Hi Mike, Dont buy the oxypetalum. I am sending you a few pieces of this one. It is true that they grow like crazy. I left this one at my parents house when I moved out because it does take a tremendous amount of space. I got a call from my mom and she told me that she was waiting for the day that that was going to strangle her..LOL. Once you have an established cutting, you can expect some new growths to be a couple feet long. No joke, mine had some growths that were 4 ft long in one summer!! The blooms are great! Just make sure your going to be home to enjoy them! Mine only lasted one night and that was it. As soon as the sun went down, the bud would begin to open. By the time the sun came up, it was closing. Logees describes it as having flowers the size of dinner plates. I had some that were even larger than that!!! Mine is pitifull now compared to when it was in its glory. I wished I would have found a way to care for it here. At one point, that plant was around 10ft long but I have had it for over 10 years. You can control the growth with pruning. Just make sure you do it at the right time or you will end up with no blooms. I will have to read up on my notes on this before I can tell you when to prune it. I can send you 3-4 nice cuttings next week with the others if you want okay? I also have a nice big pink epi. I don't know the name of the variety but it is really pretty. Trust me, neither of them will take a lifetime to get blooms from. My oxy bloomed in 1.5-2 years after I got it. I started a couple for friends and the one I gave to my landlords mom bloomed the same year I rooted it! The pink variety I bought locally and they had rooted cuttings with buds on them. I will say that it may take a couple years for those blooms to reach there potential. Andrew

I'm back on this as I finished painting the table this past weekend. I forgot the camera so I didnt' take new picks. I'm hand waxing a paste wax finish on it. I did one draw to see and it, if I must say so myself, looks amazing. So do think this pull is too busy? More traditional with a modern flair?: This second one is 1/3 the price of the first. Is it because it's made of zinc with a satin nickel finish and the other one is solid brass with satin nickel finish? What does that have to do with quality and does that impact it's durability and cleanability? This will be a well used bakers table... doughy hands and all. Too fru fru? A boring plain one: Two more cause they all look the same to me and I can't understand why some are only $5 or $6 and others close to $20 . I need help with this... Kinda contemporary? k I dont' even know what I posted anymore..

Tresw and Airorne, thank you, and I remember you both replying to my previous thread regarding the same problem. I will go out right now and put a marble on the pavers and see what it does. Should it roll AWAY from the pool? (That makes sense, but I didn't know if it should be an 'obvious' roll.) Like I said, we contracted the whole thing ourselves. So I'm not sure where to start to find problems. It would seem to me that the paver people would have double checked the grade before they did their work, but who knows. Tresw, you know a lot about salt...and I know you've told me not to 'trust' the reading on my Aqualogic, but is that number ANYWHERE reliable? After last week's "wash out", I drained the 2-3 inches from the top and had to add 80 lbs of salt. That put me back around 2900 (according to display.) Now, with yesterday's "wash out", I'm back to "check system, low salt". I'm obviously losing a lot of water with the overflow, but is that enough to need that much salt every couple of weeks? Thanks for the help. I love this forum! You guys are great. Kathy

We have a Thermador FD and I absolutely love it. I love having the freezer on the bottom most of all, so you could have the same thing with a single door on top. I'll never have a top freezer again. I love that I can look down into the freezer and see what is in there, and can easily move things around, to see what is on the bottom without a frozen steak falling out on my foot. The Thermador also has a top drawer in the freezer that that slides out and that is where I keep things I use most frequently. That is also where the ice maker is. I love that also because it is so easly to scoope ice out and my kids can reach it easily and get their own ice. I had a side by side when we moved into this house and I despised it. Never again. As for the french door vs. single door on top -- I like the FD. We would have clearance issues with a big door opening into a fairly narrow aisle so the FD works better. And I have the fridge paneled with cabinetry. I think the FD has more of a furniture look than a single door. The Thermador is also fully integrated. It is totally flush and doesn't stick out at all, and I love that. But the shelves in the fridge are pretty high up, and if you are short, it might be an issue. And my kids can't really reach into the fridge yet, although they will soon. And I do mostly open both doors every time I open the fridge, but it is more a habit than a necessity, and it doesn't bother me in the slightest.