I feel more confident now about putting a rubber liner in there if I need to. Good news is that my neighbor who has 20 fish is willing to give me 3 of them to try this afternoon. He says for the winter I could just dump them back into his pond. He's bringing me some food to get started with too. He doesnt know what kind of fish they are, he bought the house and the fish came along in the pond. I am going to try to ID them, maybe I could post a photo of them. We're thinking of fish names right now. I have the pump that makes the water go up the waterfall then trickle into the pond. I hope that's all the equipment I need and I hope that pump is sufficient to make oxygen, cuz I think they need that, not sure. Will I have to run it 24 hours a day?

Ha, ha, Dawn, are you the personal secretary? :) I grew that squash just for the fun of it, but we really did like it. Sharon and her daughter and I shared the bounty and I gave some away to a few others. Seedmama got in on some of the bounty too! I was beyond impressed that I had no squash bug problems. I haven't been able to successfully grow any summer squashes in years. I was scouting out a location for them again this year. I think I'm going to plant them in the same spot. I had a huge load of leaves dumped in that area. I'm trying to work on that soil back there where the Silver Maple was. The leaves are probably 12 inches deep over the area, with my compost pile being directly over the ground stump. I think I can clear out some spaces for the "hills" near the fence and then let them go. :) They can compete with the honeysuckle for fence space. Lisa

Hi, Maureen, Since we live in an old house with wet plaster walls, I asked my DH your question. He said there are two ways to go here: the first, more exasperating option would be to start out with a masonry bit and when you hit metal, switch to a hi speed bit. Your bits won't last very long, you risk taking out large chunks of plaster when the masonry bits get caught on the metal lathe, and you will make a lot of trips to the big orange box for more bits, so it's not very satisfactory and not necessarily cheaper in the long run. The better choice would be to go to the link below and order some Bad Dog Rover bits that will go thru anything - wood, masonry, metal, glass, even marble and granite. They are expensive, a small set costs more than $100, but will pay for themselves in the long run if you need to drill elsewhere in the house. Also, he mentioned that if the shelves will hold a lot of weight, they really ought to be anchored on the studs. He wasn't sure what you meant by the 'proper' positions (astheticly pleasing?). Good luck with the project. Here is a link that might be useful: Bad Dog Tools

I am coming very late to this thread, but I thought I'd post because I have a similar-sized kitchen in the planning stages. I do a lot of cooking and a moderate amount of baking myself and really loved my marble baking counter in the last house I had. I will try to post a picture --but bear in mind the kitchen is close to 18 years old in the picture! One thing I'm wondering about in your plan, kitchen_maman, is why you haven't considered making one line of your counters 30" deep instead of just 24". If I'm reading your plan correctly, it looks like you will have over 5' 6" between the two lines of cabinetry --about a foot more than is recommended for efficiency. If you are a baker, you will enjoy that extra 6" of space! Also, it allows for storage at counter level, if that's what you prefer, and enough depth to get a standard depth refrigerator and have it look like a counter-depth one, if you add the 6" on that side. I am thinking of doing this in my soon-to-be new kitchen. I feel like I need every square inch I can get!