I purchased an evaporative cooler from one of the big box home & garden stores, and installed it on the northeast side of my greenhouse. It sat on a concrete block pad (I placed/leveled a few concrete blocks on the existing dirt ground) outside the structure. I also attached it to 2 hanging chains/hooks for additional support. The unit's cooling outlet poked through a small side window into the structure. The water resevoir (on the outside) was automatically refilled using a floatation on/off device connected to a tube which connected to my greenhouse water faucet. I did have some issues with the tubing leaking at the stepdown connection (from garden hose size hose to 1/4 inch tubing.) I have a greenhouse controller connected to an outlet specific for "cooling" and just plugged the evaporative cooler's electric plug into the special outlet. My controller was able to turn on/off the unit (by supplying power or removing power from the outlet) as needed with my set temperature requirements. It probably brought the temperature down by 10 (maybe 15) degrees at most. It also blew cooling/humid air which was a nice benefit--the plants in its direct path were cooler than the ambient temperature. Unfortunately, algae grew in the resevoid and the unit's pump it died after the first winter (likely froze since the resevoid was outside the structure) even though I attempted to weatherize it (guess my weatherization wasn't effective.) After it died, I just left it in place, but covered it on the inside with plastic to prevent cold air leaks in the winter. It was rather inexpensive to purchase and to operate. And, because I was able to self-install (and I'm very much NOT an HVAC installer type) I am considering another one to replace it.

Sad to say there is either a single person doing all incomming (and possibly outgoing) for that entrance or those doing the inspecting have no idea what they are doing. You have to remember, when 9-11 occurred Homeland Security, in their infinite wisdom, felt the need to remove all the inspectors - trained in the field of horticulture/Agriculture etc - and moved them to human terrorism duty. They did this because they had no one trained in terrorism duty. So they trained the horticulture/Agriculture folks for terrorism (a dah moment!) duty. "BTW Any goverment agency has never worked for us but works for Uncle Sam." Very true!

Wow glad I found this thread. Like others I thought your initial photos were the new kitchen in progress because your original backsplash looked great! Love your new one too and I like the pearl grout over gray; rather see the beautiful tile rather than grout lines competing with the natural movement of the stone. Small space I prefer less contrast and for the same reason I prefer your original stainless (nickel?) pulls over the black. I too feel the black overpowers the space and size of the drawers. My eye is drawn to the black and not in a good way. IMO the black are too heavy and takes away from the clean modern vibe of the space. And your bathroom....HELLO BEAUTIFUL!! Thanks for sharing and hope to see more.

I'm late to the party but perhaps you can save it for next year. I didn't get a chance to make latkes this year during Hanukkah and only had them once so yesterday I tried Smitten Kitchen's recipe. I did one minor tweak which was to substitute the potato starch that settled out of the potato liquid for about 1/2 of the flour. They were the best latkes I've ever made - crispy on the outside, moist and flavorful on the inside. No falling apart - they had good structural integrity. I pat them with the back of the spoon after spooning into the pan so that they are fairly flat. Here is a link that might be useful: Smitten Kitchen latke recipe