I'm just another major mosquito magnet, so I'm constantly looking for ways to avoid getting bitten. Ironically, they don't even land on my husband. After Bite is ammonia with a bit of oil added to help keep the skin from getting dry. I refill my After Bite stick with fresh ammonia when it runs out. When I can't find the stick, I just splash on some ammonia. I have learned to make my own repellant from a mix of herbal essential oils, a base oil, some water, and some Vodka to help it to dry quickly. I'm happy to say it works very well and it has a very pleasant herbal fragrance. Avon's Skin-So-Soft lotion is great too, especially against the no-seeums I encountered in Florida. I can't get refills for the repellant lantern that was on the market for a couple of years. That was great, I used to just carry it around the garden to keep the bugs away. It had a small fan inside that pushed the repellant smell about 15 feet in all directions. It kept my open porch free of mosquitos even after dark. But another company has come out with a lantern that uses an insert in the top, instead of the liquid the first one used. It is probably very effective too, but since my porch is now screened in I don't need one. I really don't like using the canned sprays at home, but at camp it is a very different story. We camp on a river, the bugs are ferocious. That's when I go for the deep woods formula! Forget about the "it's a bad year because of all the rain etc." story, because if mosquitoes like you, EVERY year is a bad year. Try your local health food stores for some herbal repellants, and always have some ammonia at home and After Bite in your purse or pocket. Mary

Good for you Susanka! If you don't love it, use it or it brings you happiness ... let it go! Holding onto stuff out of guilt is no good. I keep telling my mother this too. She has so many items that were my grandmother's or great-grandmother's. She doesn't use them and they take up valuable real-estate in her china cabinet. I think she's finally ready ... this winter we are going to work on purging and organizing together (fun mother/daughter project). Just for your future information. There is a company in the US called Replacements. If you send them a photo of your item they will try and track down the pattern info for you. They also buy items. They helped me with my Great-grandmother's silver plate (which I'll admit is in the original chest tucked away in my guest closet). I don't even like the pattern so it will be going this winter. I am learning to live with less. We really don't need so much stuff. Good luck! Here is a link that might be useful: Replacements

I think you really need to look at the costs associated with moving walls and the kitchen and bath to get an office and curved stairs. The easiest and cheapest solution is to put your office in either bedroom and leave the floor plan the same. Take the money and time you save to update the kitchen and bath fixtures if needed but You still have not shown us what you are starting with except the stairs. Please post pictures of your current space! I think this is a waste of time and money unless you've found that money tree I've heard of. Good luck though. We really DO need more info from you to give you better solutions.

Maybe that's the way you tell old money from new money? Very much so. From Vanity Fair in 1995, the year after she died, Even if Jackie had a limited amount of money to spend when she moved to New York in 1964, New Yorkers more accustomed to lavish displays of freshly milled chintz and newly quarried marble didn't understand her classic American style, which values comfort and continuity over the whims of fashion. They seem disconcerted that she never traded up: her library carpet was threadbare, the fabric on the dining room walls (originally bought for a dollar a yard on Orchard Street on New York's Lower East Side) faded, and her kitchen, in the words of one friend, "deplorable." They find it peculiar that she engaged a succession of decorators over the years—notably Albert Hadley, the late Harrison Cultra, the late Vincent Fourcade, Georgina Fairholme, Mark Hampton, and Richard Keith Langham—but the look never changed. (The last refurbishing was done, eerily, in the bedroom where she was to die. Only months before she became ill, Langham replaced the bed hangings with Scalamandre glazed cotton in "Tuileries," a lavender and salmon pattern of undulating vines and small flowers. Says Langham, "It's almost as if she knew what was going to happen.") One friend with an expert eye recalls that one of the few important pieces of furniture in the apartment was a subtly painted Louis XV table with a marble top, on loan from Bunny Mellon. The rest was French and Italian decorative painted furniture, souvenirs from Jackie's travels (an obsidian sphinx said to have been given by Anwar Sadat, Greek worry beads of blue glass), stacks of books, her collection of drawings of animals dating from the 17th century onward, and overstuffed sofas and chairs. A drawing table where she painted was set up in the living room. ... Those with refined sensibilities found it admirable that Jackie seemed to have remained immune to the decor mania of the late 70s and 80s and that she preferred to spend her time working as a book editor, riding, and playing with her grandchildren, rather than pondering species of fringe or the intricacies of upholstery with a decorator. They see in it a reflection of the uppercrust values of another era (benign neglect) and a reflection, as well, of her private self, as opposed to the immaculate public image. "Her tastes were very French," says art critic and lecturer Rosamond Bernier, who adds, "I think of a warm place, with a fire burning." "It was," says designer Carolina Herrera, "an apartment of someone who comes from an old family. Not a showplace full of marble like the homes of all these new people. It was her taste."