What beautiful stories....thank you, kindred spirits! My own love of nature began in childhood, when my parents' 2 acres of woods and creek seemed to hold unlimited possibilities for discovery and adventure. I knew no names of things, only the richness of sensory experience.....the scarlet of Virginia Creeper in September, the trilling of Spring Peepers in March, the smell of honeysuckle in June. I loved the strangeness, the vast mystery, the invitation for exploration that the woods represented. As a teenager, I drew away from nature, absorbed in the usual teenage activities. Then in college I needed a science credit of some kind and impulsively chose Field Ecology. The choice changed my life! I learned, for the first time, the LOGIC of nature, the amazing harmony of ecological interdependency. It just blew me away that 'nature' wasn't just some hodge-podge of living things, but that each component......from rocks to soil type to plants and trees to insects to birds and mammals....each were intertwined in marvelously balanced, perpetual cycles which made sense, made more sense, in fact, than most human activities. I learned to identify the "22 natural communities of Missouri," the limestone glades and granite balds, the oak-hickory forest and the ox-bough slough. For years after I could go nowhere without drawing a companion's attention to the natural community we were passing. Then I moved away. But I came back some years later. It seems I am as hopelessly native to this region as an indigenous bird or wildflower. I could not feel at home anywhere else. Having returned here, I've made an ongoing project of identifying trees and birds, fossils and wildflowers. I'm rehabilitating my family land to (hopefully) return it to its natural state, and I've volunteered with wildlife and wild bird rescue groups. These have been very educational experiences, but the scientific aspects of nature hardly represent the full picture for me. As an artist, my aesthetics are almost entirely inspired by nature, the seasons, the textures, the colors.....these define my personal sense of soul and spirit. Alone on a walk in the woods, I experience a peace and larger perspective, profound feelings of awe, respect and gratitude. Much, much gratitude. I guess, as Frank Lloyd Wright would say, "Nature is my church." I've also been very involved in local efforts to curtail development that would destroy the last refuges of nature here, both in zoning of private land and public parks. Because if you love something, especially something that cannot defend itself, sometimes you have to fight for it. This activism has also added enormous richness to my life, for I have learned the fascinating protocols and structure of community politics, and through it met my closest friends, including my dear, sweet boyfriend, a nature lover like me. But where did I get my love of the woods? I don't know. It seems to have been there forever...

Hi, I saw a specialty site on the internet,just google fireplace mantles. They look pricey but nice, however there are other choices depending on how rustic you want. I built a cabin years ago and the place I went for stair planks and a bar top and a mantle was a saw mill. When logs come in they saw them to your thickness, I got 2" slabs with the "skip peel" edge still on. I asked them to plane them top and bottom but leave the raw edge on one side, that edge is the outside of the log after it goes through the mill. Some time they throw that plank away but they really turn out nice with lots of sanding and lots of coats of spar varnish on them. And the little bits of bark stays on when there is lots of varnish. Second hand furniture stores and auction houses also have great finds. I once found a bed head board that had lots of carving and made a shelf out of it. Post pictures when your done, we'd love to see it.

Yes, Marti, I realize a slab has no crawl space. I live on a slab! I just don't know what you live on. There is the issue of a using a vapor/moisture barrier when installing the engineered wood on a slab. That is important. Did your installers do that? (if you have a slab.) Also floating the boards over the slab rather than glueing can lead to more noise and uneveness. Have also read the boards need to be absolutely straight Techniques may be open to debate, but your installers need to be mindful of your needs in this regard. Slab and what grade it is, & use of a moisture barrier need to be considered. ( None of this may apply to you.) Good luck! I wish you could get the floors changed that you're not happy with, and I think the installers should be held accountable for shoddy workmanship on some level.

Hi andrea and no.s & uncle -- thanks. As an appliance garage, I agree with all you say. I don't have one in my kitchen and was never tempted. I don't actually have a problem seeing appliances sitting on countertops (obviously; if you've seen pictures of how I live you will notice a certain high bar an tolerance for clutter). But you're right, andrea, it's the tambour door I'm after, not the appliance-housing capacity. I wondered about that reliability issue. If you install them yourself is it any better do you think? I'm pretty much anticipating the door being open much of the time. It's intended for waist height in a floor-ceiling narrow-ish stack used for linens and things. It's located on a hallway and I think having a drawer at chest-and-above height will not be so good. But I'm worried about cabinet doors opening smack-dab at chest height into the walk-way. So I was thinking at that mid-height to nix the doors altogether with a "roll-away" one. I saw those swing up doors but worry about their stick-out-edness the same as swinging cabinet doors. An open shelf could work but I'm afraid it would look a little cavernous. So andrea - what's a "garage door" style door if not a tambour door? Maybe, having wider slats? I don't know the lingo. I've seen those open and slide back type doors on cabinets intended for TVs ... I could look into finding the hardware; it must exist. That's a good idea. I hadn't followed up on that. But you'd need to keep the side areas of the space clear. I can imagine when housing a massive TV that's easy enough, just position it on top of a shelf, which they do. When the space is intended for kchatkes, I'm guessing it might become a nightmare and unusable very quickly. Good point about the cabinet above needing to stay closed for the up-and-out hinges. Actually, best would be a tambour that slid horizontally all the way around - not up but sideways. I bet that would be better-functioning. You wouldn't be fighting gravity... I haven't settled on the making of these cabinets. But we had our kitchen done by, basically, a maquiladora. That's a whole nother set of options when on the border. For some reason I feel a little queasy about this, though I'm no fan of nationalism --- anyway, that's what we settled on before. It worked well-enough in the end, but it was something of a fight that I've been reluctant to return to the fray of. Still, it is likely where we'll wind up. And yet, none of it is settled. They certainly could do inset but it might look a little funny? Though the tambour is essentially inset, so there you have it.... Thanks for thinking about this, all.