Wow - you're going WAY back. ;o) 1) None of the other recipes supported the 3:1:1 - it was a typo & I think I cleared that up somewhere in the first thread. 2) I encountered lots of weed problems, even with small quantities of manure, and I discovered a number of products on the market that deliver the minor elements reliably and in appropriate ratios, so there was no sense in including even small amounts of manure. N - nitrogen P - phosphorous K - potassium (whooda thunk it - right?) ;o) Ca - calcium (back on track now) Mg - magnesium S - sulfur Fe - iron (another hard one) Mn - manganese Cu - copper B - boron Z - zinc There are a few more, but they are needed in such small quantities that they are almost never deficient 3) Read labels. If your fertilizer doesn't contain N,P,K,S,Fe,Mn,B,Cu, and Z, you should probably include a micronutrient supplement. Most soluble fertilizers contain NPK,Fe,Mn,Z - some Cu, too. Container soils should be limed with dolomite to provide the Ca and Mg (and raise pH), or have gypsum added to provide Ca and Epsom salts used to provide the Mg and S. I don't mind if you pick this part of the post apart and ask questions about what you don't understand. If you contact me off forum, I'll arrange for you to get a suitable source of the minor elements. If you'd rather order online - you can try Home Harvest (or your favorite source) for 'Earth Juice Microblast' as a source for the minors. Alternately, you could just order foliage-Pro 9-3-6 fertilizer, which has ALL the macros, secondary macros, and micros in one formula. It's as close to a perfect all-purpose mix as I can imagine, I also doubt that you would have any micronutrient issues if you lime and use either MG 24-8-16 or 12-4-8. If you did, it would likely be S, because bark and peat are very low in S. You could solve that issue by adding a little agricultural S (easy to find) to your soil when you make it. You might also be fine if the CRF you intend to use (Osmocote?) has the minors in it. I can help you cover all the bases if you tell me what you intend to use and what is in it, or how far you're willing to go to cover the bases, but just ordering the Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 instead of using the MG is by far the easiest. If you're sure you'll be diligent about fertilizing, I'd even suggest you skip the CRF (Osmocote). Easy instructions: Make the 5:1:1 mix according to the current recipe. Make it moist. Put plants in it. Fertilize occasionally with FP 9-3-6 Water when needed, but not too much. Don't let it dry out. Come back and tell us how you did. ;o) Al

I thought I had a more comprehensive series of photos, but I might have not brought them over when I bought new computers a few weeks ago. The following are not pretty, but they might help: ABOVE: This shows a couple of things I had to work around. High over the toilet is a jog of the vent pipe, it comes into the room because it jogs around a load bearing beam in the wall. Lighting: You see two illuminated light bulbs. Those are the sconce locations for the "new' design. The original design had two sinks, two wall mirrors, and three wall sconces. The old wall sconce locations are the covered up junction boxes. I redid the wiring so there is no live wring in those now unused j-boxes. Outlets: Look at the middle shelf in the closet on the left. In the back right corner you can see a box. I built that to house a couple of electrical outlets. Two outlets for inside the closet, another outlet that is on the closet sidewall facing the sink, you can barely see the cover plate for that box on the closet wall to the left of the drill. More electrical: In the 48" tall cabinet that hides the toilet, there are four outlets in the upper part of that cabinet box. There is one outlet that faces the sink, there is another on the opposite side that faces the toilet. There are two inside the upper cubby to provide power to items in the upper drawer. To protect those outlets, there is a false back wall in the rear of the upper cubby of that toilet cabinet. The cabinet itself is about 32" deep, the false back wall is about 10" out from the cabinet's back, affording roughly 22" of depth for the upper toilet drawer. The cabinets: Nothing fancy, 3/4" birch plywood boxes. Horizontal shelves/tops/bottoms are recessed into the cabinet sides in a 1/4" deep dado. Titebond glue and screws. Cabinet backs are 1/2" MDF, recessed into the cabinet sides/top/bottom. Glued and screwed. Recessing the cabinet backs into the cabinet helps keep the cabinet perfectly square. I typically use a 2" wide vertical stile on my cabinet face frames. I prefer my frames to be flush with the edges of the cabinet sides. With the cabinet sides being 3/4" thick, two of them make 1-1/2". So I'll use a strip of 1/2" filler between adjacent boxes to get that 2" thickness. With my face frames being flush with the inside faces of the cabinet sides, to get square face frames you need square cabinet carcasses. You can't disguise sloppy construction with this method. Toekicks: Under the cabinets you see scrap pieces of 2x4. Those were eventually covered with wood and painted black. They simply limit the depth of the hole under the cabinet to round 8", giving dust bunnies less room to hide. ABOVE: This shows the same run of cabinets with the face frames installed. You can see the electrical outlet on wall of the left closet, facing the sink. You can see the outlet on right side of the toilet cabinet, facing the toilet. ABOVE: Everyone needs a place to keep their "to do" list. I know I'll never lose this list. At least not until I cover it with the teak top. ABOVE: Remember that really small vent pipe that jogged into the room? Well, I covered it with this really big soffit. Nothing like overkill, eh? I actually used it to balance out the visual weight of the upper part of the closet on the left side of the sink. Visually, it centers things to the open area over the center of the sink. Might sound like a lot of silly voodoo design, but visually it feels comfortable to me. The band around the upper walls is backer for the crown molding. ABOVE: Speaking of teak...this is 4/4 teak, or "four quarter" teak. If you go t a lumberyard and by a "one-by-four", it'll be 3/4" thick by 3-1/2" wide. If you go to a lumberyard and order 4/4 lumber, it'll be 1" thick. For 4/4 thickness or less, I'll use one row of biscuits. For 5/4 and thicker, I'll use a double row. In this bathroom the tub deck is 2" (8/4) thick, the sink countertop is 1-1/2" (6/4) thick, and the toilet cabinet teak top is 1" (4/4) thick. ABOVE: I usually use epoxy with teak. I thought I read a recent article that the newer titebond forumations work well on teak, but hey, when you buy epoxy by the gallon, you may as well use it, right? Except that I buy Titebond 4 gallons at a time. Hmmmmmm.... Okay, anyhow, I use epoxy. Teak is an oily wood, so prior to using epoxy I'll wipe down the edges to be glued with acetone. The acetone removes the oils. I mix the epoxy, apply it to the biscuits and the edges with an acid (flux) brush, sap it all together and clamp it up. Biscuits are designed to absorb moisture from water-based glues like Titebond and expand within the cut slots, they really lock the pieces together. Although there is no moisture in epoxy for the biscuit to absorb, it still provides more surface area for the epoxy, plus the biscuits help register and align the teak during the clamping process. ABOVE: After the epoxy has cured. I'm getting ready to belt sand these with 80-grit to smooth it out. Top photo is for the "toilet" cabinet, the bottom photo is a teak window sill for the window behind the tub. So...not the greatest series of "how to" photos. But hopefully they'll help a bit. Mongo

mmomx2: I replied at the other post before I saw this one. Here's what I posted: "beachcomber: We have Verde Peacock granite, which is similar to Uba Tuba. mmomx2: Three years ago we couldn't find any 2x4 honed/acid washed crema marfil tiles, so we had the stone guys cut them from 12x12s which we used in the bathroom. I don't know specifically how much this backsplash cost, but it was probably more expensive than precut tiles due to extra labor. We did find 4x4 tiles with pillowed edges, but really wanted the 2x4 look. dkass: I bet your 1x2s will be gorgeous! " I'm not sure if there is a difference between honed and acid washed marble. I recall hearing that marble usually came in polished form and an acid wash was used to take off the polished surface to make it "honed". Maybe someone more knowledgeable can jump in and give you the real story. Sorry you're having as much trouble finding the 2x4 size as we did. And I can't help with the cost because we had to make last minute changes to the granite (original not available anymore) and therefore backsplash too. So alot of numbers got thrown around while my head was spinning and trying to make on the fly decisions! But it all turned out just wonderful..we love our granite and backsplash. Good luck with yours!

"I'm a sucker for those wide brim straw hats with a lavender/floral ribbon." Somehow I'm not surprised. :D I think I just need to get over the kitchen being in the family room. It's the whole point of this addition--being able to put the kitchen in a CASUAL area (instead of overlooking my living and dining rooms as it does now) where it can just BE without messing up the "good" parts of the house. I think we do want something that goes with the bones of the house, so maybe wood. The image I posted above is what the house originally had, so obviously I'm not going to go that far! (But seriously, I'd consider it if anyone made those lipped plywood cabs these days...). I've seen some painted fifties cabinets that were pretty great. but I think we're going to do wood. I'm thinking a natural or mildly stained slab, cherry or walnut maybe. Sort of modern, maybe mid-century modernish but not quite. More mid-century mild? We're too sloppy to pull off a totally sleek modern kitchen. We've always had stainless steel counters and that would probably be weird behind the sofa so I don't know--maybe we need a "curb" on the back side of the peninsula so it doesn't matter. In this house I have learned that tile isn't that bad a surface (although this tile is ugly) and I don't even mind the cast iron sink (I used to break coffee carafes too often). Of course all of the tile I like is sort of feminine. So yes, we're clueless. The kitchen table is a '60s surfboard shape in orangey pecan with these chairs (the handmade needlepoint has been rehomed and they've been recovered and can be again): The other furniture (that we currently have) that will probably go in there is a stereo console that serves as a TV stand. The spouse could fight that but the spouse would lose--it's hard to find a record player in a drawer! It is nicer in person--has spectacular walnut veneers on the sides and top. We'll have to get a new couch and I plan to get my papasan chair out of the attic (ssshhh don't tell!). Also maybe a 4' wide hutch of the 1960s French provencal orange maple variety. So, while I am totally off topic here on Rosie's small cozy kitchen, I am putting enough junk in this room to turn it into a small cozy kitchen! aHA! So, medium wood tone cabinets tucked into a gloomy windowless corner of a great room. (There will be skylights if I can't somehow get clerestory windows in there.) We may do an exposed beam type of ceiling but I'm guessing we won't have enough light to wood panel it. Yeah that's right. I want wood paneling and I'm not ashamed to admit it! If we do go with a taller ceiling then we can have taller windows and maybe a little more light feeling back in the hole. Appliances, well, I am cheap so I'll be reusing my black dishwasher, but I am ready to retire my black fridge which wasn't supposed to survive the last remodel. I don't really care much what it is; it just has to go and it has to fit. We may end up with a builtin--it's just too soon to say since I don't have my kitchen walls nailed down yet. All I know is that it's goin' in the hole! I have no style.