"In my new apartment, it is definetely a bigger kitchen however a way smaller window. The lighting is poor totally.." I see a couple of things you can do. Other than supplementing light over the plants, which is good. Overdriving lights turns out to be not that hard. One: You could build a windowbox for the kitchen window. It wouldn't necessarily be a permanent change. No tearing out walls. Just mount an extended bay window setup outside your existing window. You might not be able to use the extra space in the winter, but ironically, the bay window will help insulate your kitchen when it's cold. Two: this is outside the box. In fact, I threw out the box. If you have limited light in your kitchen, you need to squeeze all the lumens out of the available sun. So, you could look up something called Holographic Diffraction Gratings, AKA HOE, Holographic Optical Elements. This is a semi-transparent film also called a suncatcher. I'm thinking of getting some of this stuff for my greenhouse and my own kitchen window shelf. The film catches the light, and diffracts it from bright sunlight to a widespread wash of white light. No shadows. No bright light here, darkness there. Which is good, as really strong light is bad for some plants. You'd put this film in your window and it would spread out the light and redirect it to where the plants are.

dnt1 said" john g you have gotten yourself stuck on the wrong area with your business. You have to show people something besides good work and here it is. People dont care how much you know until they know how much you care. Customer service good listening skills and lots of empathy man, now get on it and get that business growing as it should." Well if it was really only that easy. I repaired a Jeep Cherokee that had bounced around between 5 shops/techs. The problem surfaced alledgedly right after a major transmission replacement. The symptom was a surging/high idle speed, missfire/cutout when driving. The AC was inoperative, the clutch would not engage. The customer had already tried adding refrigerant with sealer himself, without gages. Plus the 4WD display was blank. The soultion was the computer had failed, but before the computer could be replaced, every possible reason that something on the car could be causing the computers microprocessor to continually reset had to be explored, and proven to NOT exist. Plus I also had to be sure that something else on the data bus on the car was not causing the reset to occur. There are no training manuals anywhere, nor is there service information/repair manuals written at this level. Guys like me are totally on our own with this stuff, and we often spend two times as much time studying the system at home to make each diagnostic move faster, and in analyzing the results to make sure we haven't overlooked something which would result in a customer potentially buying a part they do not need. I had well over eight hours time in this car, and ultimately billed three. The result had everything working, and I did notice some belt squeal, it was a newer, and properly tightened (within tension specs) serpentine belt. Now do you think this guy appreciated what I did? I did not sell any unneeded parts or service and I even cut him a significant break on the real amount of time required to do that. For my trouble I can tell you that I have 80% of the fuel injection wiring diagram memorized for a 97 Jeep Grand Cherokee. That's how close I had to study this system to be positive I was making the correct call. He went out to the Jeep after paying his bill, five minutes later he came back in and wanted me to go outside and hear something. He was concerned about the belt "chirping" when the AC was turned on. He was complaining that it did not do it before, well of course it didn't, the AC had not worked in the month and a half they had been fighting this. I told him shut the engine off, and went inside and got my laptop, and my belt tension gage. I showed him the spec, then I measured the tension on the belt and showed him it was in spec. The I showed him how the belt that was on the Jeep was one of the discount aftermarket replacement ones, that does not actually fit the pulleys correctly. He still insisted that I do something, and at that point I said fine, I'll take it to the maximum tension allowed on the spec, for a fee. At that point he balked, and said it's not adjustable, it has a spring tensioner, which I really got a laugh out of, because I asked him to show it to me. Then I showed him how the belt adjusted with the idler that is just below and inside of the power steering pump. I then asked him, who put this belt on? He said it was another shop he had dealt with recently, and I asked him why not go back to them and have them deal with it? His reply? Because he didn't pay them for it. I didn't press him for details at this point, but one way or another he managed to coerce them into doing it for free, or flat out managed to rip them off somehow. In the end, he paid me to adjust the belt. I refused to touch the rest of the AC system at all, because the sealers that he added have the potential of damaging my AC recovery/recharge equipment, and I'm not ready to have to spend another $4,000 on a new one. I also told him to the best that I could be sure, the transmission shop had nothing to do with the failure of the computer. Three days later the transmission shop involved called me up. He had not seen this guy and was glad that I had straightened his Jeep out. He was having trouble with a Ford tranny he had rebuilt and needed me to help him figure out what was wrong. He had one dissapointing thing to say. No matter what the outcome was, this guy with the Jeep would bad mouth me about fixing his car. It's just the way the guy is..........

"So what do you think about me putting a thin coat of drywall mud up in the vanity area so the tile will grab?" - I think that is a really bad idea. I found this old post searching what info was online (Houzz/Garden Web) in relation to "Scratch Coats". There is so many versions of a scratch coat it is hard to tell what one is right or wrong for each job your tackling. Installing tile over drywall mud (finish, all purpose or joint) is a bad idea. Installing tile over drywall that has not been covered with drywall mud is often OK as long as the area is not in the shower or around the tub. Installing tile over painted drywall is done all the time but the strength of this assembly relies totally on how well the paint was applied and what type of paint there was. Your question (top of page) was answered well I think by the fellow coming to look at the job. Adding a 1/4" of cement board would make for a much stronger wall than skimming out an old wall with fresh drywall mud. I put a few pictures together showing a simple scratch coat and hopefully this will help you understand what a cement board (CBU) sheet look like scratch coated. The CBU is Wonderboard lite. The thin-set Laticrete 253 Gold. The waterproofing membrane on the left wall (Laticrete Hydro Ban Sheet Membrane) and the inside of the niche was done wit Ardex 8+9. I realize the post is years old but it is the first hit on a google search....

What you need is a book called wiring simplified from the big box store to familiarize yourself about what I am talking about. With no grounding do not connect the green wire to anything. just roll it up and wrap a piece of tape around it. You only connect the black wire to black and the blue wire to black not the green wire. The white wire to the white wire. Is there insulation on the brown wire? Now to find out if your wiring is grounded. Check your outlets. Are they all grounded outlets or are some 2 prong outlets? If you find 2 prong outlets then your house is not grounded. If you have all grounded outlets pick up an outlet tester at the big box store. They plug into the outlet and have 3 lights on them to tell you if the outlet is wired correctly and has a ground. Plug that into an outlet and you will know for sure if your outlets are grounded. Grounded outlets have a half round hole. for the ground pin.