HI BlueFly, I totally agree with your suggestion of setting up a registry. After the major 'headache' is over, there is still the maintenance and the daily living issues which renotalk.com is useful for in terms of feedback and suggestions. I will certainly support it after having gone through 3 major reno works with contractors/ID - 2 of which are for my own place - and experiences differ so much each time. It's true that the entire experience has to stem from meeting of minds and expectations throughout the whole process, so even though my very first reno experience was for my mom's place and it was with those typical contractor who boasts of in-house design expertise, that turned out to be the most pleasant experience i've had so far. The second was with an ID, who came up with fabulous design not only for interior but also space management, but was very lacking when it came to putting all that design to fruition. One year after moving in, things start to fall apart. Despite of that I suppose my hubby and I are still in contact with him - he even invited us to his other new projects - partly because we know that it is the contractor's lousy workmanship rather than his design. Afterall we did pick the cheapest contractor to work with, amongst the 3 quotes that they sourced for us initially. But each stage of the way we were consulted, and they really stuck to our stated budget. Armed with all that experience, we thought we would be wiser in picking the ID for our current place. Alas, it has never failed to amaze me how some can pass themselves off in the market despite of the lackluster work they put forth. I don't deny that we have to bear part of the responsibility - afterall we appointed them - but there are a few things we could've done to avoid the mess we are in right now with the ID. So if that experience can help someone else out there from further frustrations, I am all for it. Sign me up now!