love to everyone! gotta go! over and out!

Love to you too honey!

Bye, MP :)

michele, her name was emily. last name maybe sailor or salter i think? that may not even be close on the last name. i just meant the horse and the connection with him was magic and special. he was a TB registered as CJs castaway so i just called him cass.

Sorry Mo, I think you're talking to MP, I'm Michele :)
But I do like the name Cass for that horse.

What's this "Sweepstakes" people have been posting about?

I'm getting irritated with folks posting statements, not posing questions. "My (bathroom - kitchen - house - other) is (outdated - boring - bad - tiny - other) I need help"

How could anyone expect a helpful response without more info?

@Robin: Here's a link: https://www.houzz.com/photos/lowes-ideas-phbr0lbl-bl~l_39250

Ah... makes a world of sense why there's so many obscure useless laundry & bath threads popping up lately.

Yep. But nowhere does it say "post a dilemma and tell us what you would do if you won..."

My place stinks, wish I had a designer
Um, yeah, and that means........ WHAT?
What the heck do they want?

Did someone actually post that?

Those types of dilemmas were all over today! I hate my bathroom; my bathroom needs upgrading, etc. etc. etc. !

Not quite the stinks part, but it was very similar. My place is ugly, old, disgusting. They are all looking for mind readers and fairy godmothers!! Craziness :)

Why did they put that shape in there at all? And the texture? What is the light colored part and will it be covered in tile?

I wanted to post some pics of my garden but now that I'm determined to do it, my phone absolutely won't cooperate. It took me numerous tries to get the single photo attached and then I couldn't get the screen to cooperate and allow me to enlarge the size enough that I could hit the submit button. I'm now rebooting my phone...maybe that will help. Possibly it is something to do with how long it takes my phone to get through all the postings in this thread...I don't know!

Anyway here's a photo of my front yard between the sidewalk and the street. I was going to post a few more but not until I get this crazy phone sorted

Bobbi - Hmmmmm

I think you could probably run three rows of your tile up the vertical portion of your basin. It looks to me like your tiles are small enough to lay reasonably flat against the existing surface. Along the sides, line them up with the floor until you get to the corner, say maybe 2 rows out. Then, just let the tiles sit flat against the backing with the next tile far enough away that you can still grout between them. You'll have to play with that dimension a bit to see how wide your lines need to be. The grout lines will be wider at the top because it looks like the wall slopes outward in the corners. Just stick your tile up there as best as you can, clean the joint out before your mortar hardens and then grout it all in...it will look really odd until you grout it, but grout hides a multitude of sins.

Of course, it won't meet your ideal standards...that's how these projects go. You will be the only person who has a problem with it...trust me! There's no such thing as a perfect tile job because there's no such thing as a perfect surface to work on

That chocolate delight at the top of the page has been taunting me ALL. DAY.
Just sayin'.

Well, I'll try this useless sleeping thing again. And I'll be up until 12:30 anyway. And then awake at 2:00, and then up at 4:30 or 5:00 for good. I hope some people can thrive on 4-5 hours of sleep, because that's what I'm getting, lol. Hmmm...
Night night peeps! :)

Hmmmmm, not good Michele

Michele, your guess is as good as mine! I have no idea why that's there, but it gives you an idea of the wonkiness of this house. The light colored part is subway tile the flipper installed. And for sleep, I wake up every hour or two also, power surges do it to me. Rarely do I sleep more than 4-5 hours/night.

Linda, that's exactly what I thought too. The tiles are 1/2" so I can cut the mesh and fan the tiles out to allow for the curve. I guess that's what I'll have to do but I really don't want to. I hope you're right and the grout will cover my sins!

Thanks everyone for your help and for not laughing at this! Or at least not laughing out loud! Everyone have a good night, I'm deleting that horrible pic now before STK sees it!

Have you tried white noise Michele?

Speaking of noise.... Robin.... maybe you know how to deal with this. I went and bought a bag of Roxul, as an experiment to see if it makes a difference in my great room for noise coming through the party wall (if so, then I'll find a permanent solution).

Anyhow... my thinking was that I'd use the leftover batts from my experiment to insulate the utility room (it's next to the spare bedroom and the furnace/water softener, etc. is noisy). However..... they framed down there at 20" on center... which means that the batts are too narrow for the cavities.... which are 17.25"

Roxul comes in:
Wood studs:
15.25” (width) x 47” (length) x 3" (this is what I have)
23” (width) x 47” (length) x 3"

or for Steel Stud:
16.25" (width) x 48" (length) x 3"
24" (width) x 48" (length) x 3"

So whaddya do? Cut a million pieces to the correct width and install them horizontally? Buy larger batts and trim them lengthwise to fit? Seems like a waste of a lot of insulation.

Solution? Anyone?

I don't have too much experience with insulation... But I'll find out.

Argh!!! It's raining again. What are the odds the basement will stay relatively dry?

Thanks, Robin. Will do, Eztia.

It's been thundering a lot down here, but not a lot of rain. It seems to be skirting around me.

round two now starting stay tuned for the next episode of smart phone vs not so smart user

Round two went somewhat better than round one...maybe I'm learning...probably more to do with rebooting the router and the phone.

First picture is a double daylily. Second picture is looking north, so opposite end of that section from the picture posted above and third picture shows the really wild jungle section

That's great, eztia! Glad they were able to take it away and make use of it, helps you out a lot!

Linda -- beautiful flowers! I've never seen a double daylily before either, it's stunning!

Went to Walmart, need I say more?

So I am sitting here, looking around at the new layout of this room, and suddenly it occurs to me.... where am I going to put the Christmas tree?

Love your gardens Linda!!

EZ - I'm in the northwest suburban area of Chicago. I have about 10 different kinds of daylilies in total but most are the ordinary Stella d'Oro because they multiply so well. I also have "ditch lily" daylilies in the back of my house but they don't bloom because they don't get enough sun.

Isn't that double daylily an interesting flower? I have no idea where I got the plant...just can't remember.

Kimdee - you and Bobbi make me giggle with your Christmas tree dilemmas.

Ez - so glad they were able to help!

Nice Linda, nice. Jayme-I can just imagine. Just finish a study group, about to go to bed. Night all, check in tomorrow. Kimdee- don't start with Christmas, Bobbi do not need any help

I met one of my neighbors tonight while she was walking her dog and I was cussing out my phone. After I took those pics, I was sitting in one of the three outdoor chairs alongside my driveway when this lady spoke to me. She said she's never seen anyone sitting in those chairs. She was asking me if we used the chairs because she really liked them and wondered if I was interested in selling. I said sorry but I actually do use the chairs.

I paid $10 each for those chairs probably three maybe four years ago from ReStore and put a coat of paint on them. They are oak and their first owner hadn't taken care of them so they looked absolutely awful when I got them--the wood was gray and cracking in spots. Now, I need to put another coat of paint on them as I noticed that they're flaking. I can't complain though, it's lasted quite a while and I didn't do a superb prep job the first time I painted.

It's a lot more fun to sit in the front yard and chat with the neighbors than hide in the back.

Well you know, I wouldn't be concerned about the tree except... last year I replace the old tree with a new, taller one because the ceilings are so high in this house that the old one looked more like a shrub... I guess I will figure it out. Around about December 15th or so.

Yes Kimdee, I give you permission to wait until December....

Ok. I'm headed to bed. I've got an exhaustion headache going on. Ran home from work, cleaned up in my moms yard then played slo-pitch for almost 2 hours. I'm done.

Talk to you all in the a.m.

Nite Robin. I'm heading there shortly myself. Hope your headache is gone in the morning.

I have an artificial tree, yes. I'd love a real one, but it's too much hassle for me, by myself.

EZ - my house isn't as big as it looks...it's 3 bedrooms with 1 1/2 baths... We're in one of the less ritzy suburbs so lovely old homes are affordable in this area.

It's a beautifully designed house and sits on a double lot. The original owner of this house was a widower who hired a nanny to look after the children after his wife died when the children were quite young (childbirth perhaps?). Eventually, he married the nanny and they built my house and the eldest daughter and her husband built the house next door. The story I heard was that the daughter's house was a wedding present but I don't know whether that is actually true. The husband died about 10 years after building this house and his widow lived in the house for another 35 years or so.

The daughter and her husband had a three bedroom house on a much smaller scale and they had four sons. One of the boys lived with Grandma so he could get his own room and he and his grandmother went over to eat with the rest of the family every night.

Sir Dave, good to see you !

Glad to hear that work is picking up for you Ironwood! You must be feeling moderately better if you're working 7 days a week!

DAVID, hi, it's great to hear from you. glad you're feeling well enough to work. yes, things seem to be picking up all over. are you tracking your lead sources?

yay!!! hey dave!!!! you get my "macGyvered" letter I sent? LOL! Thought I had an envelope in my purse and when I got to the post office, I had nothing and neither did they in the machine. So I had to get creative!

Hi David!!! Yay on all the leads...they will get a good one if they get U!!
xoxo