There's trouble in River City.  Except in this case, River City is Seattle, WA, and the trouble concerns a local plumber and a start-up find-a-contractor site called HelpHive.com.

What is HelpHive?

My first brush with HelpHive.com was at Seattle Home Show 2.  In the sea of miracle gutter salesmen and instant log cabins was Dave Richards of HelpHive.com.  We spoke for a few minutes, and later I blogged about my disappointment over the years with find-a-contractor sites and tangentially about HelpHive.com.

The Issue

Later, plumbing contractor Evan Conklin posted comments on my blog about his dissatisfaction with HelpHive.com.  Then, HelpHive's own Karim Meghji posted a rejoinder. I will not go into depth--read the comments yourself--but the thrust of Mr. Conklin's argument is he believes that HelpHive is harvesting contractor information and diverting phone calls through HelpHive.com.

Why You Should Care

The best way to find a contractor is always to talk to neighbors and relatives:  word of mouth.  But in this world of diminishing word-of-mouth, we need an online solution.  My own thoughts on the issue are:

HelpHive.com's Side

• Harvesting information, while not a well-loved practice, is all over the Internet.  Anybody who has landed on a DexKnows, InsiderPages, or SuperPages while searching for a local tile installer has seen this.
• Don't the DexKnows-type harvesters eventually result in business for the end companies?
• HelpHive.com is a start-up.  Even though it appears to be a well-funded start-up, why kill a service that could result in sweeping changes in this whole find-a-contractor chaos?

Aggrieved Contractors' Side

• Disclosure.  The phone numbers listed on HelpHive.com do not clearly state--in fact, do not state at all--that the phone number is HelpHive's, not the contractors'.  If I landed on the site, I would think that the number belongs to the contractor.  Even Insider Pages lists the real phone number.
• Will HelpHive.com's SEO eventually trump the contractors' own search engine rankings?  Searching for Joe's Drywall Repair, the first listing is HelpHive's rather than Joe's?
• As my mother--or somebody's mother--might say, "A little sugar goes a long ways."  Nobody likes to be pre-empted.  Even if HelpHive.com finds that this type of phone number listing is the best way to go about things, why not at least notify or get permission from the contractors?

It's more complex than this, and I'm happy to be corrected in the comment section.   But it's the last I'll say on the matter.

Repair your countertop?

It can be done.  It can' t be done.

Well, which is it?  Truth is, there is no rulebook for repairing countertops, and when you pull in other factors--DIY? professional? material type?--it gets even more confusing.

I think that most homeowners--myself included--are longing for an easy solution that allows them to press some kind of color-matching goop into the crack, let dry, and be done with it.  This is mostly not possible.

The worst countertop to repair is laminate--Formica, Wilsonart, etc.  It just doesn't bond well to filler materials.  Peel off the old laminate and re-bond new stuff?  Forget about it!  You'll end up pulling off half of your substrate in the process.

The best countertop to repair is ceramic tile.  A tile installer can chip out the old tile and replace one-for-one with a new tile--and he can do it in his sleep.  It's simple for a pro.  Want to replace it DIY?  It's harder--and you'll want to expect a cracked surrounding tile or two--but possible.

"That's not a tile repair!" you shout at me.  I say, "My point exactly (refer to paragraph 3 of this blog post)."  If you're dead-set on a tile repair, that's possible, too.

Recently, I saw a ceramic tile counter that Tyler Murphy and his crew at Miracle Method Seattle repaired, and it looked great.  They fill in the divots, holes, cracks, whatevers--then refinish the entire counter with the same material they use when refinishing bathtubs and showers.  So, they side-step the whole issue of "Why doesn't this patch material match the rest of my tile?"

Image of Corian Copyright DuPont

If you know a little something about bathroom tile design...

If you've been around the bathroom tile design "block" once or twice in your life...

...then you might know these 5 easy bathroom tile design steps.

But for me, it's always a new thing.  This is a mini bathroom tile package which, if followed correctly, will yield a vastly different bathroom than the one you originally imagined.

1. Use tile focal points.
2. Install a tile accent wall.
3. Break up your tile with new patterns.
4. Add a tile surround to the walls.
5. Learn to use tile grout creatively.

So easy, you could practically do it blindfolded!

Image:  American Olean

When you weren't paying attention, Corian sinks grew up.  I've always thought of Corian sinks as being integrated sinks--these magical fusions of sink and counter so that they are sinkcounter...or countersink.  It's really quite miraculous how a fabricator can seamlessly mate a Corian sink with a Corian countertop (yes, it does need to be like material with like material).

But there's more to Corian sinks than that.

One increasingly popular variation is the apron-front Corian sink.  The front of the sink is exposed and becomes part of the kitchen decor.  Also, these apron-fronts (or farmhouse sinks) have much deeper bowls than their drop-in sink cousins.

Image: American Standard