We got our furry friends right after we married, and we got right to work laying down the law and trying to teach them what they could and could not do.  Like sleep in our bed.  We should have known better.

Oh goodness, that one did not go over well.  At that time, we were living in the townhouse and we tried everything to keep them downstairs and out of our room, from closed doors to baby gates.  Let me tell you, baby gates have nothing on a determined cat.  They will take a flying leap and knock those suckers down.  And while they do it, they will meow like they’re being tortured and then they’ll paw at your door for hours, still meowing, until you finally give in and let them in.  Then they will jump on the bed and proceed to walk on you, sniff you, and try to sleep on your head as punishment for trying to keep them out of your room in the first place.

As I said, it did not go well.

Fast forward two years, and we’ve finally been trained.  The kitties sleep with us every night, and they each have their assigned spots.  Every night, Lexie jumps on our headboard and makes her way behind the curtains to sleep on the window sill behind our bed, as happy as a clam for eight hours in her little bedroom:

Riley, on the other hand, insists on sleeping down by our feet . . . for the most part.  He’s still a little needy and will occasionally venture near us for a little reassuring snuggle.  Or to try to sleep on our heads.  Oh well, baby steps, right?

Even though they drive me bananas sometimes, I’m a total sucker for their furry faces and they make our little family complete.  So that brings me to my question – do the pets rule the roost in your house?  And tell me we’re not alone in letting the little buggers sleep with us . . .

This post is shared with Hooked on Houses.

These days, I’ve gotten a little spoiled – my mailbox is right outside my front door.  It’s pretty awesome.  I could check the mail in my jammies if I wanted to.

You see, our house was built in the 60s, back when the mail carriers walked from house to house instead of pulling up to the mailbox in their little trucks – so that’s what they still do in my neighborhood!

And if we ever get too lazy to walk three steps outside to get the mail, we could always reap the benefits of our superfluous mail slot.

I was walking in our neighborhood the other day when I noticed that one of the houses didn’t have a mailbox.  Or a mail slot.  Surely the homeowners received mail, didn’t they?  I scoped out their front porch a little further (yes, I was being snoopy), and noticed a large basket next to their front door – that was filled with mail!  A mail basket!  Just imagine a basket like this perched on the porch next to the front door:

It’s certainly a more decorative option than some of the mailboxes out there, but I wondered about practicality.  Without a lid, would the wind just blow the mail away?  What about rain?  Was this a temporary solution while they were replacing their mailbox?  Alas, no answers.

So that brings me to you guys – what do you think of this basket as a mailbox thing.  Is it a fun twist on the traditional mailbox, or just a funky fad?  Have any of you tried it?  And while you’re at it, tell us about your mailbox situation – do you hoof it to the curb or a common mail center, or does it magically appear on your door step?  Spill the beans!!

Images courtesy of GemFireAir, Zyber, cindy47452, neon anomaly, Trish Mayo, and Flickr.

Basically, these skinny little sheets contain detergent, fabric softener and an anti-static component.

All you do is toss one sheet into the washing machine with a load of laundry, and then transfer the same sheet along with the load to the dryer – and that’s it!!  

The large blue part of the sheet is detergent, which dissolves in the washing machine and cleans your clothes.  The lighter blue stripe at the top of the sheet is the fabric softener/anti-static component that is activated by the heat in your dryer to make your clothes soft and fluffy.

No more lugging around huge plastic containers of detergent that drip all over the place!!  Doesn’t that sound cool?  

Here’s the skinny on any question you might have about these suckers:

These laundry sheets sound almost too good to be true.  So, my question is – are they?  Has anybody tried them yet?  Are you as intrigued as I am by this new invention?  I’ve vowed to go through my seemingly-eternal supply of detergent before I give them a whirl, so I’m relying on you guys to let me know if they’re worth it – spill the beans!!

Images courtesy of Purex.  Click here for a product demo and here for a coupon.

Oh, we’re talking about houses?  My bad.

But that brings me to my question – what style of house do you secretly (or openly) lust after?  Does it match up with the style of house that you actually live in?

In my case, I’ve always been in love with Tudors and Arts & Crafts-style homes – love them beyond all reason.  I grew up in a Tudor-style house, and there are tons of beautiful little neighborhood filled with Tudors sprinkled around Dallas.  I always thought that I would live in one, but the hubster and I nixed Tudor after Tudor while we were on our house search – they were gorgeous and unique and exactly what we wanted visually, but we couldn’t get past the awkward layouts leftover from another era.  As for the Arts & Crafts homes, there are a few around Dallas, although they’re mostly new builds because they aren’t native to our area – and they’re pricey, to say the least.  Ah well, a girl can dream!

So we bought our little ranch house.  And you know what?  Turns out I never really knew what I wanted until we lived in this house – maybe it doesn’t have the gorgeous exterior of a Tudor or period details, but this little sucker delivers – a perfect layout, tons of space, and turns out it was fully customizable.  What’s not to love??

And maybe I was never really destined for those other houses.  Here are the results of a quiz I just took:

I guess our little ranch house was meant to be after all!  (Although I’m not sure I like being described as “simple” . . . I guess I’ll let that one go.  Where are my sweatpants??)

What type of house are you?  Click here to take the quiz for yourself.

All images courtesy of FrontDoor.com and Southern Accents.

While we were snooping around all of those houses, I noticed that one house in particular had tons of potential – and a major flaw.  Basically, the master bath was tiny.  I’m talking cruise ship tiny.  Take a look at what I mean:

While tiny bathrooms can be beautiful and cozy (not cramped!), this particular bathroom certainly did not warrant the title “master.”  With a teeny stand-up shower, single sink and no window, there was no way that two people could be in the bathroom at the same time.  And this was in a 2,450 square foot house!!   Not cool.

Anyone who buys this house is clearly going to gut the master bath, without a doubt.  And there are two closets that back up to the master bath – one or both of them could be stolen to increase the size of the master bath, but closet space for the master bedroom would be sacrificed.  What’s the new homeowner to do??

The way I see it, the new owner will have two options with this master bath:

(1)  Leave everything where it is and gussy it up as much as possible.  Pros: minimal costs and both closets would remain intact.  Cons: tiny bathroom, no tub.

(2)  Gut it completely and steal one of two closets to make a decent-sized bathroom.  Pros: bathroom fit for two with a tub.  Cons: lots of extra costs associated with moving plumbing, only 1 small closet in the master bedroom instead of 2 medium-sized closets.

Here’s where you guys come in – what would you do in this situation?  Save costs by keeping the tiny bath, or create an awesome bathroom but sacrifice closet space?  Which is most important when designing a bathroom – a rockin’ bath or oodles of closet space? 

Let me know your thoughts through this handy-dandy poll:

Clearly, we knew that incorporating a microwave into the kitchen was going to be a must during our renovation.  What we didn’t know what where we wanted to put it.  

Should we install the microwave above the stove?  Pro – we wouldn’t be giving up counter space or cabinet space.  Con – we couldn’t have one of those fancy vent-a-hoods.  But those vent-a-hoods are so pretty!!  We looked at pictures like these and contemplated our options:

(Can you tell that I like white kitchens?  Um, yeah.)

While we were temporarily wooed by these beautiful images, reality soon caused us to become a little more practical – if we had a vent-a-hood and a microwave, our kitchen that was already tight on cabinet space definitely wouldn’t give us enough storage.  So, we kissed the idea of a vent-a-hood goodbye and fell in love with our above-the-range microwave (a total steal from Sears).  She works like a charm and fits our lifestyle and space requirements to a “T”.

Where do you guys have the microwave in your kitchen?  Think we made the right choice to go with the above-the-range microwave?

Images courtesy of PointClickHome.