Places my stuff has ended up: +My home (backsplash, furniture, mirrors, flower pots) +Gifts for family, friends and teachers (picture frames, flower pots, mirrors, wedding cakes) +Exchanges (violin and uni-ball) I have committed some items to my little boy's private school silent auction, and my mosaic lady friends keep bugging me to bring some stuff over to two local gift boutiques that sell artful objects and vintage fare (okay, those are the names of the stores, lol!) on commission. We'll see. I'm sure after their commission, a mosaic artist would be lucky to break even on materials and labor.

I'd put the kitchen in the yellow square and use the "den" as a dining room. 15'x18' is big enough to have an island or peninsula in the kitchen oopen to the front living room for your kids to hang out. You can keep the built ins (are you sure that wasn't an original dining room?) and the kids can still play games and do homework at a dining table; just move the sofas to the playroom. the kitchen you are planning seems greatly disproportionate to the size of your house. If you have a front living room, a playroom by the kids bedrooms and a study near the master bedroom your proposed plan leaves you with too much space dedicated to lounging and not enough for cooking/eating. For reference, my house is 1200 square feet 3 bed 2 bath and IMO has nice proportions. The kitchen is approximately 12.5' X 7.5' and a dead end with no thru traffic patterns. When you have a chance, please post a drawing with the dimensions of walls, doorways and windows in the area of the yellow square as well as the area between the garage door and the hallway entrance. We can get you a much better plan.

Disclaimer - We are the contractors in this story who saved the day, testified in court, and established a great relationship with the homeowner. An educated consumer is our best customer. On GC's and subs- 1- Give me a good price on this job and I'll shovel you tons of work. This is an old tactic used by GC's to drive the cost down / raise profits. After the first job the sub is fired and quickly replaced. Subs who haven't been burned by this before, or are hungry, are young, or didn't know this happened to them are easy prey to this scam. If the sub stays on and wants to get paid his full amount, he is quickly replaced. 2- My subs have been with me a long time. What is a long time? Months or years? Did you speak to the sub himself? 3- Most GC's have bare general knowledge about what their subs do. They don't have the specific knowledge of the trades. If you have specific concerns about waterproofing, it's best to ask the sub directly before the job starts. Having done your homework on John Bridge, or Fine Homebuilding will help you immensely. 4- GC's are salesmen who add 25% to 35% to what the sub is charging to make their living. IMHO most GC's view subs as commodities not skilled craftsmen and are not willing to pay a skilled craftsman the rates they deserve. The best craftspeople I know around the world are all self employed and don't work for GC's. Most work aside the GC, directly for the HO. On the rare chance I do work under a GC, the HO is actively involved in the process and has usually brought us in specifically. 5- GC's prefer to price items by the square foot or some easy (brainless) method. I find this a great disservice to the HO. If I am tiling the floor of a car dealership (wide open space) the price per sf will be lower than a dentist's office (tiny rooms and hallways) IN these instances a per sf price would be useless. Then we get into prep work, access to the jobsite, working conditions, and a myriad of variables unique to each jobsite. Is there a gate that needs to be kept closed all the time? Limited hours we can be on the site? Is the building heated and cooled? There is no way a flat rate of $/sf is useful when it comes to certain trades. 6- GC's are not inclined to pay for prepwork. They pay for finished product. While we all want the finished product to be gorgeous, prep work is critical. Certainly in a shower, waterproofing is what you are really buying. Tile is just the pretty surface. This is why so many showers fail. I've actually had a GC say to me - "I don't pay you for prep work, I pay you to install tile" Prep work usually drives up the cost of a job considerably. Customers sometimes don't want to hear this or think we are adding to the scope of work unnecessarily. We don't work for such folks. 7- Why don't contractors just tell HO's they are busy and will have to wait? When a potential customer calls, asking when they want the work completed is my first or second question. This comes with a lot of risk, mainly losing the job all together. My 40 years experience has taught me that most HO's call contractors when the HO is ready to start the project and is eager to get things rolling. Telling a HO they will have to wait a few months in the first phone call is usually the kiss of death. My thought is - Would you want to hire a contractor who isn't busy? Granted there are job delays and cancellations, but a good businessman knows how to keep his schedule full and workers busy. It takes some sales skill (and empathy) to save that first phone call from going down in flames and losing the opportunity to educate a customer on the process of hiring a qualified contractor. 8- Not so news flash - Not all great contractors are great businessmen. Makes sense once you think about it though. The manufacturers have reps to show us their products, there are trade schools and unions, but teaching a contractor how to run his business is woefully lacking. Being a craftsman in any trade doesn't make you a good businessperson or a good salesperson. Some good contractors become subs as to have the business side of their job taken care of by the GC who feeds them a steady stream of work and a reliable paycheck. Pounding the pavement, making sales, maintaining a website, and giving estimates all take effort, skill, and time not everyone has. 9- Not so news flash #2 - Not all great salesmen are great contractors. This is the hard part for the average HO to sort out. A slick talking young man in a pressed shirt can have all the right sounding answers. So what's a HO to do? Start by asking; Who will be coming into my home? Will they have seen the jobsite in person or pictures before they knock on my door? Or are they just given my address that morning? Ask what products will be used and why. Talk to the manufacturer's reps for those products. It's a good sign when the rep knows your contractor. It's a good sign when the rep backs up what your contractor claims. Ask the Rep about any installation tricks/hazards to watch for. Every manufacturer has YouTube videos giving detailed instructions which MUST be followed. An educated consumer is our best customer. 10- Not so news flash #3 - There are good people on YouTube and then..... there is the rest of the crowd. As mentioned above, the John Bridge Forum and Sal Diblasi's videos are spot on. So are the videos made by the product manufacturer or a trade association. A HO will have a hard time discerning the good from the bad YouTube videos without trade knowledge or a trained ear which is why I recommend the manufacturer's videos and talking with their reps. The reps get paid for this, its their job. When you find a good contractor who provides excellent service the best compliment is to recommend them, give a good Google / Angie's List / Yelp review. This will also help other HO's in their search. I could go on for pages, but y'all are probably bored by now. If you have specific questions, I'd be happy to answer.

So out of curiousity, Jsk ... have you taken the same, more or less vacation since your company switched to no limits? I've actually taken more this year (1st year with new policy). A lot more. And I had 6 weeks before the new policy! The new policy came at the perfect time for me. My son graduated college in June. With that big bill done, we can finally start taking real vacations. And taking real vacations we are! I always used all my vacation because like you, it was use it or lose it, but other than Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks, it was usually one or two days at a time because due to other financial obligations we didn't travel much. Now it's more like 2 weeks at a time. I keep track in my own spreadsheet of my days off and I took a look at the number recently and I was kinda shocked. Well, they did say unlimited! I will have been with this company 40 years next month. While my co-workers and my boss joke about how much time I've been taking, they also tell me I deserve it. And then when I get back beg me not to go away again! ETA: re: that HERE it's the companies that are the worst to work for who are offering it as a benefit. I work for an enormous multi-national company. While there are definitely cons (bureaucracy) to that, the benefits of this company are really excellent. I started working out of college for a very small (I was the 4th person hired) company. We've been bought over and over and now part of this gigantic corporation, so I've seen it all!