I agree with shrubs_n_bulbs and dcarch. While it is useful to study the aquarium community, because they are very obsessed and very knowledgeable, you do definitely learn a lot. Unfortunately there are just not too many people participating in this forum and some of the people just seem to be here to sell lamps and spread misinformation. Our local lamp salesman should have banned long time ago. (New lamps for old! New lamps for old!) FWIW in my other life, I'm a senior pathologist, who is rather obsessed with perfection himself. In my professional life and in my hobby life, I like to go all the way, understand it all to the maximum that I am able to, and apply my knowledge to the utmost. My most inspiring person is Henry Kuska, who is a member of this forum, and who applies theory, scientific method, painstaking dedication, sweat, and generosity, all tempered with what is practical, and how can resources be applied most efficiently. Henry got me started on indoor gardening, and I have been going strong ever since. I think I started out with germination of rugosa achenes about 6 years ago. For that reason I commend shrub's comments most highly, please take 100% heed of them, because I completely endorse them. My viewpoint is also a very practical one, and although I am blessed that I can afford just about any gizmo or setup my heart would desire, I restrict myself however, I don't just go out and get the "newest and the best", don't play into manufacturer's hype, learn how to recognize real data from bogus. My holy grail is "most bang for the buck". I work hard for my money, and I try to spend it as wisely as I am able. The aquarium community is very good at evaluating reflectors, that's why I bought myself some lumenmax reflectors, although they're bent metal, the bends to the first approximation if a full parabola. I recommend them. Choice of lamps: Pulse start metal halide, blows away conventional halide by a country mile, there is absolutely no reason why anyone should use probe start for growing on land. Venture lamps sold by businesslights.com have a perfect spectrum for vegetative, can be run continuously, and in that mode last up to 30,000 hours. For general growing, a ratio of 2 x HPS : 1 x MH maximizes the terrific growing power of the sodium lamp and adds the blue spectrum that is critical for synthesis of chlorophyll and to discourage stem elongation. Try to design your garden so that it has at least 3 "sides", and cover the sides with mylar. A garden illuminated by 2 lamps, and surrounded by mylar, due to reflection, is equivalent of a garden out in the open illuminated with 3 lamps. For example I built a grow-closet, and lined all 4 sides by mylar, but my next project is to have a garden across the short dimension of a room that has kind of a 8' alcove. The back and sides of the "alcove" are covered in mylar, and the front is open, for general viewing, and access to work on it. Practical things and attention to detail is always critically important. The aquarium community must grapple with very high scattering losses of water. Scattering is proportional to wavelength (why the sky is blue), and for any useful light to reach the bottom of the aquarium, it must be top heavy with very short wavelength (blue violet). Aquarium owners also grow beautiful ?coral or other vegetation, they have colorful fish, and the extremely high color lamps are essential for the esthetics. Remember, the aquarium owner is buying it for pleasure to look at, we are buying for maximum size of crop for us to eat (vegetables and fruits), admire (various ornamental plant), or smoke, as the case may be. So while I am grateful to the aquarium community, and like yourself have read over extensively the forum discussions, the bottom line is I adapt what I learn there and apply it to land farming. Also why I study the cannabis growing forum, but due to LEO, the best forum overgrow.com was shut down. If you visit plantlightinghydroponics.com you will even notice that under their horticultural lamp selection, they superimpose the photosynthesis activity spectrum with the spectal output of the lamps they sell. However, the regular horizontal 400W pulse start Venture metal halide lamp sold in the sister company businesslights.com has the exact same spectral output as a SunMaster "horticultural vegetative" lamp, but has higher lumen output and longer lumen maintenance.Paul Mozarowski.

What a great set of realizations! Isn't it fun to have your "eyes open" and see the truth of what you need, want, etc.? I like that realization about the Christmas napkins--that you need to store them in the place where you will actually (and naturally) *find* them when you want them. You've made me think--I have a beautiful penguin Christmas candy dish, and I love it, but I seldom get it out. I suddenly realized I hadn't gotten it out, but couldn't remember where it was. I found it easily (still didn't get it out, though), but if I put it w/ the Christmas stuff, maybe I'd be more likely to actively seek a place to use and display it each year. I have some Christmas mugs, and they go in the Christmas decorations box; when the decorations come down, I swap the mugs around--I take the regular, ordinary mugs and put them in the Christmas box, to make room in the cabinet for the fancy mugs. That works really well. Then, we actually USE them, but they don't take up extra space. I collect penguins, and have a large collection of penguin ornaments. I've been slowly weeding them out, but still have several. I realized this year that some of them should just go--esp. the heavy ones. and I realized that the ball ornaments I've so carefully stocked away, haven't gotten used in YEARS, won't get used for several more, and aren't that great to begin with. I threw them out (actually, DH took them to the trash can on the corner, in case someone passing by wants them). If I do eventually have a use for that sort of ornament, I'll buy the new shatter-proof kind. That's one entire box fewer in the storage bin.

victoriajane, I found choosing a faucet one of the most difficult decisions--even though I kept telling myself that it would be replaceable if it was a total bust (unlike cabinets, counters, major appliances and layout.) Our prep sink size was limited by the cabinet I chose. The inside of the sink is 13" wide x 18" deep x 10" high. It ended up being a perfect size for us. I'm glad we ended up with a deep sink. Good Luck! I felt clueless about everything when I started our kitchen project. I had never done a kitchen before and hadn't really envisioned much beyond what I had already experienced kitchen-wise. I feel very fortunate to have found this forum and I benefitted from all the great questions like yours.

agree to get a crank umbrella. I think 9' round is fine for a rectangular table, tho probably won't shield everyone from the sun all the time... I have had a couple from home depot which were ok, but not great... I have a couple from frontgate now which are great, but I bought them at end of season clearance sale a couple of years ago- wouldn't pay full price. I also had a smaller (6 or 7') umbrella which I had for many yrs- so long that I don't remember where I got it, but it was inexpensive, crank with a metal pole- probably bought it at a home depot/target type of store and it held up unbelievably well and we weren't careful with it and it was in a couple of windy areas at a couple of our homes... so doesn't have to be expensive to be good quality!