Well, good thing it's growing season, right? How long do you plan on staying in this place? Ask the landlord if you can take the cost off the rent if you plant grass...go with bermudagrass. It grows fast, fast, FAST, and since you won't be buying this place, you don't have to worry about it. It's going to eventually come up anyway. It's indestructible. Bad part is, it dies down in the winter, but it still holds the sand in place while it's doing it. Just want to tell you though, that if you live in FL, you are going to have weeds and sand..it's just the way it is. The sand comes in from everywhere. It doesn't matter how much grass you have, sand will blow into your house at some point. They say dust is made from dead skin cells. With all the elderly people here, I guess that explains why there is so much. (no offense, I'm contributing to that dust too!)

Beck, I think the fridge wall looks fine and you can hide the soffit or not as you please, no matter what you do on the other wall. In fact, I think the whole thing will look fine. I like your small cabinets up on the range wall. If you can really make them line up with the bottom of the soffit, it seems to me that the best thing to do is to do false doors on the soffit, especially if you can take it out over the sink. If the cabinets have visible frames, put them on too, so that it really looks like the same top level cabinets. You could also just paint the soffits to match the cabinets. I wouldn't do the angle/window wall soffit in wall color, because that will emphasize the step down. Either way, you could do something different on the fridge wall pretty easily. I'm a fan of clean lines, so I don't want to gunk it up, but another thing you could do is an angled lattice that matches the beading on the stiles and rails, on the soffits. Or hang a light sculpture. Or clad them with stainless to match the appliances. I mean, there are all kinds of things you could do, but the best way to carry your design all the way around, I think, is to run the cupboards up. I have a weird soffit with pipes in my current laundry and pantry. It's just going to get enclosed in the new cupboards and go away. :)

Hi, I'm new here. I've been looking online for ways to cope with living with a very sloppy person. It seems nearly impossible to change a slob. I found one site about living with a sloppy partner. I have read such sad accounts, couples that marry (I guess totally unaware of how the other really keeps house), and end up divorcing. I notice that mostly, the tidy, organized person, the one who prefer to live in a sanitary and orderly house, ends up having to change, ends up having to relax their standards, ends up having to back down, and having to live in silent frustration. It seems so unfair, how slobs are able to have/take such control. They dictate how things are going to be, how things going to look, smell, etc. Slobs don't see a need to change how they are, all they have to do is drive the clean person crazy. My daughter and her child and I share a rental since she split up with her bf. Every day I wake up and cringe, dreading what the day will hold. It starts with my daughter never waking to my gd crying and screaming. I have to go in her room to wake her and I dread it because I just know I'm going to have an out of body experience. The smell of her room hits me as I open the door. This sets me off. She doesn't bother to flush her toilet. She lived in poverty with her bf for several years and developed some really bad habits, like half the time they didn't have tp, so she doesn't always bother to use it. Her floor always has junk thrown about, clothes all over, clean mixed with dirty, who know which is which, dirty silverware and drinking glasses she has repeatedly been asked not to take to her room, pop cans spilled or half full and just waiting to be spilled by her child. A big stinky mess, squalor. And there she is snoring away, none of this bothering her, not even a bit. Sigh She makes a mess in every other room, has to be reminded to clean up after herself, or she won't do it. Her cleaning up after herself barely qualifies as cleaning. She works full-time and goes to school, so she is busy, but she uses this as an excuse every time we get into it over her piggish ways. We get into some big screaming matches, and I'm always the loser. Nothing ever changes. She might go to her room and make an angry attempt at straightening out, but not really cleaning, slamming things and yelling so I hear her. I feel like I'm living with a child, not a young adult. I'm having to parent her, and should not have to. I'm near retirement age with my many joint pains, it was a struggle to keep up with my own chores when I lived alone. and now I feel like I work nonstop and get nowhere. I'm sad and angry over all of this, and when depression sets in, it really affects how I feel and what I'm able to do. None of this filth bothers her. Her brand new car, the new car smell has been replaced with the smell of rotting food. She is so gross. I sometimes lose my mind, especially when the smell from her room makes it's way downstairs. I have simply lost it and have started cleaning her room while she's at work, because I just can't take it anymore. I have found dirty diapers tossed in the cabinet under the sink, pads with dried blood thrown on the floor by the toilet, scum with hair, dried toothpaste and makeup on every inch of her sink. I can't understand how someone can live comfortably in such an unsanitary environment. Disgusting. Thanks for reading my long vent about what I'm living with. Thank you for your comments.

I know cats far better than dogs, but when our aged dog still walked this earth (or jetted over it on flatulent days) I fed him plain meats and commercial tinned food only. The comemrcial dry foods, including the grain-free varieties, were too high in carbs which seemed the culprit in his gusty days as he rarely pooted on all wet food. He was almost 100 pounds of adorable, stupid, gaseous, barking, clownish love, so the wet diet wasn't cheap. Supplementing all the tinned food with meats helped reduce expense greatly. Once the vet determines that nothing is physiologically wrong, maybe a change in diet may help right him again. And I give the cats plain, Greek-style yoghurt a few times each week. Not any of the market brands, they're full of unhelpful junk that can impede the purpose, but pure milk and cultures (and nothing else) yoghurt keeps their tummies in good order. Or you can buy cultures to add to your pooty pup's food.