Treasure Hunt Thursday #88 & Highlights

 Happy New Year! I hope that everybody had an enjoyable time with friends and family ringing in 2013. I personally can not believe that another year has past. Where does the time go? I look forward to this new year and all that it has to offer. I thank each and every one of you for the time you take out to stop by and visit and for helping to continue to grow Treasure Hunt Thursday! I honestly have thought about stopping it in the past but every time I do I get so many sweet comments telling me how much y'all look forward to it every week.

So without further ado here are my top picks from last weeks party. 

I just loved Fabiana's New Years Eve table setting. It is so festive, fun and elegant! Be sure to head over to Ciao!Newport Beach and check it out if you have not already.

Audry over at Timeless Treasures shared this beautiful bottlebrush wreath she decorated with vintage ornaments.

Suzanne over at The Painted Brush shared her top painting projects of 2012 this being one of my favorites and her first sale.

If you have been featured please feel free to grab the "I have been featured" button to proudly display on your sidebar!:)

Now on to this weeks party!
What would be a HUGE help and encourage more comments not just from me but others as well would be for everybody to take off their required verification codes for leaving a comment. This seems to take just a few seconds of time but when you have to do it on 30 or more blogs it takes up a TON of time. Last week most everybody had turned off their Word Verification which made it so much easier for me to stop by everybody's links! Thank you!
READ THE RULES PLEASE!:)
Now on to this weeks party! As with all parties there are the normal rules. You must link back to From My Front Porch To Yours in your THT POST. Just common courtesy. If ya don't link back ya don't get to party. Only link up to your Treasure Hunt Thursday post and NOT your blog homepage. Please No advertising and PLEASE NO MORE than 3 links from the SAME party goer. Also NO MORE linking up to your own link parties. I am seeing more and more link ups of just people promoting their own linky parties. I know it takes time to go back and make a separate post to join the party but it is just the polite thing to do. If you find your post deleted it is not because I am a meany, I just have to make sure the rules are being followed. You can save some of your posts for the following weeks party!Please only link up new posts and not posts that you linked up the week before.
Also be sure to visit at least the link before you and after you to just say Hi! It makes partying all the more fun and remember if your link has had the most visits you will get featured on Tuesdays! If you are new around here I would love it if ya become a follower!:)

Project Parade 2012

Can you believe in a few short hours we will be ringing in 2013!? I figured since today is the last day of the year I would gather up my top projects from 2012 and put them in one post. 

The most recently finished project was our half bath semi remodel. This project spanned over several months but in the end was so worth the wait. You can view the half bath Before & After here.

A much smaller scaled project involved me redoing the little entryway into our guest bedroom which then led to making faux wood beams for areas around the house. Click here to see more places I added simple rustic charm around our home.

I have to say my french country hutch is one of my all time favorite projects so much so that instead of selling this piece I kept it for myself! This project  tops out at one of my most viewed projects for the year. Click here to see the before & afters.
If you missed seeing it all decked out for the holidays you can view those links here:
Fall 2012
Christmas 2012

This little side table came out on top as my most viewed project of 2012! You can see her before & after here. You will not believe it is the same table! She was a true labor of love.

This was my year of furniture projects as you can obviously tell by now!;) If I saw a piece I loved I had to bring it home and give it new life and this frenchy desk was no exception! You can see her before & after here. 

Simone was a hard one to let go. It was my first time using gilding wax and now I am addicted. You can see more of Simone here. 

My list of top projects would not be complete without including the opening of my online shop Finch & Co. Designs. It is because of y'all that I consider it a success so thank you so very much for all your support!

So what does 2013 have in store? Well for one I am in the midst of finishing up this dining table set. Can't wait to be done with it! Other projects I would like to accomplish in the new year will be to complete the headboard for our guest bedroom, finishing the laundry room, redoing our breakfast nook, organizing and completing my craft room, making over a mirror for our fireplace, ripping the carpet off our stairs, and a few smaller projects outside. Will I get it all accomplished or will I stray and come up with even more projects? Not sure but here is hoping that the new year is prosperous and full of endless projects for us all to share!

I hope that everybody has a fabulous and safe New Years Eve and day! See y'all back here in 2013!:)

Hunting for The Perfect Washing Machine & Dryer

I started changing up our laundry room back in November just before Thanksgiving. It all started with that yellow dresser there. We had to make some modifications to it and well I just ran with it and decided I wanted to freshen up the entire space.

When I was suppose to be packing to go to Ga I was in the laundry room painting the cabinets. Note I am still not done yet. We had our trip and then getting ready for Christmas and then something unexpected happened.  

I was doing laundry one evening and oops! The water level knob broke completely off the washer. The entire compartment fell off into the the washer machine. I was not to pleased but then figured it was a sign. Our Maytag set was 8 years old. When we purchased it they told us that appliances are not made like they use to be and to only expect 7-8 years out of it. Well two years ago the washer started giving me fits. So many fits that we almost broke down and purchased a new set then but we didn't. We could not figure out what we wanted so I just dealt. It would constantly go off balance and was not washing as well as it should have been. After the knob broke off I washed clothes on the small water level for almost two weeks and then the machine just went bonkers so we HAD to break down and purchase a new one.

After much debate and lots of research we decided on this LG Top Load HE set. The reviews were fabulous and it is top on Consumers Reports. It did have a handful of complaints though like several other sets we were considering. Really it just seemed like a crap shoot on any of them but we were reassured by the 30 day money back guarantee that HomeDepot has. 

I was super excited when they arrived.

They were all shiny and new and a little too fancy but that is what ya get these days. 

We liked the fact that it has a stainless steel non rust drum. Right away we did a load of towels. We wanted to see just how much water actually went into the drum because we had read complaints that there was not enough and that clothes were not washed thoroughly. It took an hour and ten minutes. Hmmmm. Was not a fan of that but I was able to wash ALL of our towels in one load instead of two so I figured I could deal with the longer wash time. The towels flip and flopped and were fully emerged in the water so for us no issues there. When the load was done it does not buzz but sings a little tune. Call me silly but I really liked that.

A red flag did go up though when I lifted the washing machine lid and I found this sticker. This sticker was not on the display set at the store. To me this could pose a huge problem especially if we had smaller kids.
Loved the dryer on its first run as well. The towels came out fabulous and I was ready to wash EVERYTHING in the entire house. After the next load not so much.  

Major issue for me is how wrinkled the clothes came out of the washing machine. We tried everything from smaller loads, note you can not wash small loads with this set, to using liquid fabric softener and different settings on the machine to no avail. And yes I shake out all of our clothes before they go into the washer and after before they go into the dryer. We had hoped that the new dryer would get the wrinkles out but nope. It didn't not even dry jeans all the way. I washed some sheets and a blanket and the dryer said the load was dry. The sheets were but the blanket was still soaked. It took me three tries to get it to dry the blanket and only after I went from the bedding cycle to the normal cycle did it finally get dried.
Out of the 12 loads I did in a week I literally had to stand there and babysit the washing  machine for 7 of them. It constantly went off balance even though I loaded it as the directions said. If you do not put enough clothes in there it goes off balance and you have to add more. If you put too many they come out even more wrinkled. To try and balance itself out the washer drains all the water out and then fills the drum up with water again. Not sure how that is energy efficient. Only once did that fix the unbalanced issue. It will attempt to fix itself twice before it dings for you to come and move everything around.
I had had enough! We paid way too much money for this set for it just to be pretty so we went to Home Depot to see what our options were. Don who had helped us before was fabulous. We had no issues with the return and were told if the new set we ordered was not satisfactory to come back and they would take care of us. It was a nice surprise.

Source
So even though I was hell bent against a front load from the beginning we ended up ordering a LG front load. Several reviews had stated that they started out with the top load and had the same issues we had and went to front load and loved it so we figured why not. Again this set is top in Consumer Reports. We did not purchase the pedestals. I didn't want them to be too tall. They are actually the same height as a normal washing machine so I figure if I can bend to put things in a dryer than I can bend to put things in the washer too. speaking of which I a 5'7 and have normal length arms. Getting all the clothes out of the top load is a challenge. I have toe hand on my tippy toes to get to things in the very bottom. That and they have a funny smell to them. Not sure what it is and was hoping it would go away but so far it has not. I hope the new front load is smell free.

The new set does not arrive till Jan 3 so while we are waiting I am working on new shelving for in here!:) Crossing our fingers that the new set will be perfect for us.

Please feel free to let me know your thoughts on either of these sets! I am all ears even if you have something different just in case we have to start from scratch all over again.