Ooops! I fogot one thing....Thank you, Louisiana Greetings, for the link to your tufa leaf photo. It's gorgeous! I'd love to know what you chose to color the leaf, as it seems to have stayed very vivid and rich. If that's off-topic to this thread, feel free to email me directly! Perhaps if I had access to something that large, the overall scale of the intentional 'defects'created by tufa recipes wouldn't seem so overwhelming to me? The hosta leaf I cast was only about 10" long, and maybe 5" or so wide, so every pit seemed ENORMOUS! LOL! Happy Tufa-ing! - Lisa

I have exactly the same setup as far as shelves go. I have catts and laelia's primarily and have no issues with growing either. (I also have phals, phaps, zygos and vandas - no, I can't make up my mind!) I have shelves spaced at 15, 18 and 23 inches to accomodate the wide variety of plants. On the 15/18 inch shelves, I run 4 40w t-12's - two 5k and two 'wide-spectrum' 3.5k's. Anyone who says you don't need the red lights to promote flowering has not done their homework. I ran 2-5ks and 2-6.5ks on the shelves first with no spikes/flowers. Since I switched to this mix, I have at least four plants in spike. On the 23 inch shelve, I run 3 sets of t12's. 3 wide spectrum and 3 5k's. I am trying one shelve with all 6.5k's just to see what will happen - but I am pretty sure I know already. The 'newer' lamps in the 6.5k range are true 'full spectrum' lights and should replace the mixed. I also have a 125w cfl over a number of plants too and I am very happy with that. Much more light from the same wattage, but not as large a coverage area. There is no 'perfect' setup, so much depends on your spaces, plants, available light, ect, that the 'perfect' setup for one person may not work at all for someone else. So to enhance light to your setup, you could: - Add some t12's to your existing ones or - Switch to t8's which put out about 20% more light or - Add/switch to CFL's. 65w CFL's are about the lowest you'd want to look at - simply not enough light with anything less and even the 65's are not powerful enough for large catts. In order to reach all the way down those tall babies, you may need to look at the newer 125 or even 200w CFL's. I have about 300 growing under 24 different lights - so I have a pretty good idea from experience what will work. Hope this helps!

I'll try to give you some pointers, I have a Panasonic VCR/DVD combo also. Yours is newer so probably a different model. Your machine should take several types of disks. For the DVD-RW, you may have to format the disk before recording. I use DVD+R, which do not need to be formatted, but do need to be finalized after recording. So find your type of disk in the manuel and follow instructions. There should be a section in the manual explaining the types of disks that your machine uses. You will probably push the Functions button on your remote, get a menu and go to Disk Management (that's how I finalize on mine.) ONce you've got the disk ready, it's very easy to record: The record speed (just like on a VCR) has to be set before you start. Push the Mode button and you should get a box on the screen that tells you the recording time on the disk: SP for 2 hours, etc. That's what I use most of the time. If you want to get 4 shows on one disk, you can use the 4 hour mode, the quality will be little worse. Remeber, disks are pretty cheap. Once you have the speed set, and your show is on, just push the Record button. Now, if you're going to record more than one show, you won't be able to finalize the disk until you have everything on it that you want. ONce you finalize that type disk, it's not recordable any more. The exception to this is the RAM disk, which your Panasonic should also use (check manual). You can record, re-record, edit, etc. But they are more expensive. If you aren't saving the shows permanently, you might just buy a few RAM disks and record over them. They don't have to be formatted or finalized. If you want to set the machine to record while you're gone, you have to go through the menus and set it up, just like a VCR. You'll have to read the manual and try going through the menu, can't help you much there. I hope this helps a little, I know that the manual and menus can be confusing, but it's not much different than a VCR once you do it a few times. Good luck.

I'm with bmorepanic, I don't mind the fridge on the other side of the wall if it makes the rest of the kitchen work better. My MIL had a set-up similar to yours and it was a tad odd, but perfectly functional. If you already own a FD fridge and that is what you're using, it really, really needs enough space to open the door fully, as in close to 180 degrees. Maybe swap the positions of the fridge and pantry? Small space kitchens need to maximize every square inch - I know, I have one! For this frameless works better than face frame cabinets. Ikea and Scherr's both get good reviews from folks here who've used them for both price and quality. I would avoid door + roll out shelves for standard bottom cabinets. We retrofitted our old cabinets to this configuration 20 years ago, and it was a big step up from crawl-inside-to-find-things, but a big step down from all drawers. They waste enormous amounts of interior space and you just can't afford it. Our new pantry (we never had one before!) has roll-out shelves in the bottom section, though, and that works well for the pantry. Counters: I'm not aware of a one-stop info page on the different types, but that's a good idea. For your kitchen you want to be good, but not the most expensive. You could look at the lower priced granites, which means more common, not less good. They've come way down in price evidently. Quartz will run you about the same as granite and are a great choice material-wise. Laminates come in everything from el cheapo to near the price of granite depending on the pattern. The link at the bottom is to a recent discussion of why laminate is a good idea. Wood countertops can be both fabulous to look at and cost-friendy. When you check out Ikea, check out their wood counters while you're there. Other choices can include stainless steel and tile, not my favorites, but loved by many. Here is a link that might be useful: Does anyone on here actually have formica countertops?