There are upright and prostrate forms of P afra, and only the upright lends itself willingly to the formation of a heavy trunk. If you don't have the upright form, remind me come May, and I'll make sure you get started cuttings if you'd like them. Determining whether a soil is good or bad depends on what you're contrasting them with. MG isn't so bad when compared to all the other commercially prepared soils as a group, and that are commonly available and used for houseplants; but, on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being perfect and 1 being almost unusable, I'd rate it at about a 3-4 - LOTS of room for improvement. When you think of potting soils and what to use as your base, think of larger particles, like pine bark or other inorganic particles much larger than peat particles. In your mind's eye, picture a soil made of particles the size of BBs, and see all the healthy air spaces between the BBs. No matter how much water you pour on the soil, those air spaces won't fill with water. Now imagine a soil based on peat, compost, topsoil, sand ..... The air spaces between particles are very small and tend to fill up with water when you water - like you said the peat your plants are in does. If you mix the peat and BBs 50/50, the peat just fills in around the BBs, robbing the BBs of their air space, so a soil that has mostly larger particles and very few fine particles so the air spaces stay open is going to be much healthier for roots than a soil with all the little air pores filled with water. The primary difference between these two types of soils is that because the more open soils hold less water, you need to water more frequently. You'll need to decide if the extra effort is worth greater promise for your plants to grow to the potential they were genetically programmed for. There are 2 sides to that coin. Some feel the soils that I and many others grow in hold too little water, and robs them of the convenience of longer intervals between waterings, but since we build these soils with the plant's well being in mind, I know without doubt that soils that offer extended intervals between waterings hold too much water to NOT be limiting in their effect on growth and vitality. One of the most important considerations is that well-aerated and fast-draining soils are far more forgiving and much easier to grow in. They forgive your watering mistakes readily, as long as you don't FORGET to water, and make fertilizing easy. Because they promote such healthy root systems, they have the potential to produce much healthier plants with robust metabolisms that make the plant better able to resist insects and diseases. I'll leave you a link below to some information that explains the soil/water relationship. An understanding of the concept it defines almost automatically puts you far ahead of other container gardeners as a group. It shouldn't be too difficult to see what other growers that have read and applied it think. There are other threads similar to that one about other aspects of container culture, like nutritional supplementation, when/if you're ready to move on ..... or you can just not respond & I'll take that as a 'not interested'. The comments I left on YM's thread today might also be of interest. What my houseplant's feet are in: Al Here is a link that might be useful: I'd like to see you put this in your tool box!

I mentioned it in another thread, but I'll elaborate on my experience a bit more. When I initially started my search, I was looking at BlueStar and had not heard of the Culinarian. I went to BlueStar's site and got the names of some local distributors. There were only two within a reasonable distance from me, and they were owned by the same company. I got a quote from that dealer and wanted to validate the price by getting a quote from another dealer. It's the same thing I do when purchasing a car, doing remodeling, or any other sizable expenditure. Shopping around is a standard practice for most, I'm sure. I called a few online and remote brick and mortar stores and they told me the same thing; BlueStar prohibited them from giving me a quote because they were not in my region. The best they could do as allude to another product that might be in the same price range. Certainly this is how BlueStar attempts to control pricing, and I understand why they want to do that, but Apple is able to do the same thing while not restricting your retail purchase options. If I prefer not to shop at the Apple Store, I can still buy a MacBook Pro from Best Buy, Amazon, etc and the price will be within a few dollars of each other. What recourse would I have had if my local dealer had been a jerk and I still wanted to buy a BlueStar? Drive or fly to another state and purchase it? Sorry, but I shouldn't be made to jump through hoops and it really rubbed me the wrong way. While I was definitely willing to spend the money on a premium product, I didn't want to throw money away and I didn't want to get taken advantage of. With Capital, I was able to call several different sources and verify that I was getting a reasonable price. When I say that it was a matter of principal for me, it's because I didn't appreciate BlueStar artificially limiting my options. Ultimately, I ended up buying the Culinarian from the same local dealer that gave me the first BlueStar quote and the cost difference between the Culinarian and BlueStar was negligible. I was ready to buy a BlueStar when I first started calling around and, had the remote dealers I called been able to quote me a price in line with what the local dealer gave me, I would probably have a BlueStar in my kitchen today. Since that didn't happen, I ended up discovering the Culinarian and researching both products more extensively over several weeks, on this site and others, as well as checking them out in person at the dealer. There were, and still are, some things I preferred about the BlueStar (primarily the grates and the appearance to a lesser extent), but overall I preferred the Culinarian, and BlueStar's sales policy played a role in that.

I guess it's personal choice but I think it actually makes a room look bigger to go up to the ceiling! Here are some choices you should have: 1. Use 30" uppers with crown molding (lots of open space above) 2. Use 36" uppers; fill with 2pc crown molding (6" high) 3. Use 39" uppers; fill with one or two pc. crown molding (3" high) A 2 pc. molding is preferred due to unlevel ceilings and floors...gives more wiggle room 4. Go custom and use whatever height uppers and crown you wish. I'm not a big fan of 42" uppers all the way to the ceiling, unless it's in a modern/contemporary designed kitchen (ie. slab doors). But even then, you need a shadow line or small molding at the top, usually. Honestly though, if your cabinet (maker?) or designer couldn't help you with these simple options, you might start looking at other cabinet people.

I agree with the recs to paint the black band under the sink, as well as install a microwave vent over the stove. While I think the suggestion to continue the tile up is great and would make a great visual impact, the microwave is eating up the limited counter space and you have no venting over the stove. Microwave vents are not very popular here, but they are definitely common enough in small kitchens that you should expect it not to put off potential buyers. As for the conflicting comments about how painting killed your resale value etc. - people are really jumping to a lot of conclusions. From the pics, your finish looks good, and you say it looks great in person. I think plenty of homes advertise themselves as having "freshly painted" cabinets. Whether or not this will affect your resale is HUGELY tied to your local market. Look at houses for sale/sold near you. This gives you a good sense of what buyers expect to see. Some areas really do make their kitchen renovation money back in resale, if buyers expect to see a very updated kitchen. In other areas, it is easy to over-improve your house too much for the local market, and you can never make that money back, given what buyers are willing to pay in your neighborhood. Even the comments about granite are making a lot of assumptions about the norms in your neighborhood. IF your market supports a more extensive rehab, you would not need to buy all new cabinet boxes due to the Akurum issue. There are several reputable online sources for Akurum doors, like Semihandmade and Scherr's. But they will run you more than Ikea, which was already an expense you didn't want. So definitely look into what kind of kitchen remodel your market demands, if resale is your priority.