Sure kp, can post some info for you....This is the fourth year for our newly formed garden club. We have one fundraiser per year and it is the Garden Art Fair & Bake Sale. We have about 30 members. All are asked (not required) to make garden art or something related to gardening or baked goods and donate it to the club. We rent a school gym, set up tables, advertise for about a month and then sell everything that was donated. Last year, in about three hours, we brought in $1,300!. We do have unusual house plants and some garden plants, but we try and stay away from too much of that, as we want to be know for our garden art. We also do not wish to run into competition with our garden centers because they usually have their open houses the same weekend. It is a great fundraiser plus it keeps the members busy all year searching for new ideas and creating their art. It is so much fun to see what members come up with. Some of the things we sell: We have totems, silverware windchimes, mosaic work, stepping stones, garden aprons, bird feeders, hypertufa pots & mini gardens, birdhouses, butterfly houses, garden signs, garden baskets, decorated garden chairs, watering cans, garden books, plate flowers, garden crosses, a willow trellis, homemade jams & jellies (red hot pepper jelly, onion jelly, raspberry jam, homemade salsa, and many others. I will take pictures this year and post them if anyone is interested. No, we don't have other vendors, as this is our fundraiser. Past years, we have also hosted workshops every hour, on the hour, but the last few years, they have been less and less. Everyone who comes just wants to buy, so this year we aren't offering anything extra. It is great exposure for our club too. Many people come in and ask questions about gardening. We even pick up new members when they come to visit us. And I think our own members are our best customers! BUT we aren't allowed to buy anything until we open up the doors for the public. Becky

elizawhyza, you ask an important question about working with a contractor in putting in a largely recycled kitchen. Many people who artfully incorporate old things into their homes are seasoned DIY'ers, but I needed grown ups to get things in properly. My contractor is not a firm. He is a recovering economist who has an affinity for old houses and likes to see them respected. His own skills are excellent, and he puts together work crews for each job he undertakes, whether it's a bathroom or a whole house. I cannot imagine taking on this house with a different kind of contracting firm. Indeed, he looked at all the houses I was considering and outline what work would be entailed in for each of them. I have worked with him on several less extensive projects over the years, and I consider the trade-offs -- basically I had to start with a very rough ballpark estimate of what his work would cost and I was responsible for contracting with the electrical, HVAC, window, and floor people, but I knew that I would get careful work on the house -- more than reasonable. By the time we got to the kitchen, he and his crew has turned this into this which entailed jacking up the roof, replicating a lost corbel, and patching the original cypress clapboards with newly milled ones. In that context, shimming the kitchen cabinets vertically as well as laterally was not a big deal. On your other question, I bought the cabinets from my local craigslist, after checking out what was available almost daily for several months. I talked to the owner, drove out to look at the cabinets, paid him for them, and then hired three guys and a truck to pick them up and bring them into the city. The distance was about 15 miles and the moving cost a couple hundred dollars. There are also a couple of local non-profit house part recycling places that occasionally have nice cabinets, but that works best if you are in a position to check them daily, which I am not. The non-local sources for good used cabinets are ebay (which tends to have kitchen center displays that are listed for "local pick-up") and and Green Demolitions. The latter carries some very up-market used kitchen from the NYC area. They will email you all kinds of pictures to show the condition of what you might be buying, and they can help customers arrange shipping. I have never actually purchased from them, but I would certainly consider it. I look forward to seeing your cabinets. Best of luck with the whole project. hbk Here is a link that might be useful: Green Demolitions.

I used the same tile as the bath surrounds for countertops in my rent houses because it is very economical. Can't undermount sinks though, but so many nice sinks available. At 2.89 a foot cannot be beat--I used bullnose edge on one vanity so the edges were 4$ per foot or so. I use large porcelain with very thin grout lines and epoxy or fusion grout so the grout lines are no problem. Tile edges must be same color as top for it to look good if not using bullnose....although you can spray paint edges but I never have. In one house I used glass accents on the countertop and it turned out quite pretty. So....plywood, thinset and screw down denshield resin impregnated gypsum from Lowes made by USG (lightweight and sooooo easy to use, love it) and tile. the tile on top overlaps the tiled edges. So more than 2.89 ft. but not much for me as I usually have leftovers. Sorry about sideways photos:-p If you go this route, lay the entire countertop out first and check your overhang and especially your symetry, to look pro it has to be symetrical...the cuts, layout, etc. the left side of the counter the exact mirror of the right side. Floorndecor has 10' quartz prefab slabs for $500. You can take and pick up from a granite fabricator. Or Maybe use a wet saw to cut the slab and diamond blade hole saw and garden hose to cut a vessel sink hole.

Lynn2006, my Brazilian Cherry floors are by TrafficMaster. We got them on Clearance at Home Depot. We werenÂt shopping for flooring yet, but when we saw the good price, we decided on the spot to buy them. Normally, I like to research things to death, but since DH was doing the installation, I let him make the decision. After about 6 months, weÂre very happy with them. I really like the variations in color. Oh and the width is 2 ½". Datura-07, so far I havenÂt had any problems with keeping my rug clean. I have a crazed 4 year old and 3 cats, and IÂm not the neatest cook, so knock on wood. :-) I do find that IÂm more careful now. When I had my yucky blue carpeting, I just didnÂt care anymore. Now I pay more attention to what IÂm doing. So far, all IÂve done is vacuum once a week. As I said before, IÂm soooo glad we went with a busy pattern. Sorry to go OT, Marthavila. And thanks for your kind words. IÂm not used to hearing nice things about my kitchen! I donÂt think you MUST rule out wool in the kitchen. For me, it was about cost. The wool rugs were a lot more expensive. I wasnÂt willing to put something that valuable in the kitchen where it will surely get messy. IÂve got wool oriental rugs in my dining room and living room and love them. Do a search on "rug materials" (or something like that), and youÂll see lots of info. I think there are pros and cons to each fiber, but the polypropylene worked for me! Here is a link that might be useful: TrafficMaster Brazilian Cherry