Very new to growing. I am the brown thumb in my green thumb family. my grandfather could bring dead plants back to life, i killed them. receently, ironically after his death, ive been able to grow and keep plants alive. this is my eureka verigated lemon tree. after newly getting my meyer lemon tree which has already bloomed, ive been concerned about how this one is doing. i found the term sucker branches in my search that lead me here. i am concerned something needs to be trimmed for the health and growth of the tree and i have no idea how or what to trim. In early december, the lower branches bloomed (however my husband didnt water it the week i was away and the tree dropped leaves and the buds). are any if these branches needing to be removed? i purchased it about 10 months ago, the bottom branches were not present at the time of purchase i believe

When I remodeled my home, I had select red birch, on-site-finished, placed everywhere in the house except for the bathrooms. No stain was applied to the floor...I left it the natural, lovely color. Even the stairs received this treatment. Here are some photos of the finished product. After living with these floors for 5 years, I can tell you I love the birch flooring and never tire of the variety of grain and colors in the wood. It's truly art-for-the-floor. Yes, if you drop something heavy on the floor, there will be a dent or two....but it doesn't detract from the floor or destroy its beauty. I've lived with oak and red oak floors in previous homes, and much prefer the red birch flooring in this home. Hope these photos help. Kitchen: Living Room: Living Room with stairs: LR Finished floor, before I moved in:

My first thought was that if you want mahogany color---use mahogany. The color will be much better. Maple is difficult to stain/dye evenly. It is also difficult to get maple as dark as most mahogany. Birch is very bland, very little grain differences. I do not know how well it takes stain/dye, however. Pricing will vary with area and type of wood----there are basically two different types of maple(hard and soft). Soft is less expensive, but more difficult to work. Hard comes in several grades, #2 grade has some color differences---dark wood in the light. #3 has more dark. Much of the cabinets will probably be made using plywood with the wood of choice veneer. Veneered ply often takes stains/dyes differently than solid wood of the same species. My advice is to find a cabinet maker you like and have that company show you what they can do to achieve your choices. That will give you the opportunity to make specific decisions.

We had to cut our IKEA block down to 49 x 25 (it's actually 49 5/8" x 25 5/8") and it was a pain (delayed us for weeks b/c we don't have a table saw and had to wait for our cabinetmaker to have time to stop by and do it for us, and it also took some precision on his part to cut such a small amount off!) Getting one the right dimensions is well worth it, I think. We looked at the Boos and I liked their wood a lot...our issue was needing 49" so we would have had to get the 60" one and cut it down, which was dumb/expensive. If your sizing is perfect, go for it! I'll also say on the birch---we have a freestanding IKEA butcher block in birch leftover from our pre-remodel kitchen, and I'm fairly certain the birch IKEA uses is a European birch that's much higher on the Janka scale than American birch is (about equivalent to hard maple, if I remember from when we were researching it). It's held up fine to cutting directly on it. BUT it is a very cool yellowish birch as a result---not something I would mix with cherry floors. We chose the beech instead for our new kitchen, where we had douglas fir and natural cherry in the mix. It leans to the warm rosy pinkish side once it's finished and blends much better with those woods, IMO---but I'm pretty sure it's not in stock right now. Maple seems like a much better bet if you're going for warm.