, we'll also have to pay the high cost for chipping/removal! I need to find out whether the town will handle the stumps, then get after my neighbor again. They take care of their property, but obviously this isn't high on their priority list.

Normally, removal of the portion of trees on my property is out of pocket for me, because they didn't fall on an insured structure, and their insurance would cover the cost of removal & repair on their side. I've heard that the rules are different because of this storm, but insurance adjuster has either never stopped by or talked to me if he did. I don't know about theirs. Have to get on that tomorrow; I realize the insurance companies are busy, but 2 weeks isn't the "couple of days" my insurer told me to expect.

Obviously different rules to here. It is all based on who's property the tree is actually growing on and that person 'owns' the tree and is responsible for removal of it and any damage it does to anyone else's property. Removal of the tree would be at the owner's expense but damage would be covered by the tree owner's insurance irrespective of whether the other property was insured or not. .

I never had a mortgage, but my belief is that in the U.S., (or at least New Jersey), the mortgage lender will insist on the appropriate level of insurance .. to protect THEIR investment. There may also be a difference here, depending on whether a tree/branch comes down in a storm, or the homeowner does something to cause the tree/branch to come down .. and it damages the neighbor's property.

Homeowner's insurance covers liability as well, which covers your tree falling on someone else's property and vice versa. But it's true a tree falling and hurting nothing (just making a big mess to clean up in your yard) might not be covered by anyone's insurance. I just don't know. I've never been in that situation, though I've definitely had one of our own trees fall on our garage in a storm, and both tree removal and rebuilding were covered.

roo, I can, but I won't. We are the new kids on the block and we will be for at least 20 years. If the chimney falls either he or his insurance company will pay, even if we have to get ours involved. His whole house is decaying as are many of my elderly neighbor's houses. I believe in ten years or so the houses will have new owners and it won't be a problem. Provided we make it that long!

astraea! You never had a mortgage??? Lucky you!

We've had so much rain here lately the ground is saturated and more is expected this weekend. Luckily we haven't had the near gale force winds we usually get because everyone has at least one enormous mulberry tree on their property (city owned) and I'm just waiting.......

How fast do magnolia trees grow? We need shade trees in a section of our backyard and I love magnolia trees, but they would have to be at least 10-25' tall to do any good.

Know what you mean Bobbi, but I have been here that long I don't take things from anyone anymore. Old age I guess. Just hope if/when it falls no one is hurt, that is the main issue. The winds could be enough to bring it down too. Usually in cases like that (well certainly here) it is best to have your insurance company look after it all, when they are getting the money back from other companies they are often more particular and look deeper into flow-on damage than the company paying.

What is it with mulberry trees? They seem a strange choice. Of course you could always go into business with the silkworms - spin your own silk - hahaha.

No, I can't do that, they don't like me (long story) but they do like R. But he wouldn't every say anything and they wouldn't listen to him anyway. It's just a waiting game !!!

Bobbi - Magnolia trees S - L - O - W!!! Mine has probably been in 35-40 years now and is pretty much full grown. I have mine in my courtyard so we get the sun in winter when the leaves drop and absolutely beautiful shade in summer. I have my outdoor setting under it and everyone just loves to sit there, it seems to be 10 deg cooler under it. Has a lovely shady canopy too. Check out your local nursery, there might be faster growing versions. Mine unfortunately doesn't have a perfume.

Bobbi - When I first moved out on my own & bought a condo, I found out that the banks charged "points" & all kinds of other fees .. so my aunt offered to lend me the money as a private mortgage. When I bought my first house, we just transferred the mortgage. Since it was only a 15 year mortgage, it was paid off just before I retired at 50. So when I bought my current home, I just took some money from savings, to make up the difference in price between the 2 houses .. no mortgage!

When I bought my condo in 1981, the mortgage rates were at an all-time high of 15 - 16%! And when they dropped later on to 10%, it also didn't cost me anything to "renegotiate" a rate drop for my mortage! If I had to pay someone 15%, at least it was a family member who benefited from it!

Oh my goodness, it's hard these days to remember mortgage rates were ever so high. I do remember paying 9% interest in a fixed rate bank mortgage on our first house, and today even that seems SO out of line.

The other side of the coin was that CDs & bonds paid nice rates too. Now it's kind of pointless to bother with CDs, the rates are so low!