Contributions can be made to the Crudem Foundation that supports Hopital Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart Hospital) in Milot, Haiti. Our hospital was fortunate to sustain only minor damage and no injuries to our personnel. Therefore we are fully operational and are already swamped with the overflow from Port au Prince. Contributions can be made directly on Crudem's website by credit card: CRUDEM Foundation, Inc. I don't know yet which organizations are collecting donations of clothing and personal items, but will post as soon as I do. Thanks to you all for your support and prayers for Haiti - where they are needed now more than ever. Carol

Maybe in Haiti it is different and they will make repairs, but we are told that it is very rare for a garment to be lengthened or mended. We normally just put a 2 inch hem. We try to use generous amounts of fabric in the skirts so they are good for playing because in some countries they don't let the girls wear shorts or pants. We do sometimes put lace and trims, and we use cute fabric sometimes, but mostly we strive to have sturdy, long lasting clothing, that can be washed easily and will last a long time. I make sizes 2-12 shirts but I make them longer than what you buy in the store. Some of those kids are tall and skinny and may wear a small size for a long time, if it is long enough. Mostly they ask us to make short sleeve shirts, but if I have a heavy piece of knit, I make long sleeved shirts and they use them as pajama tops. That is what I am making at the moment and I think I have 6 or 8 more cut out and then I will be back to short sleeve shirts and I have some of them cut out as well. My one friend that I mentioned earlier has never had children so she loves making these little dresses and she does a great job. I have another friend that sews a little, so I make a tee-shirt top for her and she adds a skirt. They like to get that type dress because it just pulls over the head and doesn't have buttons, snaps, or zippers to wear out. I mostly make very simple clothing. I have a picture of some we did year before last that will give you an idea. I did the shirts and two of the dresses and my friend did the ones that look like they have suspenders. These are not the cutest ones we have done. Sometimes I have good fabric to work with and other times I squeeze a size 2 out of a remnant that I may have paid fifty cents for. Sometimes I have a big piece donated that I may get six or more shirts out of. It doesn't matter if they are alike since they go all over the world. At first I bought almost all of the fabric, or already had it, but then as people started to see what we could do with it, they started cleaning out their sewing rooms, or in some cases went to the store and purchased fabric that they liked. One time I found a really good piece of fabric at a Joplin Walmart on the $1 table (not common) and I think I bought 20 yards of it. It was about half a shopping basket full. LOL It has been a fun project, but sometimes I get tired of it and stop for awhile, then something happens somewhere in the world and it gets me going again. The first year I tried to keep track of what I made, but I lost count after 60 dresses. I don't keep records but I would guess that I personally have made 300 garments in the last four years. I could donate money, but I think I can make the same amount of money go a lot further when I sew, and in addition I have all the donated things that I can also use. One day, a lady who quilts brought me all the things that she had bought and decided not to use in quilts. I think we got about 40 skirts out of that donation. My neighbor called me the other day and asked if she could give me some fabric. I think it was 36 yards total and I haven't even started on that yet. It isn't tee-shirt knit and is mostly solid colors, so I will have to come up with something new for it....but I will. I think some is flannel so it will probably become night gowns. A lady that lives in Marietta donated some money to my friend in Blackwell who bought fabric with it and made dresses to bring to me. Now that is covering the State of Oklahoma from one border to the other. We have been amazed at the generousity. Here is a link that might be useful:

As soon as I clicked on the grout color link and saw it led to Jablon, I wondered if you were using the "Jill mix". I'd recommend staying with a lighter grout. The delorean, what a huge mistake. I understand your angst now. I'd go as "white" as standard white grout, stepping down just a tad in grayness to the pearl if you want to avoid the white. The Silverado they recommend is on the dark edge for me. That's as dark as I'd go. My hokey analysis? With that tile I wouldn't want a grout that's darker than the tile. I'd go similar to slightly lighter, and I'd actually lean towards lighter. A darker grout will come to the visual forefront and break the wall into a grid, emphasizing the gazillion individual tiles. A similar to slightly lighter grout will sort of disappear into the background and let the tiles be the focal point, and allow the tiles to blend with one another across the wall. Just my opinion, and that's what this is about...how you personally perceive color, shade, and pattern. Your eye may be different than mine, your end goal may be different than what I'm picturing in my head. But the delorean gray? Ouch!

Thanks to you both for replying! We took the boards down in the smaller room- there was just too many issues. Haven't fully investigated the great room but with your info/suggestions, maybe not all of the boards will need to replaced. Still will take an extreme amount of effort to get the bad mud off the walls/celings to retape- a combination of water, putty knife and sanding will be needed. Am considering renting the Porter Cable vacuum sander but depends on how many boards are left. The good news is that they didn't use nearly enough scews to secure the boards so it's easier to pry them off the studs. You know, Drywall Diy Guy, there were warning signs early on that those guys didn't know what they were doing but we talked ourselves into letting them stay a little longer. I don't think these guys were just untrained and inexperienced, I think this was deliberate bad job- they were scamming us. But thanks to people like you both, who take the time to respond and make drywall videos and forums like this, we will recover and learn a new skill, to boot!