Amanda - thanks for going to the trouble to make your progress so clear! That was a clever solution. It gives me an idea for fixing a mess I have made... Your sphere turned out great. I sure want to see it lit up! I have not tried what you are talking about so this is just a guess but surely one of the zillion varieties of tubes of contractors' adhesive would work for your project. Is there any chance a "shelf" could be fashioned out of transparent plastic to hold the light strand rather than trying to glue each light separately?? maybe there is a way to clue or cement on clips you could wind each light around. hmmm. Once I tried taking fiberglass mesh and "weaving" wire thru it by making a sort of U shape with wire and pushing it through the weave of the fiberglass so the bottom was caught and secured by the mesh. When I concreted this down, the wire ends stood up and the mesh and concrete secured the bottom to the object I was making. This left the wires ready to do anything I wanted with them. That would be very simple and you could use your concrete to attach these wires anywhere you wnted along the edge of your sphere. The whole result would be invisible except for handy wires waiting to be used to hold your lights. Would this work for you? Laura

Digger, I had to chuckle when I read your message. That sounds so like conversations with my engineer hubby when we approach a new project. I just went out and looked a one of my bottle trees. The "nails" are at 45 degree angles to the post and there are four in each row equally spaced around the post. The offset rows are 4 inches below the row above it. Allows you to use lots of bottles and looks better with the smaller (beer) bottles. Good luck with your project. If you don't have a lot of bottles only add nails to the top third of the post it will look like a bouquet. If you add nails to more of the post it will look more like a tree with branches. Hope that makes sense.

I also live in zone 8 - our first frost dates are usually mid/late November. I use both methods - I pot when I dont have beds ready for the daylilies. This year, I have raised beds filled with great soil - I buy it mixed, its a combo of mushroom compost, bark fines and sand. The lilies love it, take off and are growing just great. I have learned from experience not to plant them too deep - I have lost them when I planted too deep. I also grow roses and have found that most plants really grow better when planted in the ground. I seem to buy plants faster than I can build beds, so by necessity, I have a good sized pot ghetto. But I steadily work on building beds as I really think they grow better planted in the ground. If you have the readymade beds with good soil - I would suggest planting them there - just be careful not to plant too deeply.

I know you were saying that you wanted the sink centered, and your aisle behind is plenty big, but I heard several kitchen designers say that the cooktop and sink when back to back should be slightly staggered in case someone was using the sink while someone else was at the cooktop. My kitchen/family room have a similar layout, only our kitchen is 15x22, I think yours is deeper. As it is it seems like we have a ton of space between where the kitchen ends and the family room begins. My island is 4.5 x 9 and we tried to make it look like a piece of furniture so that it wouldn't look like someone dropped a "box." I think by using an alternate finish we may have achieved that look (hopefully). Our sink (30" farmhouse) is off-center and looking into the family room like yours. We do not have a second sink (one was in the plans but when we started the kitchen install and I saw where it was going to be I nixed it). The one sink is fine as we also have water on the fridge for the kids. I also like the off-center because it leaves a lot of space to one side and a good amount of space for drying dishes on the other. I have an overhang on two sides to make seating for 6, and my island seats 4 across the back very comfortably at 9'. Hope this helps some!