You're certainly off to a good start. Reading other people's posts is a good way to learn some possible answers to questions you never even thought of asking. Doing a search is also a good idea, as is doing some research at the library and on the web before asking your questions. This indicates that you are at least trying to learn something, and not expecting someone to do the work for you. It also means your question can be more specific. Saying you need landscaping will get you very little useful information. Saying you are working an a plan, have come up with such-and-such so far on your own, and want to know if you are on the right track or if you can improve it, will get you specific suggestions. Also, people will see that you are trying, and will be more willing to spend time trying to help you. Be gracious even if you don't care for someone's suggestions. There are all levels of expertise here, from beginners to professionals, and you will get both very bad and very good advice. You'll need to learn to figure out which is which, but everyone is doing the best they can. Try not to be too sensitive to blunt criticism or wierd humor, and stick around, because there is a lot to be learned if you do. Welcome! Jo

I've been running a thread on the Building a Home forum that substantially repeats this thread and refers to our FAQ. The issue of private versus public albums on Photobucket came up (I thought the whole album had to be public to allow you to link to it without a password). aa62579 says that you can link to a specific photo in a private album and that link will be visible. You just can't link to the whole private album and see it without a password. I've never used Photobucket so I'm asking the question of those of you who are familiar with sites such as Photobucket, Picasa, PictureTrail, etc.. Is this a general characteristic of all web-hosting sites? I'd like to add this information to the FAQ. Thanks, Claire

Just thought of something else I do for kids....this is great for travleing...I make them up in the summer for our reunions too with different pix of course I am including a link of pix already doen.....all you have to do is size them however big you want(I made mine 4"square) print them out on cardstock paper......then put 2 together back to back(2 different pictures)when I made them last year, I made some with halloween on one side, and thanksgiving on the other side, or with christmas on one side and winter (snowmen, etc)on the other side. I glued them lightly back to back with a glue stick (cheap from dollar stores) just enough to hold together till I could laminate them.....bought laminate at Walmart cheap.....cut them out, stuck them in a bag with different colored flat marble stones from walmart, and the kids loved them....some adults too! I also took a bunch of recipes, halloween for halloween, and xmas for xmas, and using vintage graphics I found online, made everyone a nice cookbook(did this for reunion too using family recipes) I used the vintage graphics for the front & back cover of the book. When I made the halloween cookbook(small booklet), Have some for sale on Ebay right now, I printed out the recipes, then printed out the covers, cut them all out, punched a hole in the corner, tied it together with jute twine.....then I cut out a pumkin shape(2 sided) out of felt, sewed them together, crocheted a jute handle, embellished with silk leaves, and an acorn or pine cone, stuck the recipe book inside..made a nice gift and they can hang it inside the cupboard door for easy finding or even hang on the wall for the season. The xmas ones i am working on now for gifts...I am printing out the recipes, more vintage graphics from online, then will make mittens (make a big snoflake on the outside using glitter glue) or other shape from felt and will stick the recipe booklet inside with a candy cane or something.....if you have any questions, email me..I'll be glad to help... Here is a link that might be useful: tic tac toe boards

In order to determine if the attic floor joists (the horizontal wood members that hold up the plywood attic floor and are now covered by insulation) you need to tell us the size of the joists, the space between them, and the distance they span (usually from the outside wall to an interior bearing wall near the center of the house). Usually attic joists are designed to support no more than 20 lbs/s.f. so a pair of joists could support 400 pounds if the middle 8 ft of the joists were covered by flooring. Unfortunately, it appears the roof rafters have braces that transfer loading from the rafters to the attic joists (or vice versa) so the structure is more complex. Anyway, adding too much load to the attic could cause the ceiling below to sag and crack and doors might eventually bind in their frames. You might just add some 1x10 boards along the sides of the current attic floor area to allow a bit more storage. Go into the basement and see if there is a beam down the middle of the house on posts. See if there is a wall above that beam on the upper floors. If so, the the attic joists would be supported on that bearing wall. Attic loads above and reasonably near the line of that wall will not be a problem. This is something a competent carpenter would be able figure out with little effort but if you enjoy doing things the hard way and taking risks go for it.