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Amerisleep AS3 Reviews

  My Amerisleep AS3 Unboxing Video (Surprise, my voice is ridiculous!) If I can (just barely) do it, you can totally tackle a bed-in-a-box by yourself. Updated 10/15/22 Amerisleep's AS5 was recently featured as the 'Best Soft Mattress in a Box' by Good Housekeeping , with the panel of reviewers noting: Pressure relief for side sleepers Taller than other boxed mattresses Good customer service    Amerisleep Mattress Reviews  We've been happy Amerisleep customers since purchasing our first AS3 mattress more than 9 years ago. Now we also have an AS2 and an AS4 (the AS3 is still our favorite). Born with chronic insomnia  (even as a baby - my family insists I was a nightmare), the struggle to improve my sleep is my life. My husband, the overly-analytical mechanical engineer, was initially skeptical of a mail-order mattress, but he was quickly won over. 2012: Wine glass test, sans wine. I was fairly confident our brand-new mattress would pass with f

Overbudget? LOL

When considering our custom home builder, John Lowe of Panorama Homes, the only negative thing we heard was that he underestimates allowances, resulting in his projects finishing over budget.  He might say to expect $4,000 for bathroom vanities and sinks, but spend $6,000. $2,500 for lighting instead of $5,000. Well-meaning friends and family didn't want us getting in over our heads. We were warned. Apparently, these folks don't know me at all. I scour the internet all day, every day for deals. It's a blast! Here are a few of the "premium" purchases I've made for our house so far: VITA Eos XL pendant - made of approximately 6,000 goose feathers! $942 retail - paid $100 DVI Chimera chandelier $783 retail - paid $125  Quatrefoil wall sconce $124 retail - paid $20 Madison Park Eva bar stool $300 retail - paid $50 (For our theater room. This is going to be the best house ever!)  Bellflower pendant Retail $313 - paid $100

Actually, I Love the Beach. Who Knew?

Call me crazy, but I've never been a big fan of going to the beach. I don't surf, I hate being sandy, and it's always blazingly hot or infuriatingly windy. There are jellyfish to sting you and crabs that want nothing more than to pinch your toes. I've also had a few too many near-death experiences involving water, including a scary childhood incident involving a riptide trying to pull me out to sea. Oh, and birds will poop on you! But in California last week , driving all the way from LAX to Livermore and back, I dare say the highlight of our trip was stopping at different beaches along the way. Also, I greatly underestimated how big California is. That drive took forever! A perfectly reasonable expression when you don't trust your husband to say if a wave is coming too close.  Taken in Santa Cruz, steps from a neighborhood of lovely homes. I need to make more money and get myself a beach house in California. A fixer upper will be fine.

Construction Update: Drywall

I've been told I need to post more photos of the construction of our new dream home. Happy to oblige! Currently, most of our windows are covered with plastic film to protect them when the house is stuccoed, so everything has a hazy, greenish hue. Note that I said "most". Apparently, it's fine for some of the windows to end up splattered in stucco.  Kitchen Other side of the kitchen  Ack! I hate that cutout along the ceiling SO MUCH. Seriously, what is wrong with our construction crew? Does that look anything like the photo to you?  Groin ceiling inside the dining nook Curved floor of the hallway bathroom...because why not?  Hallway beams and my infamous crapper window .  Looking the other direction down the hallway Barrel vault ceiling  Guest bedroom  Double tray ceiling inside the master bedroom  Even in a green-certified home, there's nothing green about the construction process.  Here are our i

Cabinet Hardware OOPS

A little decorating math... + = Oooh. (Or "EEK!", if you ask my Nana.) For my new master bathroom, I've bought pendant lights matching the one above. Sexy Nerd is building my vanity and, per my request, he is going to paint the drawers in a variety of colors to match the lights. The final product should be similar, colorwise, to the photo above, minus all that yucky, boring white. Me: Cost Plus has cabinet hardware on sale today for 20% off, plus I have a coupon for an extra 30% off on top of that. How many knobs will I need for my bathroom vanity? Sexy Nerd starts counting to himself, adding things up in the air because even calculating the number of drawers he's building must be done in a super-intelligent, nerdy fashion. Him: 18. Me, frustrated that my husband isn't paying attention: No, not hardware for everything. How many knobs do I need for  only  my bathroom vanity? Him: Yeah. 18. You wanted a lot of drawers. 18?! Don't tell