I loved this post. It’s not schadenfreude, I swear, rather, it removes some of the pressure I feel to make the RIGHT choice the first time. We are in escrow on a home, possibly our forever home?!, and I feel tremendous pressure to choose the perfect counter/fixtures/pulls and I’m so afraid of making a mistake that sometimes it takes the fun out of it. (Add to this that I don’t have an eye for this–we’ll be trying to hire you soon.) It’s nice to see that even people who have a great eye and are good at design will sometimes make decisions, and spend money, that they later regret. And it’s okay. Life goes on. I think my brain must imagine a catastrophe if I spend money and then don’t like it in 2 years… So thank you, thank you for reminding me that we don’t need to get it 100% right all of the time in order to have a very beautiful home.

Ugh! I hear you about trying to colour match across brands. I have NEVER had it done 100% right. I’ve given up at this point. We are just tackling our first major reno… I am curious to see which products live up to their reputation and which don’t. Thanks for sharing yours. Happy weekend, Dana!

I have a kitchen faucet with a side sprayer mounted where your soap dispenser is located. I’m just wondering if that could be added to your faucet. If not, I have noticed that faucets with a side sprayer are much less expensive than comparable models with a pull-out sprayer in the main faucet.

Does this mean you are planning on repainting Mabrey’s room? I thought you loved that color?! Was confused to see the pic of her room up there. It’s one of my favorite rooms in your house. :/

We have a garbage disposal button on our sink where the soap bottle used to be. It is wonderful to just push the button in and not have to reach across the counter to get to the power switch. If you don’t have plans for how to plug the hole, this is an option.

All great points. I am so happy that you shared these things. I often run the lists of things in my home that irk me, too. My husband isn’t as thrilled to hear them – after all, we have a home and there are some people in this world (well, after this week – country) whom do not. I always feel guilty for complaining about things when I am so truly blessed to have a warm bed at night.

Thank you for letting me indulge in the fact that you do, too.

Oh no! We LOVE Mabrey’s room. That was supposed to represent one of the rooms I’ve repainted. Originally, the room was an ugly beige/tan – one of those color matches that didn’t turn out so well. Sorry for the confusion! Mabrey’s room is staying as-is. It’s Benjamin Moore’s Dark Pewter and I had it mixed in Benjamin Moore paint when I repainted ;)

Have you or HH considered adding an additional counterweight to the faucet? My hubs and I have talked about it for our faucet that also has that irritating little gap. Just haven’t gotten around to it yet! My only wonder is if it will make it slightly more difficult to pull out…

We feel lucky that we have an unfinished, imperfect home after this week as well.

So true! I learn more from my mistakes than from my successes.

Before you give up on the counter-top soap dispenser, consider this little beauty:

http://custominserts-store.stores.yahoo.net/nevsoapandlo.html

Never MT, get it?

I (the royal I in every sense of the word because all I did was write checks) renovated the entire house last year and I understand, deeply understand, the small disappointments. I love my new house, but I made a couple of bad choices, there were so. many. decisions., and after dropping major bank, I can’t justify repair/replacement, yet. But it all looks good at your lovely home, you are making great progress so sit back and enjoy this weekend. Thanks for sharing.

Ooooh, I’m intrigued!

Travertine tile in our shower! So hard to keep clean and looking good. For my future kitchen reno, I will skip the built in soap dispenser. Ours isn’t rusted but its a pain to refill.

Think about something like this in your tub/shower:

http://www.amazon.com/Zenith-56-Inch-72-Inch-Adjustable-Curved/dp/B004VLVU7Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369431004&sr=8-1&keywords=shower+curtain+rods+curved

It expands the space behind the curtain, more elbow room, literally, and is anchored through the tile. I thought that would make me sad, drilling holes in my lovely, expensive, so expensive, who knew tile was so expensive, tile, but I like them, a lot.

Thank you for sharing this! I have 3 lists; 1 for things needing to get done, 1 for things that are done, but not right and one for things I love just to keep me balanced and happy. The things I have the most trouble with is tradies and online purchases. Sometimes what you envisage just doesn’t turn out right. Luckily my fancy tap problems and unfinished bathroom tile and dodgy door lock are well balanced with a safe and solid house that doesn’t suck the life out of me financially. Though, the tap is pretty darn disappointing!

I had a horrible experience with their color matching as well. The first gallon I picked a Behr premium color but had it mixed in their value paint. The guy just punched in the code for the premium formula and dripped it in and it was perfect. When we were half a wall short we went back and ordered another can the same way but I noticed the girl (different person) snap my paint chip in the color matching thing. Well it was way way off, especially considering it was on the same wall. I took the can back and asked the girl to remix it the way the first guy did and she was SO rude to me, first implying that I was wrong and then insisting that she wasn’t able/allowed to do what I was asking. I finally had to call a manager over and he immediately took care of it. And it was perfect.

Oh I love this post. It makes me feel so much better for falling out of love with the paint color in our family room…which we painted only a couple months ago. When I was massively pregnant. And my parents came to help. And it was a HUGE pain in the you-know-what. And I think my husband might kill me if I even mention that I’m considering repainting. We’ll see…

I totally agree with the matching paint colors. I’ve painted my living room three times now because Behr can’t even make it’s own colors right. They all look fantastic on a swatch, and good from the flat sample tub, but they look awful when I order them in satin. They all look yellow. I’ll be ordering from Sherwin Williams next time. Also, I have the same tension rod in my shower and it has never fallen, but it is completely rusted out. Time for a new one for us too!

We experienced the same issue, mostly with BM colors that are yellow-based. When I finally gave up and paid for the real thing, the paint guy told me that the yellow-tint in BM is significantly different than other paint brands and that any color requiring yellow wouldn’t match correctly. Um, thanks. Lol. Once I started buying BM paint, I never went back, it is soooo much better than other paints we’d used and totally worth the extra money (besides I was paying for two or three colors anyway trying to match their paints). Lol. Lesson learned!

Those curved rods are great – especially is they don’t affect the toilet area!

Previously, we had no trouble with Behr color matching BM paint colors. But in the last two years, the formulas have been changed. Even if you bring in the label from the Behr paint can that is 4 years old, you might not get a match– let alone just giving them a name. The paint people at Home Depot were aware of the problem. We had to physically give them a swatch to paint match, to get the color we wanted. I would suggest trying that.

We did travertine in our shower, it was horrible for upkeep, looked great, but ugh! I was so glad to move!

Love this post!
Our faucet at our first house didn’t retract all the way. My hubby added an extra weight and it fixes the problem. Maybe that would help?
About a two years ago we were rushing to make our new unfinished home livable. Hubby was being less than patient with my decision making skills on choosing a master bathroom tile. He was tiling the floor, shower and the the area for a drop in tub – a lot of tile. I couldn’t find what I was looking for so I ended up settling in the hopes that I would like it the end and make it work. Well, I don’t dislike it, but I don’t think it fits the feel of the rest of my home. And it’s pretty permanent, at least for a long time! Lesson learned!

We’re working on getting into our fourth remodeled or new build home and I’d have to say we’ve had very good luck with paint colors. Carpet, however, not so lucky. We’ve yet to have a carpet laid that I can say I REALLY like. The next house has mostly hardwood. Yay! Thanks for the post! It’s a good one to keep us blog readers in reality.

Thank you for speaking up about the paint. I always feel like an idiot for buying the actual BM paint while everyone else seems to be colour matching. I’m very sensitive to colour tones so I was always too scared to trust anyone but BM to mix their colours.

There really is no cheap replacement for a good quality paint. Unfortunately.

I looked at this site and also found a spice rack that fits on the inside of the cabinet door.http://custominserts-store.stores.yahoo.net/sro.html
I have something similar in my kitchen that we made and I love it. No need to recant from the original containers.
Not so long ago, I purchased a faucet from Lowes. The one I choose initially the woman who worked there advised me against because it slipped down. I don’t love the one I have but it doesn’t slip.
I think everyone has a mental list of things they would change if they could wiggle their noise a la Bewitched! Love your blog!

I think you just got a bum dispenser we had one in our last house and loved it, never had any issues and it had a massive storage container. You can buy just the soap dispenser at lowes or Home Depot you might try one more time before plugging the hole.
Try adjusting the weight that is already on the faucet you might just need to move t a bit higher up the faucet side.
We also had the curved Curtain rods and I loved them but I would not screw them into the tile. They do eventually start rusting – 7 years in- and if what you purchase to replace isn’t exactly the same you still have holes.
I just DIY’d some of the fun hexagon spice jars that you see everywhere right now. I am loving them I haven’t even bothered to magnetize them yet they are just all in a drawer. I used etching cream and put the spice name on the side. I bought the jars in bulk so I still have a lot ( just because it was cheaper) but I will probably just use them as Christmas presents
Here’s someone selling them
http://www.etsy.com/listing/108303535/15-off-sale-fiy-hex-fill-it-yourself-set?utm_source=google&utm_medium=product_listing_promoted&utm_campaign=housewares_mid&gclid=CPW40uqNsLcCFU8V7AodJGsA5g

I’m going to be purchasing a new kitchen faucet this weekend (thanks to the holiday sales) and it has a little built in soap dispenser like yours. I’m very excited about it. I can’t wait to get that bottle of soap off the counter. I was sad to hear that your dispenser isn’t living up to the hype.

That is awesome. I have never seen that.

Hi all the way from Germany! I love reading your blog! We had the exact same issue wit an Ikea tension rod in our first apartment – it came crashing down regularly and with kids it just seemed too dangerous. What we did was adding some silicone to the end pieces to hold it in place and that has worked out incredibly well. Maybe that might be an option for you, too?

I have a plastic container in my cupboard that the spice jars fit in. I find it is fine, as I only need about twenty and don’t use them all the time and that way they are out of the way. Not the most stylish, but handy.

Love your home.

Julie

Have you looked into a spice rack you could mount on the inside of a cupboard door? I work at The Container Store and we carry a few. Too bad that system didn’t work out, it looks so good. :-)

YES! We did this too and I LOVE it!

I was wondering if you still love your wood flooring? I have been keeping an eye out for reviews of it as we are in the looking stage to replace all of our carpet. I am concerned about the softness of it since we have 2 smaller kids and 3 cats.

Love this post!!! I think all too often with the design world and design blogs we see everything as “perfect” and real life isn’t always so. I’ll tell you what irks me with my house– the mismatched “finishing touches.” I swear whomever built my house had decision-making problems. I have black, white and off-white light switches and outlets all over the place–some rooms even have two colors!!! Just sad.

I had a similar problem with my shower rod. I cut two circles out of the ikea drawer liners I used for my kitchen and wedged them between the rod and the wall. It helped the grip factor of the rod tremendously and so far it hasn’t fallen!

I have to say, the thing about color matching is it makes a difference WHO is doing the color matching. I’ve had Sherwin Williams do most of my color matching and they have all come out PERFECT! I have had Lowes do some color matching with disastrous results. Lesson learned. Sherwin Williams, being the paint experts, not only have far superior color matching equipment, but they also have employees trained in color theory. Lowes and Hope Depot employees aren’t experts in anything.

I should add that I ONLY use Sherwin Williams or Ben Moore paint. It’s expensive, but you get what you pay for. They send out coupons all the time and have 40% off sales so I time my painting accordingly.

In our last rental we had the same problem with the shower rod. Since we couldn’t drill through tile we bought a $4 U-shaped doohickey. Its two small pieces of plastic, one is like a round plastic ring that holds the rod on one end and you drop the rod into the U-shaped ring on the other end. It was in the same section as the shower tension rods. We installed it right next to the tile on the wall.

Here’s one on Amazon. The plastic ones at Home Depot were way cheaper.
http://www.amazon.com/Gatco-833-Diameter-Exposed-Mounting/dp/B002G9TV44/ref=sr_1_2?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1369498633&sr=1-2&keywords=shower+rod+holder

Another tip about Sherwin Williams: When we moved into our house I knew I would need paint for every room, but I hadn’t picked out my colors yet. You can buy all the gallons you need during the 40% off sale and bring them back LATER to get tinted. And if you over buy and have extra gallons, you can return them since they are untainted (off the shelf). Bonus, they will be shaken just prior to the time you paint.

Thank you for your honesty! Well I have been following you blog for nearly two years and your adventures have definitely been my inspirations since my husband and I lack major creativity. So our first big oops was we were inspired by your previous home’s kitchen and home colors. Our home was similar but much smaller. We color matched the Dover white (I think that is what it was called) in an oil based paint by Kwal. Holy moly noooooo bueno! It’s yellowing and not holding up after a year and a half. We are going to have to repaint all the new cabinetry when we decided to sell. Not to mention using color match in Kwal paint was such a bummer. We will NEVER use Kwal paint again, the product is not been good for us. Everything to me looks so much darker in our home. Not to mention our mistake in granite and back splash (our fault completely) they don’t complement each other. That’s what happens when you go out of town during tile installation. If I would have seen it the first day I would have stopped the job and selected a new tile. Oh well, next time :)

I always say, the only people who think BM paint is expensive are the people who don’t use it. Any other brand is false economy, IMHO. Over the last two (renovating) decades, I have used BM almost exclusively. I have been tempted away a few times, ultimately regretted it and went back to BM. When their new one-coat-with-primer Aura line came out a few years ago, I could paint an average room in ONE coat for the price of a gallon (and my dining room is Silhouette – dark!). The real test was in repainting the seemingly endless exterior forest green trim of our sprawling rancher (wood window frames, soffits, metal guttering, downspouts, etc), a medium grey (Copley). I did it ALL in one coat (and never want to do it again!). Luckily, 5 years later in our Pacific NW climate, it still looks pristine. Paint is cheap, even BM.

We are still loving our engineered wood floors – even though they were a pain to install on a concrete slab. Birch is a softer wood so I’m not sure how it would hold up against pets but with three kids, ours are doing well. We use area rugs, furniture pads and don’t wear shoes indoors. Sure, if you drop something heavy or blunt they do get dinged/scratched but those things don’t bother me. I can’t let them bother me with three kids in the house! I do occasionally go around with a brown Sharpie and touch up deeper dents/scratches. You can’t even tell.

Most importantly, they endured a flood from an A/C problem last summer. We were afraid we were going to have to replace all the flooring but with a few days of applied heat from a restoration company, you would never know anything happened. I’m not saying that these floors could withstand a flood but they really are a great option for installation in a basement or other space that might see moisture.

This a great post! I have never seen a post like this before and really enjoyed your honesty. I have so many things I regret buying around here and glad that others feel the same way about things sometimes. Please do this again from time to time. I like getting real reviews on products.
Thanks!!

BM is the only company which uses their own tints. It is indeed almost impossible to get a good match with any other tint system ~ esp with the more complex colours.

I just painted my bedroom this morning using Aura in Deep Secret (a navy) and it was incredible to use. In the long run, I used far less paint than I normally would and it looks so even and beautiful. More money per gallon, but less work and paint in the long run!

My list is a lot longer! I also am not thrilled with my faucet or my kitchen sink. I wish I would’ve followed my heart and got my big one-bowl farmhouse sink… but oh well. I splurged on my kitchen faucet and I h8 it. It never retracts, the spray/flow button always gets stuck (I have to pry it back with a knife!) . Worst of all, I LOST the receipt ( I have every other one–) so I couldn’t take it back. Boo. Oh well.

I learned my spice organization technique via an old Martha Stewart Good Things for Organization book–tension rods in the drawer. We have a very wide drawer next to the fridge, so I installed five thin tension rods inside and it allows me to lay the bottles down yet have them all be tipped up “just so” to allow for easy ID and removal. Plus I alphabetize them, which is a MUST.

I had painters color match BM Edgecomb Gray to SW paint once. Never again. Nuff said. :) I feel you on that one for sure!

Thanks so much for this post! I’m currently shopping for the odds and ends for the house we’re moving into mid-June. I was feeling annoyed with my painter for handing me “his” color book for a quality name brand that I”ve never tried. Sorting through to find the colors we had already chosen in a different brand felt like such a hassle. Thanks! Now at least the colors will be more reliable.

Regarding soap dispensers: don’t give up, try one from the Big Box store – I had dispensers from HD in my old house – chrome, not steel – and they were great. Just the off the shelf ones and they lasted and worked for years.

Try filling up the soap dispenser with white vinegar.
The boys will have fun emptying it!!!! You may have to do this a few times, and it may not work, but it will hopefully fix the problem.
Once empty and clean – fill up with soap again and away you go.

I bought a new faucet and soap dispenser a year or two ago. They were purchased seperately, I bought kohler and there were lots of designs, I’m sure you could find one that sort of matched your faucet. I have had no problems with the soap dispenser, no rusty situation, it’s plenty big enough, and it’s easy to fill up! So if you want to replace the soap dispenser with another soap dispenser, I highly recommend the kohler ones!

I love how you defend all those little quirks ;)

I have the same spice storage and haven’t run into that issue but they’re still pretty new. Hoping I don’t have that problem!

That paint matching thing? YES!!!! I went through the same thing several times trying to save money when we painted our living room. Did.not.work. So frustrating! I’m with you – now I just buy whoever made it in the first place.

Dana,

I am so glad you mentioned about the spice containers. I was going to buy some next time I was by an Ikea. Guess I will pass. Keep us posted on what you do with the spices I have so many and they are taking up valuable cabinet space.

UGH on the spice containers! We bought a few of these about a month ago, and now my garlic salt is being held hostage. I saw a smaller version at World Market with holes on the edge of the lid and the canister, so you twist to line up the holes and shake out the spices, while never having to take the lid off. Could be a good alternative!

Our first lesson learned in our house remodel. Our house is over 100 years old and had the original windows up until 3 years ago. The old ones were so bad that we had snow comming in one window. We had a new contractor install a metal roof on our house and we loved the work he did and he did is cheaply so we asked about windows. He gave us a quote said he had the windows in his own house and loved them plus they were energy star rated (that means quality right). That was enough for us and we didn’t ask anymore questions. They were installed and we were disapointed. They were not new build windows but replacements, our assumption with 100+ year old sills it is a forgone conclusion that they would install new build. Our mistake and now we are going to replace them in our life time and we thought we never would have to. Still 100 times better than what we had.

I can relate to the color matching of Behr and Benjamin Moore. My husband likes Behr paints, but we’ve had the hardest time matching colors with their paints. We’ve repainted MANY times…

I think you could easily fix the tension rod issue but positioning it to the wall instead of the inside of the shower. It might take a long one but it would be sturdier.

In my experience Behr is absolutely terrible. They use crappy pigments (up to 40% clay which re-activates when you do a second coat) and require a million coats to get semi-decent coverage. Don’t even get me started on their paint/primer in one! So. Bad. I will never use Behr again. All you DIYers, do yourself a huge favor and buy a quality brand like Sherwin Williams or Benjamin Moore. They regularly run promotions so their paint is actually pretty affordable. Their staff are paint professionals unlike Home Depot where their “paint pros” have a crash course in paint (if you’re lucky). So worth it. Pay the extra money. Save time and headaches.

We tried that but then the curtain juts out into the teeny bathroom too far – i.e., shower curtain on your leg when you’re at the toilet. No bueno.

Thanks! Worth a try.

Too bad about the spice holders. They look good, but what good is that if they’re not functional? I’ve never heard anything good about Behr paint, not too surprised to read another complaint.

I’m so surprised that you don’t like Behr. I used their Ultra Premium Plus in my kitchen, and I won’t use any other paint ever again. One coat coverage, little to no smell, and easy clean up.

I loved this post! Thank you for your honesty. So many times when reading home decor/improvement blogs it seem like everything works well and always looks awesome. It can be irritating when we all have these things around our house that don’t work as intended. Also so glad you told us about the spice containers. I had been thinking about getting those. I still think they look cool, maybe you can use them for other things like paper clips, rubber bands, etc.

I ordered a ceiling mounted curtain track for my bathroom reno recently and love it (curtain-tracks.com) I think it looks great with the ball chain drops and a nice white curtain. I had a conflict with window trim on one side of the tub and didn’t want to drill into it in an awkward location. And I just hated the idea of having a hotel style curved rod.

I also just tackled my spice issues too bc we did not have enough cabinet space to store them out of sight. I bought a RIBBA photo frame ledge at IKEA in white and mounted it about 4″ below my upper cabinets. I then bought one type of spice jar and transferred all my spices into them – the stainless steel lidded spice jars from world market – and labeled them with craft paper labels. I love seeing the colors of all the spices in the clear jars.

I’m not surprised by the spice containers. I use the same containers to hold cords/headphones/etc. and store them along the metal legs of my desk. Even without the fine grains you mentioned, they can be a total bear to open.

So smart. I want this.

That’s a good list to start with.
The change on the top of my list is how to deal with duct work in the basement. It breaks up the space of the whole room. I was thinking of building a bar and using that area of the ceiling to hold wine glasses, but I’d love to hear other ideas if you have them!

It’s not that I don’t like Behr…I just wasn’t happy with how Behr color-matched Benjamin Moore paint colors. I’ve used Behr colors mixed in Behr paint before and have been quite satisfied. Most recently, I used exterior Behr paint on french doors and I love it.

Love this post! It’s really nice to see follow ups on what things worked and what things didn’t. I’m not a fan of bloggers who act like every single thing turns out perfectly and holds up well every single time – who’s living in that world? (Um, not me.) This is far more helpful. :)

As for paint matching – glad to hear it’s not just me, I’ve never had great luck with it! These days I just go for the real deal from the start.

Hang the shower rod out side the shower on the dry wall. It will give you extra arm room as a plus! Contact the company on each product that you don’t love!! Most companies will jump all over helping you be happy…some won’t..lesson learned!!

Contact the company!

I just discovered your beautiful blog! Please excuse this question if you have answered it somewhere previously: where did you purchase the rug in Mabrey’s room? I love it!!

West Elm! It’s the jute chenille herringbone rug.

[…] with our kitchen faucet is rusted out and has been since the day it was installed. I mentioned it here several months ago. I did some investigating and the actual pump – where the soap comes out, […]

That IS great advice, thanks Allison!