Thank you all, for your continued kind words. Campanula, yes, exactly. Setting the garden (and home) within the larger context is always the tricky thing, right? Like, on one hand you want to have your way over the landscape, to tame it and mold it into more of what you like. But on the other hand, the cues really need to come from what's already around you otherwise it's either going to be a ton or work to fight nature, and/or it won't even look right when you're done. So the rock theme really plays well here. GreenHearted, that's a great question. I have done the foundation differently on different stone projects here. I'm not an expert on this, but none of my walls have fallen down yet! (With the older ones being over 10 years old.) You are quite right, a dry-stacked wall is an inherently flexible structure and is very forgiving of expansion and contraction of the ground. On this wall, I dug/scraped down to the subsoil layer, which is a very compacted, concrete-like substance. I didn't put down gravel or anything, mostly because the very idea of that pushed the project into the realm of unrealistic for my diy self. Stonework does have a tendency to slowly sink into the ground. Rocks that used to be standing above grade are now below the level of the grass. I'm not sure how much a gravel foundation would help that. One of my walls has a gravel foundation and it hasn't behaved any differently than the others as far as I can tell. Not sure if that answer helps or not! :)

Thanks again for all your comments. mythreedogs, it is interesting to see how the chairs are made, isn't it? Although my chair didn't have any signs of former living things in it, it was horribly dirty inside and musty. All of the tacks were rusted, as well, so I had to be very careful removing them that I didn't step on one, or otherwise puncture myself. I do have a couple of chairs coming up, matching barrel chairs with channel quilted backs. They aren't old, maybe from the late '60's? I have already stripped one of them down but probably won't be able to do any more for a while as I have to find enough reasonably priced fabric to do the two of them. I did take a very detailed photo record, as well as notes, for that one. Fortunately all of the innards are in really good shape so I will only have to recover them. The chair was so pristine inside that all I found was three tiddlywinks and a 1972 quarter. Not even any hair or crumbs inside. mitch, this is the first time I sewed double welting. If you can sew a straight line on a machine, that will do it. The special welting foot has two grooves on the underside that guide the double cording, and you just wrap the fabric once, stitch down the middle, wrap one more time and stitch again. Then trim off the bit of fabric that is left along the edge of the stitching. It isn't hard, just a little awkward keeping your fabric stretched tight and straight while you sew. If you looked closely you would see flaws in the work I've done. It is nowhere near what a reupholsterer would do in quality workmanship, but for being able to make a new chair from old for very little $$, it was worth trying to do this. rioritarae, this is my second chair I tried. I have another thread a few pages back showing my first project. It was either throw the chair out, or try to do something with it. I made loads of mistakes, but I also learned enough to try another one. And, it gives me something to occupy myself with. I have always enjoyed having some kind of hobby and enjoy teaching myself to do things. :)

Melsouth, the floor wasn't difficult, it was just tedious, and the smell was pretty bad. If you notice in the pic, DH had a fan ventilating to the outside. It took a few days to cure. It chipped in a few spots when heavy objects were dropped, but DH says he can patch it up easily. We opted not to tile or put any sort of flooring down for two reasons. One was to save money as we have several other huge projects (new main bath) we would rather spend money on. Second is we live in a flood prone town. We have been here 7 years and did not flood with storms Irene or Sandy, however we didn't want to take a chance. Once our drain the the sewer backed up and we were able to easily clean up. The floor is pitched towards the furnace area where are sump pump is. We opted for a black ceiling after I started taking note of how many people simply paint their ceilings black. DH found the black ceiling tiles at HD and thought that would be easier. Since he was installing it, I wanted to do what was easiest for him. I'm very pleased with how it turned out. He also put a full bath in down there. Our main 2nd floor bathroom had a major leak and needs to be completely redone. Since we are mostly DIYers, it will likely take time and now we have a 2nd full bath in the house. It's not quite complete yet.

Funny, Williamsem. I guess I never really thought about it. We like to entertain and it makes sense to have a nice space to prepare drinks and store everything in one general location so it's ready to go. Currently, I have to go to some effort to retrieve the bottles and glassware, create a place to set it out, yada yada. It's annoying and I always forget something. I figure the easier I make things for myself, the more often I'll feel like entertaining and offering up a glass of wine, martini, cosmo, or whatever else I have the makings for. So it's all about function. Yeah, that's the ticket. Function.. :)