Thanks for the additional mouse plant information. I'll be sure to mark it somehow so I don't dig it up (or at least reduce the likelihood of me digging it up) during its summer dormancy. Amy, you're as likely, or unlikely, to get fruit from your seedling as from most grafted, named varieties, so I'd say test-drive you new seedling and see what you think. Otherwise you'll be spending prime money for a grafted named variety that probably won't bear fruit anyway in this climate. My old one has become a very, very attractive little tree. As gardengal mentioned, they really can't be expected to bear fruit in the Pacific Northwest unless you can give them additional protection. My old one does flower reliably, so that's a start, but in this climate they're basically fun foliage plants. The raintree catalog mentions that clearly, and I hope the sales person did when you talked with them. I still may plant one in this current garden as a foliage plant. Let us know what you do with yours, and how it works out. Take care, Grant

The "better warranty" they are referring to that you are paying more for by using the plumber's/GC's vendor has to do with coverage on more than just the fixture itself should it fail. When you buy online/at a non-preferred store, the only thing the plumber/GC will warrant is the install. When you use their supplier, they warrant the fixture, the install & any damage that may occur to surrounding flooring, cabinetry, etc. So let's say you buy your bathroom sink faucets online, they are defective and fail within the first year of install flooding the vanity cabinetry, warped the custom tub deck, and soaked the carpeting in the adjoining bedroom and closet & destroying the bathroom floor. You call the GC/plumber & they say the install was not to blame, it was the fixture itself. You are now on the hook to contact the manufacturer, handle the warranty replacement hassle yourself + the cost of removal & re-installation of the fixture + repairing all the collateral damage that occurred at your own expense. Now if you had bought the same fixture through the GC's/plumber's supplier, they would immediately replace the fixture & take care of the warranty paperwork hassle for you with no waiting, they would re-install at no cost & cover the costs of repairing all the collateral damage. So the next question is, how often do fixtures fail within the first year? I can't say for sure. What I can tell you is that my DM & DD bought all of their fixtures for their5 bd/3.5ba home online & none have failed. We bought most of ours through our GC/plumber's supplier + 2 fixtures online & only 1 has failed --the handshower (supplied by the plumber's supplier) started leaking out the sides of the twist control. It was promptly replaced within a week (it was special order to start with so we felt a week was reasonable). That leaves the final question of what level of risk are you willing to take / is the 20-30% higher price worth the peace of mind of knowing you're covered in the event that the worst happens? Only you can answer that one. You may want to do a search on the 'Bathrooms' forum on this topic--there are plenty of threads on there discussing this very topic. To answer your actual question of where we bought our fixtures--the ones we bought ourselves were purchased from www.irawoods.com. Hope this helps! This post was edited by mydreamhome on Wed, Jun 5, 13 at 23:35

I would definitely go again and for sure think that it is worth it! I think we had a total of three days to shop, and yes it was sort of overwhelming because we had a long list of things we were looking for and so felt a little under pressure. I really regret not going to NC sooner as we had been looking for two leather sofas for our family room for years and finally setteled for/ordered some that we saw in a furniture store about 45 min from us. Later, when we were down in NC and I saw the huge selection of leather sofas, so many to choose from, I was so disappointed that we didn't wait because we are disappointed with the sofas we had ordered as far as comfort goes. We really liked Boyles and Adams furniture. We also like the patio furniture selection at Furnitureland South. They also had a great selection of leather sofas(too late for us though). We bought 12 beautiful carved mahogany dining chairs at the Adams furniture outlet. Also, ordered a large square tufted ottoman. While in NC we went to 1502 fabrics and picked out our material and did the ottoman COM. 1502 has an amazing selection of fabrics. We picked out patio furniture at Furnitureland South and a few other small items. When I go back again someday, I will probably do most of my shopping at Boyles and Adams furniture, and spend some time at Furnitureland South, they have a great selction of fabrics in their design room, once you pick out furniture pieces. Don't feel like you have to finalize your order when you are down there. You can work with a designer and make your selections of fabrics and sytles, get all the style #s and information, think about things for a few days, and then come home and do all the final calling around for best pricing and pay from home witha credit card. Rose furniture acutally has the best prices on a lot of things but the problem is you have to pay the downpayment ahead with a check versus Boyles you can put your downpayment with a credit card and then if you have a problem you have you credit card company standing behind you. We actually did order from Rose and were counting on not having any problems, but then found a major structural defect with the item the day after delivery. With Rose you also have to pay for the item upon delivery with a cashier's check, so anyway things were a big hassle for a while and we were really stuck. What a hassle! Make sure when the item is delivered that you take ALOT of time to check EVERYTHING over. I will definitely go back again someday.

I found the gel stains SO much easier to work with than the thin stains because they were pretty much idiotproof. Wipe on, wipe off. Very Karate Kid. :-) No worries about blotching, lap marks, uneven penetration from board to board, raising grain (almost inevitable with water-based stain), or drips/runs on vertical surfaces. I was even able to get different species and subspecies of wood to come out the same color, which is very difficult to do with the thin stains. Goodness knows I wasted enough good wood trying! A friend and I stained what seemed like acres :-) of oak beadboard and trimwork in my previous house in 2006 with Zar stain and it went very quickly. Cheap brush in one hand (the white-bristled "chip brush" worked really well) to apply, rag in the other to wipe off. I am sure everyone knows this already but rags used with oil-based products will be flammable until they are thoroughly dry. Lay them flat or hang them on a clothesline outside to dry out, don't wad them up in a pile. I ran out of rags in no time and had to buy a boxful at the hardware store; if a thrift store near you has the ratty clothes sold "by the pound" go pick out all the t-shirts you can get and cut them up, but it was cheaper for me to get the boxed ones. Oil-based products will dissolve latex gloves so get nitrile ones - those are labeled "non-latex" and are usually blue or purple. Cheapest by the box of 100 at the drugstore and have a bazillion uses! Recoat time (if it's even necessary) was only 3 hours. The weather was very warm and humid so we opened all the windows and put fans in them but that was almost as much to keep us from dripping sweat all over our work - it didn't smell as bad as the regular oil-based stain, and although I bought a respirator I took it off after about an hour because the sweat was literally pooling in it (ewwwww) and I was able to work with the stain without it with that good ventilation. I did have to leave the varnishing to my friend because I chose an oil-based varnish (SW Fastdry Oil Varnish) for a less "plasticky" appearance than polyurethane and because I wanted the "ambering" effect that you don't get with water-based products, and that was pretty smelly stuff. That was done the next day after the staining just because that's how the timing worked out. You can use water-based poly over an oil stain as long as you let the stained piece sit for several days in order for every trace of the mineral spirits to dissipate. About the "use oil stain to feed the wood" idea - it is a very common myth that you need to "feed" wood with oils. Manufacturers take advantage of this long-standing notion in order to sell you products. Wood does not need to be "fed" or "nourished", it's dead. Humidity and temperature changes, UV exposure, and water are what cause wood to deteriorate, not a lack of oil. Sure, wood will absorb oil (unless you apply it to wood with a film-forming finish such as polyurethane, varnish, etc.) which is also how a penetrating oil finish like Danish Oil or Waterlox works - but wood will also absorb water, alcohol, kerosene, lemonade, or pretty much any other liquid that sits on an unprotected or minimally-protected wood surface. Oily substances can act as a slight protectant by repelling/preventing absorption of water to some degree, although a film-forming finish does so much more effectively, and can impart a somewhat shiny surface (as well as a gummy, dirt-attracting surface if overused), but they do not "feed" that tree corpse.