First of all, thanks for sharing this post. Your ideas on how to get and use landscape design help are very enlightening and I think could help a lot of folks on the forum. Most of us can't afford a landscaper to do all the work, but finding ways to collaborate is sometimes difficult. Some landscapers want to do everything from start to finish because that's the way their business is set up. But there are alternatives and we have discussed them on this forum before. The only other thing I might add to this discussion is what's the road like? The reason I ask this is my best friend lives on a busy road, and she put a berm in front of her house out by the road, and planted it with trees and shrubs. Then she has a fence along the driveway with a gate leading into the front garden. She has a patio out there and when you sit out there you'd swear you were in the most out-of-the-way secluded spot, even though it is right along a major commuting route. The berm worked wonders to screen out noise, and the landscaping makes it all feel very intimate. Of course I could be way off base, maybe this is not an issue for you.

You have enough chips & Soda? Don't forget the brownies... No brownies as the range was already in the dining room. They brought some pop and a few goodies, and I also had chips and pretzels and dip, and hard candy, and leftovers to heat for lunch. I think a good time was had by all. The girls had no problem being entertained by TV (I have satellite and they don't), the computer, some hand held games, and we even played a couple of board games. Initially I was pretty stressed by 2 loud radios, the loud TV, and a loud saw. I was surprised that I soon settled down and the stress left. Did you argue yet over grout color? No. He and I went to buy all of the material yesterday and picked out and up the grout too. We kind of had it narrowed down to a few colors and I asked the clerk in the Tile Dept what he suggested. He gave 2 different options, and my tile man and I chose one of them. Surprisingly, no biggie. I told my tiler (Mike) yesterday that I just wanted simple tile, no borders or anything busy. Today he asked me if I wanted them all in rows, or if I wanted them staggered in the rows, or maybe even wanted a diamond pattern. Sheesh...I was frantic about making the right decision, as I was sure there was a way that was more right than the other ways. He dry laid out samples of all ways. I took pics and planned to post them on line for opinions. I then called a good friend, that I trust making decisions like that, and she said that for my house, it would be best to go with straight. Thank goodness I didn't have to decide for myself. Whew...what a day. I still have to rip the carpet out of a hall and a bathroom tonight. I'd best get busy.

You don't say whether your FP washer is a TL or FL. In my opinion and experience, having to buy ANY washer & dryer these days is a dilemma in itself. If you buy some Top Loaders you can have some control over the water level; otherwise, forget that with any and all Front Loaders. My Speed Queen FL (cost $1800) is built like a tank and works like a charm except for the water level (13.4 gal split between washing and rinsing!???). San Diego Steve will tell you that is plenty and he has even posted that he sold that model and bought the newer one which uses even less total water per wash cycle (11.xx gal I think). He and I are in complete disagreement on how 4 gal of water can rinse a set of King size sheets that remain in a wad. So FL vs TL is the first hurdle. I'm not sure how much water a SQ TL uses, but that would be my first question. My FL spins like crazy. I would have bought an FP but they are not sold anywhere in the Dallas, TX area. Maytag used to make a Centennial model which my daughter in law has and it has a deep rinse which fills the tub, but might no longer be made. Sorry not to have any more helpful information. The Chinese factor would scare me off as well with the FP. Good luck and please post your final decision with the outcome. It will be up to date and may help others.

Lavender Lass, I can't exactly speak to the cost/effort of having a garden tub pulled out ... but we did just pull out the tub in our girls' hall bath, and we replaced it with a walk-in shower (equal in size to the old, standard tub). Details: - They removed the old glass doors, tub surround, and plumbing fixtures. We talked briefly about doing the demolition ourselves -- my husband said jokingly, "I can destroy things", but we didn't follow through with that idea. We decided to pay. - They cut the old tub in half (so they could get it out) and threw it out in the yard. They told me that someone would probably steal it and haul it away for scrap, but that didn't happen -- at least I THINK the garbage men took it away. - The flooring underneath was good, but they installed a new concrete shower pan w/ a slope, then nice tile and all new plumbing fixtures and new pipes behind the new tile. They used a standard 3-4" "step over barrier" into the tub. - Finally, they finished it off with a new shower-sized glass door. I couldn't be happier with the results, and my girls like it -- they haven't used the tub since they were small children, and if they "get a hankering", we still have a tub in our bathroom. Total cost: About $2600 ... plus another $150 for tile. We plan to sell this house in another year or so, so I wanted to stay basic and inexpensive on the tile. Our walls are 12x12 in a simple varigated tan, and our floor is a 2x2 mosaic of tan shades -- inoffensive, appealing to buyers, coordinates with the tan tile floor we already had. The shower floor, though smaller than the wall area, made up over half the tile cost -- smaller tiles add up fast! You could easily spend $$$$$$ on tile without even trying. Choosing the larger tiles and a mosaic on mesh saved us money ... because our guys were able to install it faster. Total time: 2 full days They're coming back in early summer to do the same thing to the walk-in shower in my bathroom. If they make this into a slightly smaller version of my girls' shower, I'll be thrilled. I'll do one small thing differently: I'm going to have them install TWO niches (or one larger niche) for more in-shower storage; in retrospect, I wish I'd done that in my girls' bathroom.