Linda, thanks so much for responding. Glad you like the chair. They are very sturdy and not the least bit rickety (Is that a word? LOL) What can I look for in the construction that would tell you if it's an old chair or a young chair? I haven't turned it over to look at anything. DH did of course to take the seat off. I told DH this morning he could have put the chair on the tile floor in the foyer or something. You know men, he thought that was so unimportant. LOL I kill him when I say stuff like that and I say it just to make him crazy. My own form of self entertainment. HA! The flooring will be laminate. Here is one of the rooms already finished.

So guess what? I've now been to Ann Arbor for the first time in my life! Loved the town! Had some fabulous food there, and just found the entire Main. St. area to be very authentic, very lively on a summer Wed. afternoon, fabulous farmers market going on till 2, just perfect. After traipsing around Main St. for a bit, we drove to the Chain of Lakes area which was just about the perfect distance away, 30 minutes or so from the Main St., and an easy drive. As we drove on, I fell more and more in love with the landscape, which got more and more rural and beautiful as we approached the lake area. We first went to Portage Lake, and then to Baseline Lake. My first glimpse of Portage was perfect. Really liked the size, the setting, everything. It's a little difficult to GPS your way around a lake because I didn't have a specific address, just wanted to explore. The main part we saw had houses much too close together for my liking, though I loved many of the styles of homes. Similar feeling about Baseline. The overall problem was that my mom and sister are not good explorers. They are real homebodies, and don't get out to explore much on their own, so they were completely panicked about finding our way back, driving willy-nilly down roads that suddenly popped up etc. Once I realized I just wasn't going to be able to explore the way DH and I would, I just gave up on truly exploring the area. I did sneak down to the water's edge by trespassing at a house that looked somewhat vacated. The water seemed fairly clear, but there was definitely some algae at the shore. Not sure if that is a once every ten years kind of issue, or ongoing. At least I got to see the area, and assuming we could find a somewhat private waterfront home, it would definitely be in the running. On the other hand, 2 1/2 hours drive time from my sister's home to a lakehouse might prove to be too much adventure for mom and sis.... We're still hoping to get to Sleeping Bear at the end of Sept. so we'll have something to compare to. Thank you all so much for your help getting me there!

I commented on this thread a while back when I was trying to decide between the silgranite white or a darker color. I really wanted white because I thought it'd be prettier but I was afraid of the potential staining problems. Well I went for it and got the silgranite super single sink in white from home depot online. Even though the pictures don't show it, I bought the matching grate as well. I think the grate is a good investment as it protects both the sink and your dishes if you happen to drop them. It's been about 7 months now and I'm still so happy with my choice. I haven't had any problems with staining. I am careful with it as I would be with any item that cost me $300+ but I don't feel it's extreme. I always rinse out the sink after I use it and do at least a weekly clean with a liquid soft scrub unless I've done a lot of cooking. I have a bunch of microfiber cloths I got from Amazon that I use to wipe off any water spray on the counters' edge by the sink. I am meticulous about this because I have very hard water. Overall I love this sink. It's functional and beautiful.

We don't currently use this toilet. There is a leak somewhere, so the water to the tank is turned off. The toilet is just a "design feature" in our basement. When we moved into the house we thought we'd fix it at some point, but I don't know that it will ever happen (too many other things on the list). So I looked inside the tank over the weekend. I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me to do that before. It appears that the tank was replaced. The tank is made by Standard, and has a production date of January 13, 1930 under the lid. The tank is porcelain/ceramic. I believe that the toilet bowl is older. I've looked at every antique toilet and architectural salvage site that I can find on the internet. So far I haven't found any mention of S S Shedd & Bro or S S Sheoo & Bro. The toilets with writing inside and the ones with the shape of mine tend to be earlier ones however, making me think it might be original to the house. Maybe I should send an email to some of the salvage places and see if they can tell me anything (if I find anything out, I'll post an update). Still no clue about the cement pad. Lesterd's suggestion that it covers the plumbing connection is certainly possible. I'd also thought that maybe they had to elevate the toilet for drainage or to have better flushing.