Good morning Colby, Your base thickness sounds appropriate for your climate ( this is what we use and we are also located in N. CA.) I'd go closer to the 3" rather than the 2" for the 3/4" crushed gravel. If you have access to 3/4" class II base rock that would be preferable to straight gravel. Class II base has some fines mixed into the gravel that aids in binding the base together when it is compacted. Additional recommendations , : compact the soil below your sub base. Especially if it is highly organic. Loamy soil to clay like soil is made up of decomposing matter that continues to decompose as it ages. This is one example of why dry lay patios eventually become uneven and sink , it is one of the reasons why the topsoil layer is commonly removed when laying a patio. I support the filter fabric method between the compacted gravel base and the sand layer, especially if you use straight gravel which even when it is compacted still has minimal air gaps for the sand to filtrate downwards. 1x6 plastic border will warp out of shape very quickly once a downward and sideward load is pushed against it. You will need to either augment the 1x6 with additional shear or additional equal loading pressure or use a more appropriate size thickness to support the pressure. Some methods may include digging a perimeter concrete footing - sort of like a curb that is located below and under the edge of the flagstone. Or beefing up the edging to a 2x material or countering the side pressing load by edging the edging with rock or cobbles or some other stable + grounded methods.

My MIL hired Patio Pools in Tucson last February to remodel their existing pool, then decided to sell the home to us. She paid half of the $18,000 up front. We then were the ones to deal with them during the renovation. Old plaster was to be removed and replaced with pebble tec, steps flared, cool decking repaired and refinished and a new sand filter installed. Work was to be started at the middle of April, lasting six to eight weeks. They started on time - removing the old plaster - but we didn't see them again for weeks. After a few phone calls asking about the status someone would come by and work for an hour or so and then leave, really not doing much. We tried to be patient but were getting annoyed. One day when one of the tecs stopped by I casually made the comment that they must be really swamped. His response was that no, actually this was their slow time of the year because people here don't want their pools down during hot weather... We started calling about once a week trying to find out what was going on and were always transfered to the project manager's voice mail. He never responded, so I finally called asking who his supervisor was. The office gal got flustered and magically, he called me! There was always an excuse. So and so was on vacation, the project manager was the only one with enough experience to do the electrical work, and on and on. One day a tec came out lugging the new filter - Yay! I was busy, so stayed out of the way. After he left I walked out to take a look. What?! Our spa filter was missing, the new pool filter was in it's place and our old pool filter was still there. I made a quick call and they came right back out looking pretty embarrassed and reconfigured things. That fellow told me that the pool was ready to be finished, Wonderful, we thought - Our son's birthday was in June so it'd be ready for his party! We planned the party for a bunch of 14 year olds and a barbecue. Had to cancel it though. After call on top of call with no response they finally sent out a crew to do the pebble tec in AUGUST. That morning, unbeknownst to me, Patio Pools called my MIL and made sure to get the final payment... I noticed that the truck wasn't one of the Patio Pools ones we had gotten used to and the foreman told me that I had gotten lucky because the Patio Pools guys do a lousy job. I have no clue if that's true. As they were packing up to leave I noticed a big wooden box lined with plastic, full of water and the remnants of the pebble tec in our back yard..The foreman said that Patio Pools would remove it the next day when they came to acid wash. We also found pebble tec on our concrete patio, cool decking, block wall, hand rails, patio furniture and trash dumpster in the alley. The pool acid wash fellows came and just shook their heads at the mess. The next day the start-up fellow came. The plumbing and filter leaked in several places and I was told that no, the pebble tec crew was supposed to have removed the big wooden box and cleaned up. It took three visits by Patio Pools to fix all of the leaks, with the project manager finally coming out to fix it himself while telling me what idiots his employees were. He said that we needed our start-up chemicals but didn't have enough on the truck but would be back the next day. We never saw him again, so my husband did the start up chemicals himself. Meanwhile he sent a crew out to power wash the pebble tec off of everything. When they were done I walked out to take a look... Turned out that they power washed a good portion of our old patio, removing the top layer of concrete and where they had cleaned the cool decking it was hazed and chipped. Again I called and they sent out a crew to redo the decking. By that point we were sooo glad to be done with Patio Pools that we scrubbed the pebble off of the rails ourselves and painted our block wall. And just think...This was only a renovation! If a six to eight week job ended up taking four months I can't imagine having a new pool done by them. As a side note -- Close to the end of the project we walked into their 22nd St. store to order a new diving board. Though they weren't busy at all, no one would give us the time of day. We finally ended up walking out and going to Leslie's. Service there has been great.

I have given my nieces their initial every year for a dozen years and can't always find vintage. etsy. You will always be able to find vintage initials on etsy. I agree with Chispa. It depends on the item and if I really want it (perfect for my space, could use in more than one place in the home, functional as well as pretty). Ok, I have to take back the functional part since I tend to mostly buy vintage/antique accessories just because. The things I have probably over paid for, but was happy to overpay, were things I had seen (online or in magazines), searched for (online and locally), and finally found (locally, traveling or online) - at a price I felt comfortable paying.. and didn't think was over the top. They had to be in good shape (not falling apart or damaged). A case of RH vs Antique. They have os de mouton wing chairs, on sale for $1185-1580. (regular $1395-1860). I had been searching for a pair of antique os de mounton arm chairs. Decent shape. Didn't care if they needed recovering since I would rather. I finally found a set of four, and luckily the shop owner was willing to divide. I purchased a pair, found the perfect fabric at bargain price (reg $27 a yard, and I got 4 yards for $27) yet it cost me $700 to recover both (included removing the back which was red leather, so they had to redo the webbing). Total for the pair, I spent about the same as one RH chair regular price. I'd much rather have an antique or vintage piece. I can justify the recovering expense since I will never recover them again. Getting the fabric at a bargain helped offset the cost of the chairs and recovering (at least in my mind). The chairs turned out great, they bring me joy every time I see them and they are comfortable to sit in. Even the cats enjoy them. I don't live in a "no touch" zone. So while I may not want to pay $900 for stone finials (value thing, like Chispa), I don't mind paying $900 for something else. Here is a link that might be useful: my os de mouton chair saga

I would like to thank everyone who took the time to read through these posts and to post advice and suggestions and constructive criticism. I am taking all of it into consideration and some of it was not what i wanted nor expected to hear, but what I needed to hear. I feel as if a little more explanation is needed. We found a builder that we really like and everyone that he has built for has been really happy. He had several plans that we could look at or if we had any plans he could build whatever we liked. He has a gentleman that could draw and customize a home for us. We thought it was architect at first and the price was so good because we were going through him and he would then be able to have our house plan to use in the future. Upon our first meeting with the gentleman that was going to draw up of dream home so we could make it a reality, we learned that he was not an architect, or designer. He's retired now from 40 years of experience woking on/building homes and is good with the software. He is very kind and has been very patient with the many changes we have made along the way. However, we soon discovered that he really has no design ideas or suggestions. He just draws whatever we ask him to or whatever I draw to send to him. If we wanted something a changed, the standard procedure was to just make part of the house bigger, we had gotten up to almost 4400 square feet! If we didn't like the way something worked and asked for a change, he would fix that issue and cause 2 more. I got so frustrated that we are trying to build our dream home and pretty much the only person I had for design help was myself. Uhm, I really want someone with much more skill and talented and better taste to design my home. I know what I want, I just do't know how to get there. We have been working on this for 8 months. I got so frustrated that I gave up for 3 months. Our neighbors are using the same builder and they had difficulties getting their design as well. However they had found a floor plan that they liked and just had him make changes to it and add a mother in law plan. I firmly believe that we are his first truly start from scratch home. Again, this is the guy the builder sent us to to have plans drawn, not our builder. Giving him credit he has taking my very very basic sketches and turned them into something the builder can build from, but pretty much the design is about 99% me, not that I wanted it that way. Here is where I'm at, so you can see that he is doing all the builder type stuff. We don't want to be difficult, but we want a good design. We don't want the builder to think that we are difficult or indecisive because we just can't get there with his guy. I'm at a loss! Several people wanted to know the lot dimensions. So here they are: It is at the top of a ridge, has some slope to it and has a nice open are in the middle. Of course we want the house to sit about at the arrows part of the lot. There is an utility easement of 20 feet on the right side of the lot, but the utility poles are more like 30 feet inside the property. I really do appreciate all of your insight. It has been eye opening. I'll make another post addressing questions and comments. Sorry to be so long winded.