Ta da! I'm the 2007 Pal that Jeanne sent the card to, what a delightful surprise. I'll have to look up your town on a map to see where in SC you are Jeanne, my sweetie is opening a new facility in your beautiful state and I may be visiting the area occasionally. I was slammed right up to Christmas this year, so did not get a note to my new Pal - YET! But I'm dropping a little something in the mail to her today as a late December treat to help pamper her after the holidays. Happy New Year y'all! Alicia

Lauren -- thanks much, we are trying to get our DIY/pro mix to "take" in our 6 x 10.5ish room! Agree we may end up with 1 fixed if budget constraints get in the way, but seems like it'd be a shame. 1) Window credit goes to tiler, though we made his job harder by forcing him to design from the full run of 6 x 6 tiles between the window. All cuts relate to that, for better or worse. 2) Yep, leaded glass -- I found/fell in love with the salvage doors years back (not in my house, alas) and basically designed the bathroom around 'em. Fell a little less in love with them after spending hours using progressively more toxic cleaners on the decades of mineral etc deposits before sending them off to the cabinetmaker. And of course after priming and painting (and painting) the cab boxes. But I'm feeling the love return, ha. 3) Oh, glass tile would have been too easy, ha. You know I love my aqua iridescent glass mosaic backsplash, but Mr Vix and I both feel in love with a ceramic liner topped with oyster shell slivers. Luckily the bath is small and our field tile was rock bottom in price, sigh. HEY MARISA -- No need to worry about being lonely while all others finish -- we just went to install our sink and the GC's plumber didn't seem to take our vanity shelf configuration into account, so we'll probably have to call (another!) pro for help. No running water for meeeeeeee though it's nice to have it out of the den (though its mirror needs to join it!):

Thanks for sharing this house. I liked it all except for the loft bedroom for the parents. To me that is just not doable. I lived in a small apartment when we were first married. I had a number of parties with large groups of people. Yes, it might have been a bit crowded, but it worked! Talking about small, my daughter just bought a co op that is 300 square feet. (Listed as this, but I really think it is smaller.) It is now gutted and we are helping her figure out how to get storage and closet space. When looking at an apartment this small, you think in terms of inches rather than feet. My husband actually found some usable space (a small cubby) that goes from my DD's apartment out to under the hallway stairs. Not sure what we can do with this little space, but we are defintely going to use it.

The photo above is a Grohe, which I do like. I would like to find more options, however. I think we're going with an Americast tub vs. cast iron. The Kohler villager seemed to be narrow at the front end, IIRC. I shower and never bathe, so heat retention performance isn't important to me.