I am about ready to construct my 3 ETs thanks to Ray helping me out with the wicking baskets. I am going to try the removable cages. Home Depot sells the 24" 1/4" threaded rods for $1.47. Unlike bdobs, my local store sells the 36" ones for $5.87 each! , so needless to say I went with the shorter ones. I don't think I am even going to cut them.. I just hope they are not too heavy to adversely affect the cage support system and the aeration bench. The extra length above the soil might help a little for the taller tomato plants too. Then again..with enough twisting patience, I could twist the nut high enough on the bottom of the rod where the reservoir is to give some stilt-like support to the bench. That will give 8 points of 4" extra support in addition to the 4" cut drain pipe pieces for the bench. This might not be a bad idea since I am using the cheaper, thinner Sterlite totes ($7.50 each at Walmart). I don't want that cage system to jab a hole through the bottom of the reservoir, so I'm trying to come-up with a cheap way to add protective 'shoes' to the bottom of the rods. Possibly soda caps from 2-litter bottles of Coke can be 'shoes' glued to them. I bought the Glamos cages a few years ago at Walmart and accidentally took almost double. When I got home and was pulling the cages apart I noticed my mistake. I returned the extras to Walmart, but I bet that happens very commonly, especially when Walmart just asks you to run out and pull the UPC off one of them and run back to the check-out and asks you for quantity. Ooops! My cages are bent at the 'feet' from trying too hard to jam them through subsurface slabs of limestone deep in my garden, so when I get pictures up to share, don't be surprised by the artsy-look of the randomly re-formed shape of my cages.

My biggest mistake in the beginning was to decorate solely on looks and style instead of comfort and our lifestyle. Silk drapes? - not so great with 3 little boys (ditto to about 1,000 other things when it comes to kids - certain upholstery fabrics, light colored carpets, area rugs under the dining table, etc.). Intricate moldings on furniture or cabinets? Too much dust and grime to keep up with when you live in a windy desert. I *still* make the mistake of Pre Buying - I don't know if there'll ever be hope for me in that area. But at least now I know to get rid of it when it doesn't meet our needs and is instead a major pain in the patootie. Two years ago we wanted to buy a leather sofa and love seat but could only afford one. Instead of saving and waiting , we decided to buy a microfiber set ---ugh, uckk, ick. It was uncomfortable and became stained in a very short time (my kids are well-mannered and well-behaved, but there's not much you can do when they barf on the furniture). Last month I finally got fed up and sold the set and now we have NO sofa or love seat at all.

Any of the marble and even tumbled stone can vary and you just don't know until you open your box just what your run of tile will look like. Be prepared to order extra boxes to pick through. I also ripped out my first backsplash. Join the club, there are a few of us here. My tile was a simple white crackle tile. It was installed beautifully. But after it was grouted it had a slight grey cast that looked horrible with the granite.How could I have known this would happen? We ripped it out the next day. But then it took me months to find a replacement. It became an obsession. Finally a sale woman said "At some point you need to make peace with this." And she was right. But, I had to go through the process of getting mutiple opinions so I wouldn't make another error. Post your choices here. GW's will love to give you our opinion. Good luck. Your husband sound like mine. If he was agreeable to ripping it out, than he is in your corner.

Here is a followup to my original posting. Installation of the plank flooring is rather easy but preparing the subfloor is anything but! We are very happy with the final results but getting there wasn’t easy. Some of the SUPERCore Xtreme, Cattanooga Hickory, has been down for more than a year. None of it shows any signs of wear, even when inspected carefully. We vacuum all of the floors in the house every week using 2 inexpensive eufy robo vacs and mop once a month. The color does not show the dirt easily. If you walk on it when it is wet after mopping, it often shows footprints when dry, during certain times of the day when the natural light is just right. I expect the floor to be looking good long after I’m gone. I think the SUPERCore Xtreme, Cattanooga Hickory, is an excellent product. It is really tough. It locks together easily if you follow the directions. Delivery was only one week late; very good considering the supply chain issues at that time. The planks had 5 distinct patterns. I was expecting 6. Bear in mind that the characteristic feature of a pattern, such as a unique knot, can appear on the left side or the right side of a plank and might appear at any location along the length of the plank. So there is a lot of variation among the planks. Before putting them down, I separated a few boxes into 5 different piles of planks, based on the pattern. I installed the flooring in our smallest bedroom first, by myself in November 2021. Waited for spring to resume work. I hired a helper in May 2022 for the remainder after a knee became very painful. My helper connected the planks together and marked the pieces to be cut. I selected the planks from the piles for him to put down and and made the cuts, so I could remain on my feet. I used an electrically powered table saw, jigsaw and a mitre saw to make the cuts. Discovered weeks later that I tore the lateral meniscus in my right knee, probably from getting up and down from the floor so much. Had surgery on the knee in November 2022. Not sure when I’ll start the last small bedroom. All rigid core plank flooring that locks together and floats on top of the sub floor requires a subfloor that is unusually flat. The floor does not have to be level. It does have to be flat. If the subfloor has significant peaks and valleys, (high spots and low spots) the relatively rigid planks will bridge over the low spots, leaving an air space between the top of the subfloor and the bottom of the plank. Stepping on a plank that is bridging over a low spot will cause a popping or snapping sound. You may find the popping and snapping sounds to be annoying. I have learned that most of these noises subside, almost completely, after several months. If the valley is too deep, your weight will stress the tongue and groove locking mechanism too much. Repeated stepping on such a spot will likely cause it to fail. Then the planks may move independently of one another and come apart. That would be a serious problem. Our one story home was built in 2000. It has a concrete subfloor. I have installed the SUPERCore Xtreme, Cattanooga Hickory in one small bedroom, a large bedroom/sitting room and a laundry room. In every room I had to flatten the subfloor before installing the plank flooring. I did the small bedroom first. After watching several Youtube videos, I decided to grind down the high spots instead of filling in the low spots. I bought all new gear to do the job, since I had 950 sq ft of flooring to install. That was a big mistake. Grinding down a concrete floor is an extremely slow, noisy, dirty, dusty, hazardous, and physically demanding job. Here is a photo of the floor in the small bedroom. In subsequent rooms I filled in the low spots with LevelQuik RS Self-Leveling Underlayment, made by Custom Building Products. Mixing and applying this product requires at least 2 people. It’s sold by The Home Depot and others. I did not cover the entire floor with the leveling compound. That would have required about 3 times as much leveling compound and would have raised those floors about ⅛ “ which I didn’t want to do. (Self-Leveling is a misnomer. The stuff is the consistency of thin pancake batter and requires some assistance and tooling to make a smooth flat surface. For the purpose of creating a flat subfloor for plank flooring in a home, I suggest that you add about 10% more water than the directions indicate. Doing so will make it flow better without adversely affecting its performance when cured.) Prior to applying the leveling compound, I applied Multi-Surface Bonding Primer (MBP) to the concrete floor to ensure a tight bond between the original concrete and the leveling compound. (MBP is also made by Custom Building Products.) If you use the MBP you can feather the leveling compound to zero, and don’t have to maintain a minimum thickness of ⅛” over the entire floor. Here are some photos of the floor in the large bedroom completed in June 2022. Finding the borders of the high and low spots is tedious. Next time I will probably pour water in the previously identified low spots of the floor. Then I’ll mark the boundaries of the “puddles” with a large permanent black felt tip maker. Then vac up the water, let dry, apply MBP, and finally the leveling compound. The floor in the laundry room between the garage and the kitchen gets a lot of abuse. It was installed in September 2022. As you can see, the color of the flooring is highly dependent upon the light. That's why it's important to look at samples in your home. Paige; The Flooret Modin Base Soho sample that I tested was more abrasive compared to the SUPERCore Xtreme, Cattanooga Hickory sample. I hope this update is useful for some of you who are considering rigid core vinyl plank flooring.