1. I believe the light is the ultra mega coil 85 watt actual usage CFL at 5000k. I don't know where one gets it online, as there is a store specializing in lightbulbs here in Austin. There's a specialty store for everything here in Austin. Additionally, I have had good results with the 42 w at 5100k and the 40 w at 3000k. They are less expensive too. 2. I haven't used T8's, but my lights hang no more than 8 inches from the tops of the plants. 3. The 40 and 42 watt can go in any standard 60 watt lamp/light fixture. For the 85 watt I had to get a 125 watt clamp light socket. 4. I don't know. But here's some food for thought... Tubes put out their light over the length of the bulb (2-4 ft) with the brightest light being in the middle. CFL's concentrate all the light into a much smaller area. You get more light per "quadrant", but the "quadrants" are smaller, and thus more numerous. 5. Mine are on for 16 hrs/day now and will eventually be down to 12 when the solstice rolls around. 6. I don't know, but I'd imagine if the plant is prone to it, and it's getting more light, and growths mature faster, then yes. 7. Heat. While CFL's don't create that much heat relative to other bulbs, the bulbs will be hot to the touch and plants will burn if they even brush against them. I burned the pants off a mottled leaf paph under a 40 and 42 w about 4 inches away. Consider an oscillating fan blowing on the lights 24/7 too cool them and for better air circulation. Hope this helps Bob

I just posted this on someone else's thread but I wanted to say THANK YOU for helping me find my voice! And making progress! The granite guy came today and fixed the crack. You can't tell at all standing over it. I can see it when the sunlight is reflecting off of it, but also bc I was specifically looking for it. Anyone else would just see it as graining. Granite guy said it happened probably when the cabinet guy was hacking at the trim he had to remove bc it wasn't right. This I can live with. The cabinet guy showed up yesterday. The magnet he brought to fix door wasn't the right one. I started to show him which cabs had nails still sticking out and he said he'd check all of them. Then he said ok I'm done. I opened a cab and said the nails aren't finished, I thought you were going to finish them. He says,"Oh I didnt realize that you wanted me to do that." Really?Really? I guess he thought the splintered wood was fine? So then he says ok I'm done. I'm going to run to HD and get the magnet and be right back. Then I went to check his work. He missed cutting nails in 2 cab and didn't finish 3 others. Well...An 1 1/2 later he calls and says he got the battery but needed to go home and he'd come back tomorrow. I told him he missed more nails etc. And... he didn't come. But I do consider it a small victory he came at all. And lastly, I called the glass guy and said it was really driving me crazy everytime I look at it. He said he was going to call daltile to see if there was anything he could do, but if not, they would have to do it over bc it was their mistake. Yea! So I'll let everyone know how things turn out. I really don't expect to hear from cab guy. But, it's not the last he'll hear from me!

Hi Angie -- that's right! I'd forgotten about that underside runnel ... and I haven't seen it (though I might not have noticed) in a residential setting. Funny... It's a great idea though. I'd do it if I were you. I'm not sure there is a "Standard" overhang -- I think it depends where you live and whom you talk with. I think it must have been here that I read 1.5" was "Standard" and when it came time for me to discuss this with fabricators and the like, they all acted like I'd crawled in from Mars. And they charged me extra for the "extra" overhang. I do believe, though, it is nevertheless "standard" for some, despite the protestations I happened to receive. But I wouldn't assume anything! This was totally confusing to me so I'll try to spell it out. Please ignore if it's patently obvious to you: I'll call it a mini-treatise on overhang. (i) There is no standard overhang (ii) over hang is measured from the cabinet box ... or at least it can be. And hence the possibility for confusion. (iii) If you choose drawer fronts that do not "inset" right inside the cabinet box, then they will set on top of the front of that box, and add extra thickness. This comes out of the "overhang" measurement. Thus, if you have, say, frameless cabinets with 5/8" drawer fronts, and your fabricator says "Sure, sure, 1.5", standard overhang..." what that translates to, functionally, is (1.5" - 5/8" = 7/8") overhang. That's less than an inch. Thus it is possible for everyone to do as you specified, sort of, and still wind up with less overhang than you'd anticipated. I had them cut "2" overhangs", from which the 5/8" was subtracted resulting in a little less than 1.5" overhangs. It's enough. But it was a fight! And one that I'm glad I put up. And also, remember that your drawer fronts usually have a little cushion they will sit on on top of the cabinet box, a pad or something -- that takes away a teensy bit more depth too. However, it was never clear to me during the skirmish why there was all this miscommunication. But I understand now; it depends where you're measuring from. As a homeowner/user, I don't care about the box at all; I don't pay attention to it. It's the drawer's front panel that matters to me, where it ends. But the contractors sometimes don't even *see* those drawer fronts so they completely ignore the issue. A real miscommunication. My experience at least. One more thing. I've whined about this a bunch but I just spent several moments ruing my ogee edges all over again. A day never goes by when I don't at least once, usually several times. I hate em. Lots of folks on here love em; I don't. This time it was bits of eggshell -- can't sweep it into the compost bucket. They get stuck, hide, on the little swoopy edge. Someone mentioned that also not-standard may be the angle of the ogee. Another had probably tighter curves and loved theirs very much; it could be that mine are very "lazy" and better catch stuff. It is the one thing I regret the most about my kitchen (which means I'm overall as happy as a clam; I admit this is not exactly calamitous). But I do want to mention, that I felt this, dunno, "glamour-pressure" to sex up the counter edges and yet, function is the most important thing to me and for some reason I just glazed over that consideration. If you're a stickler for function, you might want to consider skipping the whole countertop edge thing. Wish I had! Oh -- except I would, given the ability to choose again, ask for mitred edges, as opposed to standard. Both wind up straight but the mitred blends the swirls of the stone's pattern and the sandwich has a random-looking join - with very happening stone it can make quite the lightening streaks. Not sure whether this was depicted in the posted options.

I realize that is not the correct cultivar for that spot, but it was planted by the builder in 1962. It is too beautiful to remove, if you had only seen it before it had been butchered. I love this tree so much I had the police out here! They didn't dare touch my cornus florida which is about 3 inches from the power lines. I would like to have a 'natchez' there but I just can bring myself to get rid of this one. That tree has gotten me awards (yard of the month) in the past years. Now, it looks like a piece of crap from the road. Crepe myrtles are very sturdy, I have never seen one fall. It has survived some really bad ice storms that caused some other trees in the area to split in pieces. This crepe myrtle will never have it's beautiful widespread canopy again thanks to those unsympathetic jackasses.