Hi Ed and Betsy -Its so great to actually hear all these accounts of rust and that other newbies are as confused as me - I still don't really know when the 'streaking' that DL's get is just snail/worm trails discoloration or might be the start of it. I pinch off what doesn't look good to me and treat, and so far I haven't seen any dusty spores yet. What I don't know is what it is when a DL leaf has a lighter green 'leopard print' like color running through it, like it lost some color but is not yellow yet. Is that the start of it also?? I'm sad Ed that it isn't recommended to use these in garden design - I'm going to work on that. Our nursery has disease resistant DL's that are very pretty - but nothing compared to these incredible crosses. I'm going to watch my high end DL's and see if any develop as more rust-resistant ones. I figure that if I have them several seasons without any hint of it, maybe I could try to use them then. Thanks again for all this time answering all this! -Chris in CA

Hello Everyone, Ok. I understand that some people are skeptics and that is very welcome, certainly it is very good to ask questions and doubt things we don't know very well. :o) First of all, I would like to explain ion exchange resins a little bit better. The above mentioned resins are made of cross-linked polystyrene a polymer insoluble in water which is used in many products in the food industry. From coffee cups to food trays, this polymers don't dissolve and they don't enter your body. The Resins are then functionalized to add acidic groups to the polysterene. The products still don't actually dissolve within the solution, they just interact with it in the same way that surface acid and basic sites found in clays interact with water to stabilize pH in soil. So you are not "adding chemicals" to your nutrient solutions, you are just adding a source of "active surface sites" which are able to stabilize pH. Nothing else, nothing more. Also, it would be interesting to point here that ion exchange resins are used WIDELY in water, foor and pharmaceutical processing. They are used to eliminate hardness in softners, to take out heavy metals in polluted water, to purify pharmaceutical products, etc. Ion exchange resins are quite harmless and - as I said before - they merely provide reactive sites in solution without the actual contribution of any additional "chemicals" to it. Regarding the actual pH buffering capabilities of the resin, the resin will not lend itself to any pH adjustment level you want. Each resin does have a fixed pH level in which it will work. These resins will maintain pH between 5.8-6.2 (small variations may happen due to differences in fabrication between batches). I hope that with this explanation you will better understand what they do and how they act and that they won't add anything "harmful" to your solutions. They are widely used in the food, water, medical and pharmaceutical industries so saying that they are "toxic" or "damaging to your customers" has no scientific basis. In fact, the water you drink when you buy bottled water has probably gone through at least some ion exchange resin columns to ensure adequate purification. I hope some of you decide to try this out and comment the benefits, certainly not only do these ion exchange resins provide you with a more "natural way" of balancing pH (since they prevent rapid pH changes that happen when you adjust with the addition of acids or bases imitating the slow-acting surface chemistry based buffering power in soils) but they also allow you to avoid the constant addition of acids or bases to maintain adequate pH levels. Thank you very much for all the follow ups ! :o) Daniel Here is a link that might be useful: Everything Hydroponics

Steph, I hope you are recovering well from your surgeries and that they went well for you. Eld, did I know you by another name? That was another thing that happened when Houzz took over - we did not know who we were talking to anymore! Steph, is MObound somebody I know by a different name, too? Here is the big bathroom done. I think you saw it already, Steph.Wheelchair accessible vanity I designed with pull-out storage in the left leg, a drawer, and shelf storage for the toilet area in the right leg. Wheelchair accessible shower. We took 8 to 12 inches from the bedroom nest door to get it this wide. Wood shelves where the old med cab was, and two new med cabs that hold all the stuff for grooming. The other end of the shower and the new cupboard. Because we moved the shower wall, the bedroom closet that sits behind the new cupboard became extra deep. So I stole some back to make a cupboard. The closet now has 12" deep shelves above the cupboard and behind the clothes hanging rods. I do upper and lower rods in my closets. We widened the bathroom door and three bedroom doors to 36", so two walls in the hall had to be moved to allow this. Those pictures come later, first I have ones of our bedroom. It still had wallpaper from the previous owners (blue striped at bottom, floral band at chair rail height, with textured white paper at top) and ratty blue carpet. Jim took that up, screwed the floor to stop squeaks, leveled the floor, and laid down this nice off-white cork for me. They stripped the wallpaper, fixed the walls, and painted. I had them install these lights over our closets so we could see our clothes better. The sconces are ceramic and painted with the trim paint. The lights are LED. The room door here got moved when widened. See the little jog-outs from the other two walls at the ends of the diagonal walls? The old walls came straight out from there, so that it formed a short wall going from the wall on the right, It met another short wall that started at the other end of the diagonal wall and came straight at us. The room door was on the side that faced the wall on the left of the picture. I had a small bookcase on the wall that would have faced us. So a big triangle about 3 ft x 3 ft was added to the interior of our bedroom This rug was one I bought for my "bachelorette" living room when I finished college at age 34, after being divorced. I had a pretty floral chintz sofa, rose swivel rocker and blue and cream plaid chair and this rug tied it all together. The sofa got old and worn and the rug got cleaned and put away for 15 years. I have always planned to bring it up from the basement and use it here, if we ever got our bedroom done. It fits well sideways and our bed sits on it under these windows. The bedroom that got made smaller is next to ours and it is now a violet color called "Plum's the Word" I am in the midst of setting that room up as my exercise and craft room. Here is part of that room when it was serving as our bedroom during renovations. This room also got the cork flooring.Here is a photo showing the new cork flooring up against the older linoleum that is in the rest of the house. Here are the doors! from left to right, bathroom pocket door, Plum Room door, our bedroom door, and linen closet door. We can't see the smallest bedroom's door that is to the left of the bathroom. That is a new light fixture. And finally, we have the bathroom door on the right, the smallest bedroom door in front of us, and the hall to the foyer. This bedroom lost a 3 ft x 3 ft triangle of space when the door got widened, This wall used to be perpendicular to the bathroom next to it. See the corner? Yes, when you enter my house, you leave the foyer and you either turn right to go toward the kitchen and family room, or you end up in the bedrooms. I can stand next to my bed and see the front door, now! There is a living room off the foyer that serves us as Bill's office/music room/library. So, these are the last of the renovations. Other than having a shed built, there is nothing left to do to my house!

@yourchigirl, while I would like nothing more than to rip out the built in pantry, there is ducting and electrical running in the partition wall by the mud room door and electrical in the wall by the stove. I am capable of tearing those out, but it is not in the budget for this project. I could hold off on the entire project and save money to be able to include it in the budget, but then I would want to install a 48" built-in fridge along that wall, which adds another $11K to the project. I have no doubt it would look amazing but that is more project creep than I want to deal with. On another front, I've pretty much convinced myself that an induction cooktop is going to replace the electric cooktop instead of propane. I am still considering the placement of the cooktop along the wall vs. the island. I know the prevailing sentiment by the KD pros here is that a cooktop does not belong on the island and every time I am using it I am conscious of their advice. However, I'm not yet convinced that the way we use the kitchen island and cooktop works for us and the extra time and $$ required to relocate the cooktop is worth it. I would like to focus more on having the right storage for the appropriate tools in the best locations. I am working on defining my task areas based on a couple layouts and will walk through them with the Minister of War and Finance (Wife) when I'm done with them.