the painter finished today. he spraypainted the primer, so i was a little worried for the last couple of days, but then he rolled the next 2 coats. today he finished up and i walked around and i was very pleased. he did a good job. he was cheaper than the other painters so i was a little concerned about what corners he might be cutting. now i think he made good decisions on what to cut. there were painters ready to charge 2x what he charged, and i know they'd have done more and produced a better result, but i don't think it would've been worth it, especially considering where i am budget-wise. for example the previous owner got paint on some of the door molding, which i think looks bad; some expensive painters were going to sand that down past the polyurethane and then re-polyurethane it. no doubt without the smudges the house would look better. but i could just replace the molding myself with the several thousands that i saved. so i consider that a good decision.

next week the hardwood refinisher is coming. i think when he's done the house will really look great.

i was driving around and i found corbo furniture, they specialize in unfinished solid wood. i've been planning to redo my kitchen in ikea, but corbo has solid wood cabinets (finished) for about 2x ikea's price. like many others here, i prefer ikea to hd and loew's because of the style, functionality and hardware... but to my mind, this is the only real competitor to ikea. i've been telling my friends about ikea's 25y warantee... but these guys have a 100y warantee!

the funny thing is that ikea makes their stuff look so perfectly organized and idyllic that i'm still leaning towards ikea. my head says that solid vs particle is worth more than 2x, but all those beautiful pictures in the ikea catalog are soooo persuasive! and this solid wood place doesn't have a shiny planner tool so i can't even see what i'm going to be getting...