Thanks for the pic. I just bought one on-line and thought I had a baby but it looks about the same size as yours. Now I can hope for blooms. I'm giving mine bright light and keeping it fairly moist. Is that right?

Some floor grates had adjustable slats to regulate air flow. I do not think these are floor grates they do not present a proper surface for walking on. These seem to be radiator covers. They do not have any mounting holes, so would have sat into a frame. The frame would have had legs to straddle the radiator and support the covers. The top would not have been covered with a throw cloth since it was desired to provide air circulation through the cover. The home owner may have sat a kettle of water on the cover to help humidify dry winter air. These are "dust catchers" so the lady of the house may have tired of cleaning them. If the heating plant in the house was modernized and the radiators no longer used, then these heavy covers would no longer have a use. The design and appearance of these pieces suggest these are cast iron. Its a beautiful piece of work and worthy of keeping as a sample of craftsmanship not seen today. The pattern is intricate and well executed.

vieja, I wanted to let you know, I buy most of my spices from spicebarn.com. They have hickory smoke powder and salt. We love to grill and bbq and someone told us about this company because you can get really cool stuff from them such as worcestershire powder, hickory powder (or salt), honey powder, beer powder, etc., to make rubs with. Just thought I'd let you know in cast you're interested.

That was an interesting experiment. Looks like the 5 coats of Bulletproof didn't do much. I like that he used both the honed and the polished samples. If I ever had a lemon overnight on my marble I would be pretty freaked to see that deep of etching. As he said, "It was gnarly". I had a friend who did have a whole bunch of etching on her counter and after about five years she had this marble guy come out and he wet buffed all her counters and they were back to "new". While not cheap, it is a possible solution for those that have a limit to what they can tolerate in terms of "patina". Thanks needinfo!