Polly, enjoyed your story about your adorable 7 year old. That will be a memory you can cherish forever! I must admit I too thought the "she" who went to the show was your daughter, but it didn't diminish my enjoyment of your story. And when posters questioned the lack of a permission slip to go on a trip, I didn't pay too much attention. But then...OMG, the attacks. Totally out of line. Asking for clarification is okay, attacking the OP is not. I will admit I'm more of a general idea person, and as someone pointed out, decorators are more detail oriented. I got the general idea: this was a cherished moment with your daughter and you were amazed at her intellect, which you should be. (BTW, I think you have a creative, high level thinker on your hands, so make sure you are stashing the cash for her college education!) I just don't get the need to attack you because of the way you constructed the sentence containing the pronoun "she". Yes, detailed oriented folks find that irritating, but I just wish posters would have responded in the spirit in which the thread was begun. When you wrote it, you knew what you meant, and were not spending hours editing it for perfection. Most of us would have written it the same way you did. Polly, give your daughter a hug for me, and tell her that someone out there in cyberworld thinks she is a great kid now and has a fantastic future ahead of her. You must be so proud of her!

Ladyvixen, we were in our 30's in 1985 when we bought our 1898 house. Looking back, we were very young. Neither my husband nor I had any skills or knowledge at all about how to work on houses. All we knew was that our house was nearly intact, was very inexpensive, and that we loved it. I had always wanted an old house, and had been buying things such as light fixtures, hardware, etc., for years before we bought the house. We bought the house "as is". Fortunately we were both employed and had no children. We had to hire almost everything done, and it needed a lot of work. We did not take a vacation for years. Then came a time of around a year or two that my husband was either unemployed or underemployed. During that time, the house just didn't get worked on. We didn't care that we lived in an unfinished house; in fact, I thought it was beautiful from day one. We have a corner in the dining room where all the little balls the cats play with end up, but you don't notice the slope otherwise. It has taken us over 25 years, and we are almost finished, but still have some work to do. We should have it finished by now, but are in our 60's now and do like to take a vacation now and then. Also we sometimes didn't have work done even when we had the money, because we were tired of the mess of having things torn up. We lived with a practically non-existent kitchen until about 2004. I said all along that this house was my dream house. People would look at me funny, but it was and still is my dream house. Don't let others talk you out of your dream. Make the decision based on what you want and what you think you can handle. If you think you can live with an unfinished house for years, go for it. If you have to have everything finished and perfect, you shouldn't buy an old house. I have the ablility to not even see the unfinished stuff until we get ready to do something about it. I meant this to be an encouragement to you, but reading back on it, maybe this will scare you because it has taken us so long. Don't let that scare you--you can do it faster than we did! I will try to attach some pictures if I can.

Yes, hence "pied a terre". But even for that purpose it is too small. LOL, Chispa, who knew cockatoos need baby sitters? Last year at a charity auction, we bought a weekend at a 3br apt with a rooftop terrace on the UWS. We found out too late (upon arrival) that it included several cats and ... chinchillas. Chinchillas are nocturnal. And they use these things that are like large hamster wheels. And they squeak. Oh and I'm allergic to cats. It's a good thing it was all for charity. We didn't even try to sleep there and ended up booking several rooms at the Ritz Carlton all the way down in Battery Park City. We never said a word, not wanting to offend the owners/donors (who were out of town). So then we had to taxi back and forth to feed the animals all weekend ...

I almost never post anything negative about a company unless it’s something egregious. Well, I had an absolutely awful experience with Semihandmade and strongly encourage anyone to stay away from them. We had ordered cabinet doors in a specific color. After delivery, we scheduled kitchen installers to come and install our kitchen. When they arrived, they noticed that one of the main pieces was sent in the wrong color. I contacted Semihandmade and they stated they would not start the process to manufacture the piece in the correct color until they received pictures verifying they sent us the wrong color. I explained, that due to an extenuating circumstance (even told the person what that circumstance was) I wouldn’t be able to go to the house for a number of days but to please start the process. Despite knowing this, they refused to even start the process of making the piece in the correct color. That one single piece took something close to 5 weeks +/- to make and ship out to us. My husband and I incurred a pretty significant loss due to our renovation coming to a halt, expenses, etc. The main thing that disappointed us is their unwillingness to budge with their policy despite being informed of the life-changing extenuating circumstance. I wish I never knew about Semihandmade. It’s an awful company