Ironwood, a lot of the professionals on houzz post a lengthy string of responses to photo questions rather than design dilemmas. I suspect that is why he has the #1 spot...for now.

thomas, sounds like you have great life! I understand completely what you are saying about riding a bike and seeing things that you normally would not. That's why I love to walk. Don't do it too much these days, but need to get my butt back in gear. When walking, which is even slower than biking, you REALLY see some things! Whenever I discovered something on the ground or a sight, I would say to myself, "I would never have seen that, if I were in a car." It's almost like a secret world when you get so accustomed to riding in the car. You miss so much! But even in a car sometimes, I will pull over on the side of the road and get out and take a pic. And when you ARE the driver you miss so much. I love being a passenger so I can see things that I wouldn't be able to otherwise. I love architecture as well. I can't wait to build a house from scratch one day! I'm an artist, but pretty handy as well. A big DIYer!

Ironman, what restaurant did you work in, in SF? I lived in oakland and sf for a total of about 13 years. SF has the best food and restaurants. There are SO many, so they have to be great! and they are! anything you want, from fancy schmancy to a hole in the wall! I miss that crazy city by the bay!

In SF, I was a sous chef at Stars for Jeremiah Tower. Goes back about 30 years...Ran the Casablanca restaurant in Santa Cruz for 4 years too. From Stars moved on to an American/California Cuisine restaurant in Paris...being an illegal alien sucks...then on to run a couple of places in NYC..finished up at Arcadia for Anne Rosenzweig...she nearly did me in! 80-90 hour weeks, in at 6:30AM out at midnight..damn. Made being a carpenter a cruise..40 hour weeks, time to play with the kids that kept popping out.

STK, you came from a different place but we have ended up with the sam mid set...old houses and craftsmanship are the important things...

I read in the Wall Street Journal this AM, Zillow has a new site called Zillow digs. I's similar to Houzz but gives a price breakdown for reno projects. Right now, the Zillow site needs a lot of improvement, but might be good in time & give Houzz competition: http://www.zillow.com/digs/

ez, the bathroom is looking great girl! you did a wonderful job!!!!

ez, on the way back from my daughter's house a couple of weeks ago i drive through this small town, very cute town. a new library was built right outside of town, but the landowner (i guess?) or the city, left the remains of an old building next to it. I'm sure it's something historical. All that remains are the columns and some of the foundation. It is awesome and I always want to take pics there. Well, it was a very cloudy day driving back home and I made myself stop this time. Took some cool shots. I'll try and find it onthe internet. not sure if it will be there, but I have always loved it. At work now, so don't have my photos on here.

bobbi, it does. That's fiberglass batts and it's probably R30. As long is there are no big gaps you should be good. Did he get to check the a/c return to see if the duct was hooked to it or leaking where it connects?

Oh.. and yes, I am feeling MUCH better today, thank you! I slept better last night than I have in a month and feel almost back to normal today!

yay creesy! i was going to say...open your windows and doors today and let some fresh air pull all the germy air out! It's great weather we are having right now, eh?

Oh menders, it's just beautiful! I have my windows open and have been sitting outside in the sunshine reading. I have a class tonight and I want to get some rest so I don't nod off..*L* We're supposed to be rainy and cool tomorrow, so I'll worry about finishing up my laundry and other things then. Today is to be enjoyed! Btw.. adore your shoes! That's the kind of stuff I wear! My cousin is just like me and we're always finding unique tennies and sending pictures to rub in our little treasure find.

btw...ladies...this is just for the ladies, sorry guys.
only 9 more days til we win our dreamhouse vacation spot... ;)
i haven't stopped...entering everyday as promised!

Creeser, where is the a/c duct return and what does it look like? Is it in the attic? Oh Lordy! The opening to the crawl space is about 20 feet up, why do they do that?

Before I forget AGAIN on Feb 21 HGTV is having a Sarah 101 mini marathon, if you want to record.

ez, what did you decide to do with your bathroom vanity? Did you paint it?

Roo, I absolutely love your new bathroom, it is beautiful. So light and fresh and timeless. I love that the floor tiles are carried through to the shower area. It's about 6 years since we did ours and couldn't carry the tiles through, because it was upstairs and on a wooden floor, so we had to find the shallowest possible shower tray.

busylady, our master bathroom is so small I call it the Jimmy Carter bathroom (his family was peanut farmers). We plan to retile the shower tray with pennies! Someday, anyway, it keeps getting bumped out for other projects. [houzz=]

David, I think we are pretty much of the same mind..........my grandfather taught me as a youth one simple truth, "if you can't afford to do it right the first time, you certainly can't afford to do it twice..... and that anything I did was going to be associated with my name until it either was blown away by some tornado or torn down by some D9 so I better make sure it was something I wanted my name attached to...." I think that's why I quit the GC work after my partner decided to move back to Boston for his kids to go to college..... I just got tired of dealing with subs who just didn't give a damn about the quality or the integrity of their work and business practices. I was tired of being a baby sitter. The majority of new construction now days, I just have to shake my head when I walk through it.........

Bobbi.... where is the air handler? Find it , and you'll find the return air plenum which will lead you to the return air duct..........don't you just love those high ceiling. Believe me that's better than those 18" -20" crawl spaces where they've run the duct lines......especially when it's in rattlesnake country.

S. Thomas, two questions - first, what is an air handler? And second, what does the S stand for? I hope it's Samuel, I love that name, very Amish.

bob, i can't wait to see your penny floor...i love that idea.
i once covered an entire bowling ball with pennies as a garden ground ornament! it was a pain but looked pretty coolio!

Bobbi, hope you are collecting lots of pennies! I imagine that laying the pennies will be harder than it looks......do you put them in straight rows or random and how do you keep the spacing the same throughout?

busylady, for the pennies, there's some kind of a 12 x 12 adhesive sheet that you attach them to. I need to do more research. I think I remember there are 290 pennies per square foot, but everytime we get ready to do it something else pops up! Therefore, I have no plans to do the research until we are READY!!!

MP, a bowling ball??? That's so cool! How did you get the pennies to stay on???

ez, antique gold and golden oak look great together. I can't wait to see the whole bathroom when it's completely done, and I think you can't wait either! hehehe

my all time favorite adhesive...5 minute epoxy! i swear to you, that stuff is the best! don't glue with it unless you want it to last forever!

bobbi, share more about the Sarah program, please. Is she on at all on HGTV or are all the programs reruns?

Today was a work day for me. I spent a couple of hours at the tile store and wound up with some things I hope my clients will like for their master bath. They are on a budget, but these new porcelains are amazing. You can really come up with different things at a pretty good price.

Then, I had to work on the kitchen backsplash. Walls are BM Vale Mist, the Costa Rosa I mentioned to you before and the cabs and trim BM Acadia white. One board is like the penny rounds, but oval. The material is marble with subtle tones of green and cream. The other piece I chose was glass subway tile and it installs almost the Acadia white.

Then off to the wallpaper store for another client. Success there. Then the search for a raspberry fabric for dining chairs and I found one I liked from Duralee. In that room, I am just going to do a nice white drape, lined, on the black Pottery Barn rod.

My question…should I just leave the drapes unadorned or should I search for some trim? The rug is a raspberry pink/white/sea star blue Kerman, the chairs the raspberry/white geometric, drapes white.

chair fabric is like this:

Hey, bobbi started the group. I came up with the name OLLD and she had us up and running in seconds. I think bobbi and I had just "met" and when we would run into each other in discussions we would pick on each other. That's how that began.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/grey-and-dsvw-vd~221960
For our new "guys", here is the link to the birth of OLLD. Feeny and creeser jumped right in and Dy, you were there, too.. Then we just accumulated this wonderful bunch and now we are the OLLD family.

judyg, sorry i can't give an opinion on that one...i'm stumped. i would probably do plain white, but i'm scared sometimes.

judy, you have all the Sarah info I have! I have her friended on fb, her and Tommy Smythe, so that's how I got the little bit of info, sorry!

Well, anything Sarah does gets me to the t v. I have kinda given up on HGTV. Tired of the whining and complaining. I mean, how much does a can of paint cost? You get more ideas and answers here on houzz.

ez, great job. olldj, thanks for that link to zillow. STK, where in Boston did your partner move?

mp, you, scared? We hadn't noticed :>)

astraea, we are in line for a huge storm on Friday. You? Get your eggs and bread for the French toast.

Oh, reminds me, I have to find a recipe for you for a breakfast quiche.

I see, back to the root of this OLLD family :)

I am only now getting to catch up on close to 90 notifications on Houzz today!!

I am happy to report that none of my toes were fractured .. just “bone bruises”. So I’ve got to keep it taped when I can, and take something like Advil or Aleve for the pain. I’m so glad he didn’t say that the one toe was healing crooked or something!

Bobbi – You don’t even want to know what happened with that reception! They changed the venue .. and I never got notified! I drove to the initial location in Iselin/Woodbridge, only to be told it was relocated .. they didn't know where. No phone numbers with me to call; turned around & went home .. 80 mile drive for nothing! I heard the reception was terrific .. at the Hyatt Regency in New Brunswick; I’m not surprised! They must have had a huge crowd.

I think he headed from the reception to Dave Letterman’s show.

wow astraea...i am so sorry to hear that about the reception. that totally sucks. watched him on DL and he was a hoot. glad your toes are not broken! yay on that at least!

judyg...i am scared and shy and timid...didn't you know that about me? ;)
and yes, FRENCH TOAST for everyone up north! that's an order!

it was gorgeous here today, but the rain will be moving in and the colder temps as well. no snow though, so i guess that means that i can't have french toast..lol

Astraea, that's awful! But, hey, Woodbridge is where I used to go shopping BEFORE they built the big shopping center there. It was just Main St., little shops and restaurants. When you're a teen, who cares? Glad your toes aren't broken. If you don't have any tape, use MP's answer to everything - 5 minute epoxy! Just kidding.

judy, I've given up on HGTV channel and website, too much crap. I have the DVR set to record anything Sarah so I can skim thru the billions of commercials.

Ok, if you do your own taxes.....DON'T USE TURBO TAX!!! It's not free as advertised. Just finished my friends taxes, got to the end, and "how do you want to pay your $19.95"? Huh? What part of free is $19.95? So I had to chat with someone named Prabhu (why do I think he's not in France?) and he gave me a code but the whole thing took FOREVER and they just file 1040EZ. After every entry they make you go back and check everything. Geez.

ok. are you ready for this? and i would appreciate any feedback or opinions or thoughts...the piece of interesting metal that i found, and used for the base of our homemade birdbath is most likely a very expensive piece of 60's platner furniture. Should I deconstruct birdbath and save base, or live with the very expensive birdbath that we thought we were building out of trash?

[houzz=]

Holy Moley - what you guys get up to while I peacefully sleep. THREE roosters in the henhouse!!!! Welcome aboard guys and no more smart remarks about my extra building males, Bobbi!!!

Astraea - you only had 90 emails - I had 130!!! Glad to hear you have no broken bones, that must be a relief for you although sometimes what seem like lesser injuries take longer to heal.

Thanks for the link to the beginning of OLLD. What a hoot that was - you certainly took over that poor poster's thread. Surprised though they didn't join us. The best part about reading that though is that nothing has changed.

Thanks for the compliments on the ensuite, my hat still fits fortunately, but the warm fuzzies you give me feel great.

Mendi - love your patchwork sneakers!!! I wouldn't be able to wear them with my damned feet, not enough support.

Dave - the only reason anyone gets to the top of the poster board these days is because we have all retired from the competition.

Bobbi - that discussion on simple updates for kitchens - I was going to comment "a chef" but thought I would leave it to you but you missed. I wondered why we had no further update on the penny floor - still a work in planning obviously - 290 pennies a sq foot sounds a hell of a lot, how big are your pennies?? By the way too what happened about R's speeding run in.

Ez - your bathroom is coming up a treat. I love the muted colours in the shower curtain, it looks very classy with the tiles. Is your print just a canvas on a frame? With my bathroom one, because it is so light, I just used two strips of velcro at the top of each side, it is sitting nice and flush with the wall and it is working fine. Easy to remove the whole lot without any damage if I want to change it at a later date.

Judy, that chair fabric is beautiful. Is there blue in the rug you mentioned? As far as the curtains go, is the room formal, what type of lounge is she having, what type of fabric are you using in the curtains? How would you plan on trimming them? The reason I ask is that if she was having a lounge similar to the photo, and you are using a heavy fabric, then yes I think a trim would add to the formalness (is that a word?) of the room. If it is more modern then I think plain would be fine. Personally, I would love a nice fresh spring green with that pink - but I do spring green with everything, I'm nuts for that colour.

roo, I was just nosing around the discussions….I don't know anyone! Who are these people? :>) The nerve of them commenting on dilemmas which we could solve. Now that we are not on "THE LIST", we are chopped liver. Off to put in my two cents on something.

mp, there just was a wonderful table on My Habit or Joss and Main that had your base with a circular stone top. A little too high for a coffee table for most, but I would have purchased it, if I had a space to use it. Love the birds to have a wonderful bath, but bring it in. Wow

@ MP this link might help U tell if it is a reproduction? If not a reproduction, sell it or keep it (the birds will never know). http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/good-questions-1377-84625

What is happening to us when there are 145 comments on "sheer or striped drapes"????? Good. Grief. https://www.houzz.com/discussions/color-of-drapes-stripes-or-not-sheer-or-not-dsvw-vd~327389

Houzz is a little behind in sending email notifications.....like 12 hours or so!

thank you so much everyone......the link was very helpful too! J is going outside now! I can't stand the suspense. It is from the right time frame for it to be an original, but we'll see. I found this in a deserted garage next door to us. he just brought it in. i think it's the real mccoy! sorry birds! they will have to have a new base. well it was cool while it lasted, but cooler in the living room!

Bobbi I got one that was 38 hours old the other day.

I just went through that thread you posted, this is what annoys me so much at times, the woman just asked about curtains and ended up with a total room overhaul. I just think it is rude for people to suddenly come in with buy this, add that, move something else. She chose so many lovely curtains herself I was surprised it didn't fall into place for her. Hard to decide on a colour when you are scrolling backwards and forwards all the time too.

What is with hanging curtains all or part of the way to the ceiling? I notice everyone seems to say it has to be done to make the room look larger but if you only have one small window how can that be?? As well to me it could also be a problem where you screw the brackets, curtains aren't exactly light, so you would need to find a stud and they may not be where you want your curtains. The majority of our modern homes here have 8ft ceilings, period homes would have higher but the windows go higher anyway so we keep our curtains to the architraves. It is quite strange the little quirks in different countries.

Ez, funnily enough, I picked that up from Houzz one time, a guy had hung a whole lot of little things on a kitchen pantry door so I asked him how they stayed there and he had used velcro. I have some I use in sewing but the one BH got for me from the hardware shop has a strip in it that you pull out when you want to remove it and it just falls off the wall. Didn't look too closely, but that was the principle of it.

Well, touch wood, I have finished painting the bathroom walls!!! Just hope they dry out ok.

Roosters, you may be able to help me out here. I'm not very happy with the finish of one of the walls, they are all new but there is a band running right across one wall to a height of about 5" above the tiles that is really rough. BH sanded as much as he could, to the point I was worried he would run out of wall, but once I got the paint on it looks even worse. The worst thing is it is under the window and above the bath, so it is right in the line of sight when you walk in the room.

Have attached a close up photo to give you a bit of an idea. I don't think it is deep enough to fill but, there are 4 coats of paint on it plus undercoat and it just doesn't get any better. The wall is called Villaboard - a waterproof fibro type stuff without the asbestos. God know what the gyprocker did to it, looks like he took to it with a hammer in places. Would they be able to skim some plaster on it to even it out or will that then leave a line or maybe fall off in time as it would only need a thin skin.

I'm wondering whether to get the builder back or not or whether to just look at ways of 'hiding' it. I have some cute terracotta fish, shells and starfish - might see if I can arrange them over part of it to break it up so it isn't as obvious.

OK, the photo didn't atttach - try again

MP, off the wall thought with your birdbath/planter furniture... how about turning it into a lamp? The wires would make an interesting pattern with the light shining through.

Roo – Thanks for the well wishes about my toes; I’m going for a pedicure Thursday, so I’ll have to tell the gal to just go easy on that foot. She’s already lived thru my losing a nail on the other foot, from getting hit!

Your comment about posters going hot-wild with redecorating, when someone posts a small dilemma, seems very common. I would think it would confuse or turn the original poster off. Reminds me of an aunt who’d change one thing in the house, then use that as justification to redecorate the whole place!

I GOT A "REQUEST TO JOIN" OUR GROUP ON AARP .. BUT THE SCREEN NAME ISN'T FAMILIAR. HAS ANYONE HERE MADE A REQUEST IN THE LAST DAY OR SO, OR SEEN SOMEONE ELSE MENTION THAT THEY WERE GOING TO? I'LL POST THAT IN 2/7 ALSO.

Not me, astraea, and I haven't heard anyone mention it either, sorry!

Creeser! Cool idea for MP! How are you feeling?

bobbi, much, much better, thank you! I lost 10lbs in 3 days and after getting my fluids built back up, I'm going to try to use that as a starting point to loosing more. Gotta make lemonade out of lemons, right? *L* Bought lots of fresh veggies yesterday to get started.

Good job although I don't recommend it! Lots of fresh fruits and veggies are always a great idea, even when you're not sick. One time I was craving orange juice, I drank gallons and gallons of it and then came down with a cold. Probably would have been worse if I hadn't built up the Vitamin C ahead of time.

I would love to find a cookbook dedicated to fresh vegy's, one that doesn't list cheese or other fattening ingredients. Just vegy's with herbs and seasonings, does that make sense??

Good luck with your diet! Go Creeser! Go Creeser!

Creeser, don't get excited, whenever I get sick I can drop 5kg in one day, but the minute I get back on my feet and eat a couple of normal meals it all goes back on again. Just catching up with your hydration is enough. Good luck with it though, I hope you do have some success, even if it is just healthier eating, that alone can make you feel better.

Bobbi, I did pick up an old Weight Watchers' Cookbook one time for 50c, that had vegetarian recipes in but mostly I avoid cookbooks now, they just have too much in them that I never eat. Watch out in magazines for cooking pullouts, sometimes you can get great recipes that way. Remember those salad recipes I posted one time, I got them from a magazine called Diabetic Living that is an Aussie publication of course but maybe there is an American version, our mag always has great recipes in it, although I don't often buy it, I just keep the general idea of the recipe in my head and of course they would be very good meals for you.

Here is a link to a site I use a lot for recipes and you can just type in what you want and save. This is what I use for my homepage, so I think it saves on their website not on my computer. Try Google, you will probably find heaps of other sites.

http://food.ninemsn.com.au/

roo, you are so right about the weight. I fully expected to see I had gained weight despite dehydration. I'm sure I'll be right back where I was by the end of the weekend despite my efforts. We have a sweetheart banquet at our church this weekend. It's a fundraiser the teens put on to raise money for their annual ski trip/retreat. The food is always very good and after that, my good intentions will be history. *L*
bobbi, thanks for the encouragement!

Roo, there's a Diabetic Living website, I'm pretty sure, I'll check there and also your link, thanks! I love most vegy's but R not so much. He's probably full from eating his grapes.

Creeser, you're welcome! I know you'll do well!

Bobbi, I love veges, but I mostly love them raw and I have totally gone off the meat and 3 steamed veges on a plate, I like cooking to be more creative, but I'm not really into the stir fries that BH lives on. God knows what he puts in half of them, I think he uses every spice there is and the house absolutely stinks.

Off to bed again - way too late. Chat in the morning.