gdp's Comments

Blog Cabin : Weekly Update from Beautiful Coeur d'Alene

Sat, 28 Feb 2015 20:56:29 +0000

Wow, thanks MAOW! Those 3 are all stunning! But Number ONE is off the charts! If Dylan and DIY Team decide to incorporate real wood (cedar?), the grey paint selection for trim outside PLUS STONE, I'll FAINT for JOY!!! B) <3 <3 <3 Kitty

Blog Cabin : Weekly Update from Beautiful Coeur d'Alene

Sat, 28 Feb 2015 20:40:50 +0000

As always, Dylan, You Meet and Exceed Expectations! I'm Sooooooo Glad that DIY found the Talented and Versatile Golden Nugget in Mathews, Virginia, and wowzers ~~ he even had won awards in Passive Solar Design, if I recall Correctly. What has Dylan NOT Done?! GOLDEN, for sure! So Proud for you and DIY! Great Match! Glad too that this home is getting your complete re-design & you're incorporating some Passive Solar features! Loved your interesting updates! two further items/questions below, please: 1.) the bathroom door entry on lowest level, mostly used by Bunkroom and Guestroom seems a bit awkward for entry to those rooms, if this House becomes a longer term home and those are necessary bedrooms/not temporary. Could the entry door be exchanged to between sink and where toilet is, reversing seating position for toilet, but allowing for easier entry/exit for the bedroom users? 2.) could the re please be another bedroom addition, Puleeeeeese??? :) I do see useful space for it. ;) MANY, MANY Thank yous' my Virginia Compatriot! You're the Best! <3 Kitty

Blog Cabin : People's Choice Round Two: Vote for Master Suite Details

Thu, 29 Jan 2015 05:35:12 +0000

I agree with Canada's new regulation~~and with YankeeNuke and Eugenia and appreciate cgn1plu7 too! <3 When we moved 10 years ago to our present home, Hubby & I were caring for my mom, so we knew we needed to build accessibility features for her: ramp outside, Elevette to 2nd floor, small, full kitchen, her private bath, a living/sitting room w/ library entertainment Ctr. Wall. She died 4 years ago but loved her 6 years there, feeling like a queen. I put in features to accommodate her total deafness,wide walkways, EMT-Call cords and emergency push buttons, flashing sensors for Fire (red) & (blue) for Tornado, since she would not hear an alarm~~~that type of thing, and more. I had no idea that so very soon after loosing my Mama, I might begin needing some physical accommodation. Personally, I believe that a steam shower would be awesome in the master shower and in such a case, a glass door wide and also flush with the floor would be soothing to arthritics, back or sciatic damage, and those who suffer physically painful maladies, so I have mentioned this to Dylan. In such case a door would be needed. BUT, otherwise, I like the open plan, could do a variation of that too. My Master Bath is split His & Hers, I have the Spa tub (don't use) Hubby has big walk-in Shower with Rain, and multiple shower heads~~NO DOOR~~but an "L" shaped Glass Block wall which keeps water in, easier to clean, allows light in, and can be installed with roll-in and space for assistance/helper. I know, because, I am finding my own diseased issues are increasing in forms of paralysis, and falls; so at times I need more help than others, and I'm only 63. So thinking ahead is not such a bad thing; one never knows. May God help all of you, that you wont have to face it, but I know what my Friend Frank deals with, and with me, it can become a daily surprise. Good luck to all of you!!! Kitty <3 :)

Blog Cabin : People's Choice Round Two: Vote for Master Suite Details

Thu, 29 Jan 2015 04:50:00 +0000

As always, thank you, Sally! xD<3 Kitty

Blog Cabin : People's Choice Round Two: Vote for Master Suite Details

Thu, 29 Jan 2015 04:43:14 +0000

Oh, Clive, I just loved that house overall~~but what happened to the basement indoor stairs, and the downstairs powder room were SO off the charts.... Then, the Winner, Mrs. Turner, bless her heart, didn't have such a dynamo real estate marketer. My Hubby Gary and I went by there a few times when we were in Maine for our Summers and we followed the advertising, which was not describing the house's features in it's best manner.... It just made me so sad! BUY, the good news is, our HILARIOUS BLOG from THAT YEAR, where we wrote continuous stories is still there! :p B) ;) Some of us nearly popped our tummies from laughing so hard. At least 3 Bloggie co-written stories! ;) Kitty

Blog Cabin : People's Choice Round Two: Vote for Master Suite Details

Fri, 23 Jan 2015 17:59:21 +0000

Dear YNC King, USNR(Ret), Thank You, Thank You, Thank You! I live in USNavy Country, Chesapeake, VA, and cant say enough about the dedication and courage of our Navy and ALL our Military. My Hubby was in the Navy, our Son is in the Army, somewhere, and we can go all the way back to the American Revolution in this Great Land! I have lived, was in fact born overseas of missionary parent; and, we faced communist - leaning government attempting control of Brasil in 1960, But the Military Consensus was a coup was necessary to avert communism. We Americans were caught in the middle, and could have been arrested by the communist. side, quartered 2 blocks up from us. Some Americans have no idea what they truly have here in the States. We sure don't live in a perfect world, and now, we are at risk, everywhere, because of a sect that is brain washed against our lifestyle, we~~however have the BEST Nation to live in and I thank God I live and breathe here. It could have been Siberia for my family of Faith, instead. My Eternal Gratitude to Our Military! Good Luck DAKMBA! <3 Kitty

Blog Cabin : People's Choice Round One: Voting Starts Today!

Wed, 21 Jan 2015 03:08:45 +0000

Lindingo, Hi! You're right on, as is Eugenia! Catherine, and everybody, hang tight. I didn't blog last year, but I have been around for a few years back. I saw and recall well how the uber-talented Project Manager and Architectural Designer, Dylan came on board, ha ving been discovered in Susan, Virginia Blog Cabin; then, brought on due to an uncomfortable PR situation by an outside local that was involved with Waldoboro, Maine, Blog Cabin, through no fault of DIY. Dylan has some very excellent specialties, just Google him! Here's the thing: You ladies have the right point, regardless, we have to be patient. OK. So I recall us bloggies filling in our blank, boring time with some fun. In North Carolina, we relived the pirates, threa_ tened to dig up the gorgeous gardens after scouring them with our metal detectors; practiced grog-making or drinking...in Maine, we had Mary, before our lovely Virginia. Mary seemed to be absent, so we got the idea she had been taken by big squirrels! Well, a Bloggie who lived up the street had reported some were living in her attic! The mind gets rather wild as time wanders by. Our written stories, just got added to and added to... Folks, these got so funny, some of us were busting our sides laughing. I don't know if DIY has kept those old Blogs. They were online for at least a couple years...Hilarious. So, what I'm saying, we can make some fun, trying to relate a bit to something within the project, somehow, but just remember: Hope springs Eternal! I believe Dylan and Team will pull something off, and, if you're like me, you will lie awake towards the end and redecorate every HGTV and DIY Award Home in your head, over and over, where you want or need, and will just be so happy to win~~then make it your own! Think on that!!! :D <3 <3 <3 Kitty

Blog Cabin : People's Choice Round Two: Vote for Master Suite Details

Tue, 20 Jan 2015 21:39:11 +0000

That's the spirit, Coop! I like metal in places, but not on bedside lampshades~~they get too hot~~ouch! :( I like the open glass shower and flat surface entry, for wheel-in/accessible floor~~but I definitely am for the glass, if Dylan & Team will go for the STEAM SHOWER that I have suggested. I can think of how awesome it would be, after skiing or playing otherwise in the snow--I love to Ice skate--wouldn't getting into the healing, enveloping heat of a steam shower be delicious? :D Enjoy the new votes Everyone! Bring on the storage!!! <3 Kitty

Blog Cabin : People's Choice Round One: Voting Starts Today!

Tue, 20 Jan 2015 19:01:47 +0000

Dearest Home_girl, Thank you for writing so sweetly! I am so very sad to hear about your Sister's loss! How very difficult it is to lose someone you love and is so close! My heart goes out to you and family. I highly recommend grandchildren! They can be so special and loving. I think the lessonI've tried hardest to exemplify to mine is unconditional love. This doesn't mean that I don't talk with them about choices they make which aren't good ones. I try to get them to think about consequences, then tell them how I love them, and I'm here for them, no matter what. You shall LOVE being a Grandmom! I have missed you too! Found out I have lots of ancestors lived in Dresden! We need to catch up! <3 :D Love, Kitty

Blog Cabin : People's Choice Round One: Voting Starts Today!

Tue, 20 Jan 2015 18:49:43 +0000

Now, Vicki, I can see you and your big crew in there! liver must be a big little boy by now! :D You're lucky that if you win and need to change or add anything on all that acreage~~like a family compound``you have the builders to do it!!! <3 My family, for the most part is well. Have a housefull living with me, Grandson's family are great help. Greatgrandaughter, Ruthie, 3.5, is loads of fun and loving personality. My eldest daughter just isn't well. And I'm keeping my chin up~~"old grey mare ain't what she used to be!" Good luck to you and enter daily! <3 Kitty

Blog Cabin : People's Choice Round One: Voting Starts Today!

Thu, 15 Jan 2015 23:50:37 +0000

Hello, Vicki, I've missed you too!!! I just finished today's vote. Now you could arrange your big family in there if they don't raise a bunch of extra walls, right? Just a couple of privy ones, I guess. This one is so different, what do you think? I'll be checking in when I can, so sweet of you to welcome me back! Happy New Year to You and Yours! <3 :) Kitty

Blog Cabin : People's Choice Round One: Voting Starts Today!

Sat, 10 Jan 2015 00:33:16 +0000

Hi Dear Sid! How are you and your crew? <3 I've missed you! I really hope that you are well~~Bleh! Some grinch gave a TD for your very kind post welcoming me back! I don't get it!, but I fixed it! Hoping that person can find and receive loving, good and hopeful thoughts for the New Year, to get them smiling and feeling good, so they will spread love and positivity around! I'm certain it will make them feel a lot better too, don't you think, Sid? God Bless Us Everyone! Thanks for your sweet wishes, Sid! Back at ya! <3 B)B) Kitty

Blog Cabin : People's Choice Round One: Voting Starts Today!

Sat, 10 Jan 2015 00:11:54 +0000

All of you above made some good points, thanks! I, personally, am very traditionalist. I can go eclectic and mix styles easily. Though an era of my life, living in Brazil, was extremely modern, I still drag my feet at uber slick lineal contempo design. Since that style is seen so frequently, and attractively, in nice hotels in which I have stayed, I sort of associate it with lodging, well, of the commercial kind. ;) I know that DIY will pull something gorgeous together! Dylan has surely designed differently for us! I don't prefer modern, but with the yard done in a very warm, inviting manner, and the interior magically transformed without industrial cold~~it can be done! Two things I would ask, Dylan, Please: Please try to coordinate w/ Interior Designers to keep things inviting, warm and comfortable~~Modern CAN be this~or not. Please consider a STEAM SHOWER. :D Think of aging population, even if you choose to not install, please leave a place where one can install something such as an ELEVETTE-type elevator. There are 4 levels to this structure. This is a far less costly solution than an elevator, it can be sent up and away from a main floor and brought down on need, has emergency telephone, holds up to 400 lbs passenger weight, including wheelchair and does not require the structural set-up of an elevator. I have one in my home and used it for my Mother & Uncle for whom I was caregiver, for years. At least keep the space in mind, for the winner's future use, and include other accessibility proactivity. I never thought that I, an active athletic person, would suddenly also need such stuff. Folks, Life is full of surprises. Thanks, DIY! <3 Kitty

Blog Cabin : People's Choice Round One: Voting Starts Today!

Fri, 9 Jan 2015 23:13:40 +0000

Check out the interview and VIDEO with Laurie & Dylan, Dylan mentions that he may use the existing metal roof as a wall accent or for some other creative, inside use, because it does need to be removed. This may impact roofing material, but then, we also have the contemporary redesign and the new manner of layering stories, which changes how roofing will be used. This will require new roofing, I think. I agree about metal~~hope Dylan uses it! Love it! <3

Blog Cabin : People's Choice Round One: Voting Starts Today!

Fri, 9 Jan 2015 21:01:34 +0000

Note, also, that the white birch floor is not a solid white. It has light browns streaked through, giving a beautiful texture and ability to synthesize into the other colors and textures which I'm hoping will be used with this luxe contemporary beauty. It won't show dirt hardly at all, oddly, like a white car~~tee-hee! I admit to wafting, but, having grown up in the most MODERN City in the world, as it was being built and designed (in the mapped layout of a Jet airplane) and of my being there personally for inauguration, that's what the world famous architect, Oscar Neimyer, did. The Capital of Brazil, South America, Brasilia, is SO MODERN, these concepts (later 50s-early 60s) used lighter floors, focal walls in rich dark colors and amazing architechtural, comfortable/livable furnishings, along with indoor plants and sculpture. DIY Has given us a BLANK CANVASS~~Hooray!! Bravo again to Dylan (from my Virginia!) <3 <3 <3 Kitty

Blog Cabin : People's Choice Round One: Voting Starts Today!

Fri, 9 Jan 2015 20:37:39 +0000

Dear, Dear Buddy Clive! ;) Gee I have missed you and your always fun and often technical input! Hope all has been well with you! Thank you so much, from the bottom of my <3 for your warm wishes & welcome back, my Friend! May your joys be tops this year ~~ looking forward to watching this work of sculpture in progress ~~ woo-hoo! B)B)^_^ Kitty

Blog Cabin : People's Choice Round One: Voting Starts Today!

Fri, 9 Jan 2015 20:26:15 +0000

Hi Therese! How wonderful of you to welcome me back! You don't know what it means to me, because I just dropped off this side of the earth and have found it very hard to stay in touch with my friends.... Thank you so very much and good luck in this Sweepstakes!!! :D Love <3 Kitty

Blog Cabin : People's Choice Round One: Voting Starts Today!

Thu, 8 Jan 2015 03:16:26 +0000

It's one week into the New Year, and I'm just venturing back to DIY Blog after a humongous hiatus, trying to care for and adjust to our disabled daughter's very difficult life, in our home, not being that well myself.... I have REALLY MISSED MY DIY BLOGGIES!!! :S I have thought of you all of last year and tried to keep up with the lovely FL DIY Blog Cabin Masterpiece~~Isn't it amazing that it wound up in the hands of a local Family? Providential, I say! Well, Folks, I voted today, for the first time! And now this post. My Love and very Best Wishes that Each of Your Families' 2015 will be Blessed with Love, Health, Hope, Joy, and Every Good Gift From Above! Happiness Always, my Friends! <3 Kitty :D

Blog Cabin : Explore the Blog Cabin 2014 Location

Tue, 26 Nov 2013 04:27:09 +0000

That is in ways, a sad story, 2Corgis! Still an amazing family story! All my family ancestry in America is/was based in New England and Virginia. I'm really into Genealogy as a hobby, so yes, research is in my blood. My Great Grandfather I mentioned was from Connecticut and vacationed in Maine in a town neighboring Blog Cabin 2012! i was really into that BC--it's still on the market, according to Bloggie Camac, with whom i still correspond--she lives up the street from that BC. :) I knew lots about Maine, for my roots dig deeply there since the Founding Fathers. I still believe the 2 biggest mistakes (others were of lesser importance) made at that BC were the removal of interior stair access to cellar and removal of 1st floor powder room. Unfortunately, those are key, when you're snowed in for several months at time and need access to home systems and extra pantry supplies--HUGE in Maine. Sad for the BC Winner Thompsons. They just live too far, in KY. Back to family, though; it was kind of interesting about Florida, because nobody really was connected there from my forbears, except for the few years my Dad pastored in the USA, when we were on missionary furlough--otherwise--NADA! Except one thing: my great grandpa happened to be friends with the Founder and owner of the famous Number Nine Plantation at what is now Ormonde Beach, in Volusia County. I knew his family, my grandmother as a young teenager, were very delighted to buy that 176 acre orchard with over 55 types of fruit and 1500 orange, grapefruit, lime, guava and kumquat trees. I don't think that as a businessman, my Great Grandpa knew how to run a world-known orchard, for its delicacies and #9 guava jellies and other goodies made onsite and actually distributed all over, even some foreign countries. I mean Their jellies were sold at the White House and to the Rockefellers' who also had their Summer place a few doors down. My grandmother carved her name initials into a window of the big house that was built with wood parts of the ship that had sunk in front of their land. Now That is RE~PURPOSING!!! Number Nine is so significant Historically , with the big house built atop Timucuan Indian Shell Mounds, so the building had great view of the panorama, within the city of Ormond , as well as the tower built for observation of German U-Boats and Submarines which threatened all up and down the coast. Beach--that I didn't know. No, I think my great gramps probably should have just focused upon his Connecticut home and his New Harbor Maine property's. but having tourist traipsing through the house and manufacture and packaging areas was challenging. #9 stayed with the family only about 3-4 years, then they sold and focused on an antebellum property in Savanna, GA. for family get-aways., but never let go of Maine MidCoast area, returning every year till death one by one. Wouldn't it be fascinating to know what the houses or the pathways and ponds or tide tripping ocean would say about our ancient relatives? There's actually several mentions both in Wikipedia and on Googgle for Number Nine Plantation. I saw many news article, references to #9 Plantation, many of which told in detail, the story of the place which started in the late 1800s. Don't guess people went spas and/or exercised much back then--they had afternoon Teas or Desert gatherings to chat--and stuff themselves with confections made at Number Nine! Just that brief venture my great-grampa thought he's try to make some fortune with, yet sold relatively soon and all we cousins have left is that our NANA got in heap big trouble for scratching her name into the wooden sill (That luscious wood gleaned from the shipwreck in front of their land)~~she grew up to be an artist, so I'm sure she was very neat with her work, but she got quite a few lickings' for her implant. My Cousin Visited the big house which is all that remains now; the present owners were gracious to let her in and she verified--"DORIS CAROLYN HILLERY was here 1909... Nothin' Doin'!" [I belive that's the translation for "Boring" for a teen back at the turn of the century. :) :D^_^<3

Blog Cabin : Explore the Blog Cabin 2014 Location

Sun, 24 Nov 2013 21:43:26 +0000

TwoCorgis, this is so exciting! Can hardly wait to hear whether and where your Family may have lived and owned property in Florida!!! :D My family did also ~~more than once! My dad was a missionary and served as pastor in Sanford, FL, where my big sister was born. Then, of course, we lived in the Church Pastor's Manse, which pastors don't own. Years later, we returned and lived in Deland, where Daddy was pastor of 1st Presbyterian there~~just across from Stetson University. I remember Deland much better than Sanford, but both cities are charming, not too far north and east of Blog Cabin 2014. But here's the real clinker to me, where the link may not be in direct significance to Winter Haven, this is NOT FAR, on the East Coast and is connected to my family too! There is very good info there concerning types of trees and plants that grow well there, and mentions insects and birds too~~these would all be common to Blog Cabin! Here's my back story: The Wikepedia information not only mentions my Great-Grandfather, Martin C (MC) Hillery and the land he purchased, but I discovered HOW GGrandpa Martin found out about it, way up in New Britain, CT, which was his/my family's home base! Never knew this till today! I mean In 1909, how would a New Englander get word about "Number Nine Plantation" at the FL Coast~~Ormond Beach, A Large parcel of real estate and just buy it??? The owner and founder, who sold to him, was known to my Great Grandfather back home! Small World! I saw guavas on the list of fruit~~if you do win the BC 2014 Beauty, be sure and plant GUAVA trees. The fruit is delicious and funny, the way it produces. If you've never seen one, Google guava. The fruit look like big round bumps growing directly out of/ up the bark--not branches. :D :DxD:p http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ormond-By-The-Sea,_F... <3<3;)