coleus are always the first plants to be affected by any cold wind or rain for me. I love them and have the ideal growing spot for them but they just don't do well for me up here. I used to have awsome displays down south. As soon as it started to get cold I would just take cutting, root them in water and overwinter them inside until it warmed up enough to put them back out in the spring. Penny

davidrol, The faucet was an American Standard---about twenty years old. It had been slowly falling apart in various ways for some time. We had been putting up with it until now. I am shocked to hear that the hose could not have been full of holes, because when I emptied out the cabinet and turned on the faucet, the hose was leaking at multiple points along the length---kind of like a soaker hose. Unfortunately, the faucet has been put out in the garbage, so I can't offer a post-mortem autopsy to provide any other answers. As I said, the faucet must be about twenty years old, so I think it provided adequate service for some time before giving out. This was one of the first faucets made with a pull out sprayer instead of one on the side--quite advanced for the time, but archaic compared to modern faucets. The pull out sprayer portion was made of black plastic. You pressed on the top of the sprayer and the water stream would change to a spray and automatically go back to the regular stream when it was turned off. It stopped going back to the regular stream when it was turned off years ago, so we had to turn it on and off manually ourselves. We had a friend who worked for a plumbing supplies distributor at that time and he was able to get us a good deal on it at the time.

Okay, the whole KD thing is its own problem. There are KD's, some of whom are even part of this forum, who are qualified, professional designers, but there are "certified kitchen designers" who don't have any design training and really are, basically, order takers. The certification is by the company, not by ASID (American Society of Interior Designers) or any other such thing. I've had a lot of design training, and have worked as a designer in various capacities, but I am very careful not to call myself a "designer" because I feel that that implies a level of qualification I do not have. This is my feeling about it, and respect for those who are qualified ID's, not any legal distinction. There are some laws in some places that restrict who can call themselves designers, which have been pushed by the industry, but the word is just an English word, and it's very hard to restrict its use. I remember seeing a proposal for one of these laws that excepted Kitchen Designers because there was no way to get it past the big box stores' lobbyists without. So, yes, unfortunately, it's falling to you to suss out the details of the design and hold the guy's toes to the fire, but this doesn't tell us if he's a good contractor. He might be. He might not realize that whatever course he took to be a KD isn't what you thought he meant when he said he was one. All that said, if you're just not comfortable with the guy, you can cancel the contract. If it's already cost you big bucks in overruns I think you have cause (not a legal opinion, just sense). Rather than pulling the plug out of hand, you might offer to have him sign an addendum to the contract saying that you're willing to absorb $X of the overrun, but that he's responsible for everything above that. And if he doesn't want to sign that, offer to dissolve the contract. Even if you're on the hook for the cabinets (which you might not be if the order was just put in), you can still have someone else do the actual work. But he might be fine, if you give him a chance!! Why not start by inviting him over for coffee and danish (most contractors love sweets) and tell him every one of your concerns and hash them through. Start with your expectations about the details and how nervous he's making you. Get him to tell you how he's going to handle everything else that comes up. He might be a really good contractor but a lousy cabinet orderer. :) Good luck!!

My wife asked me what "refulgent" meant - she'd found it in a magazine article. I was able to tell her that it turns up in a song in the Mikado, but I didn't know what it meant. So we looked it up - it means "shining, brilliant or radiant" - and it's marked in my dictionary as "Literary". I've just looked up the G&S - I was actually wrong! This is the song I was misremembering. The sun, whose rays are all ablaze With ever-living glory, Does not deny his majesty He scorns to tell a story! He don't exclaim, "I blush for shame, So kindly be indulgent." But, fierce and bold, In fiery gold, He glories all effulgent! And what does "effulgent" mean? Radiant, brilliant... I have to say that in my opinion, both effulgent and refulgent sound downright unpleasant - it's a surprise to me that they don't mean as they sound. Is there a word for the opposite of onomatopoeia?