Mine are steel with a nice rusted patina. They were welded and have 1-inch "angle iron" along the top edges, facing inward, to give a nice-looking lip. The steel looks great and, from how long derelict car bodies last, should last a very long time. The steel has a nice functional aspect, too. It seems to warm the soil quickly and I can readily secure the edges of cloche covers with magnetic strips. Two of my beds are rectangular, one is square, and the other two are pentagons.

Here are some things to check. Some like battery condition you can ignore. It will also give you an idea why the technician charges are what they are. Limited range of your remote controls could be related to radio frequency interference that comes from something in your home or in the surrounding environment. Certain electrical devices can radiate interference; this could be almost anything that is plugged into an electrical outlet. Please keep in mind that the device can be brand new, or can be an item that has been in use for quite a while. Also, the item may continue to function properly as far as you are able to tell. The only problem with the item may be that it has started to broadcast the interference, with no other symptoms noted. Some devices are more likely to generate interference than others. This includes TV cable, cable amplifiers, surge protectors, fluorescent lights, battery charging devices (power tools, golf carts, etc.), anything that utilizes a timer (sprinkler systems, lights, alarm systems, etc.), and a myriad of others. If the problem seems sporadic, we can safely assume that the device responsible for the interference is only being operated during these times. Again, please keep in mind that the age of the device does not determine if it is capable of broadcasting unwanted interference. Any electrical device can be the source of the problem. The first step is replacing the battery in your remote. If the range on your remote does not improve, remove the wall control wires from the overhead unit. If the range does not improve you will likely need to replace the remote control. After replacing the remote, or if you have other remotes programmed in to the opener, and the range problem still exists, please proceed to the Power Down test. Power Down test: To isolate potential sources of interference, turn the circuit breaker off to the garage and plug the garage door opener into an extension cord from another room. If the range improves, then the interference is coming from a device in the garage. If no improvement is seen follow the same procedure, this time turning off the circuit breakers to your home, with the exception of the garage and test the remote controls. If improvement is noted, turn the circuit breakers back on, one by one, until the range problem resurfaces. This will allow you to narrow down what room the problem device is in. You will have to go from there to isolate it further, by unplugging and re-plugging the items in that room. If you are unable to determine any source of interference, then the receiver logic board in the overhead unit will need to be replaced. Garage door remote not working? The Pentagon may be to blame. Not because of any grand conspiracy theory, but rather the mundane use of a radio frequency the military hadn't used much before. US homeowners in coastal Orange County, California, are among the latest to discover this quirk. There, signals from Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach have been interfering with garage door openers as far as half a mile (0.8 kilometres) away since March. That's when testing began on a new radio system that will allow the base to network with local fire and police agencies during emergencies. The frequency falls in the range of 380-399.9 megahertz, a band long reserved for the Department of Defence but rarely used. "We hadn't had the need to use these frequencies before. As a result, garage door manufacturers began using them because they were pretty quiet," said Gregg Smith, a spokesman for the Navy station. "With the explosion of communications technology over the past 20 years, the DOD has been squeezed to use bands it didn't need to use before." Reports of interference with garage door openers near military installations have been reported from Rhode Island to San Diego to Hawaii. "Out of the blue, the garage door just stopped working," said Bill Davey, 51, of Norco. "We changed all the batteries in the remotes. When it still didn't work, it was like 'What's going on here?' " The culprit was a Navy installation a quarter-mile (0.4 kilometres) away. The Federal Communications Commission allows the so-called unlicensed use of frequencies for low-power purposes such as garage door openers and vehicle key fobs as long as they don't interfere with government communications systems, Smith said. Smith said he's fielded 16 complaints from people near the Seal Beach base, but he assumes the interference is affecting many more. People can buy a device to retrofit their openers to another frequency; Davey's cost $US60. "Once you explain how it all works, folks aren't happy, but they've been understanding," Smith said.

@ci_lantro 1) smaller sink - NO. Clearly you don't cook. Or at least you never do dishes. Plus, I have no idea why you even suggested that to start with. I don't NEED to put a smaller sink there because there is already plenty of room for a full size sink. A "smaller" sink that is still big enough to manage a few dishes isn't going to give me more than a few inches of extra countertop space at most. The ONLY reason to go to a smaller single bowl sink would be if there isn't enough space at the corner for an angle-mounted full size sink. But I'm 90% sure that there is, without cutting into the drawer unit next to the fridge there. I may have to cut into the stile about 1/4" though. I'll know better when I get the existing countertop off. Angled wall cabinet is not a problem as it can easily be cut down - or rather "up", perhaps. Remember this is actual wood, not the MDF crap that is all anybody can afford these days. As I said in the OP "I may or may not have to shorten that corner cabinet where it would hang out over the new sink area." I know, it was super long, but that cabinet is not an issue. I can do the same to the wall cabinets to the right there as well, if necessary. If it's a problem, it is easily fixed. In fact regardless of what else I do, I WILL be semi deconstructing that cabinet anyway to install a lazy susan as it is virtually useless as-is. 3) CANNOT move the fridge as you say without losing ALL the upper cabinetry on the opposite side of the room. From the OP "The entire expanse of wall cabinets along the long wall is one big long open space inside, ditto the 8' of cabinets on the opposite wall." Plus, the fridge is WAY deeper than the dishwasher and would stick out too far there. I didn't post a pic of that but it is next to an exterior door and putting the fridge there would block the passage through there. That wasn't mentioned in the OP simply because the fact that there is a wall cabinet over there (single unit 8' long) precludes doing that already. 4) putting a corner sink over the current "dead space" is an excellent use of that space. Since "under the sink" is already pretty much dead space. But if I WERE going to replace cabinetry there is no way I would leave that "dead space" dead, I'd at least put in a lazy suzan corner cabinet. "Dead space" should NEVER be left "dead". Unfortunately the kitchen backs onto the bathroom there (the toilet is on the opposite side of that wall) or I would have seriously considered cutting into that wall (NOT a supporting wall) from the back and gaining access to that space that way. Honestly I think those L corners are the best place to put a sink with the least wastage. Plus that space all the way back in the corner is already too hard to reach when looked at in the context of "working" counter space. Currently it just collects kitchen "driftwood" until I get fed up and clear it out again. But it is PERFECT for putting dishwashing accoutrements behind an angle-mounted sink, that you only need to get at briefly while doing dishes. In fact if this works out I'll be making a triangular dish draining "rack" to go there with a dish draining mat under it. PERFECT for doing dishes and not taking up otherwise usable working countertop space!

" My sister in law swears by keeping valuables, including cash, in her deep freeze " Haha, this triggers a memory for me. One of my high school jobs was working at a Baskin Robbins 31 flavors. It was a cash business, before the proliferation of credit card usage. At closing, those working would balance the register (cash in till versus what the register had recorded) and the paper money would be dropped into a floor safe that we peons couldn't open. The store did maintain a supply of change though - bundles of $1, $5 and $10 bills, plus rolls of change. A used but washed cardboard tub with a lid (that the ice cream came in) was the storage container. It had a reserved space on the top shelf of one of the storage freezers in the back. It would amuse me that at times when making change for a customer purchase I needed to replenish some item in the register drawer, a walk to the back and opening the freezer for what was needed would produce very cold items of money then handed to the customer. The boss had several stores and all followed the same procedure. He was gone more often than not, they mostly ran themselves with reliable high school employees. Anyway, one day when he was there, I asked him if he realized that the storage spot for money kept for change was very obvious to customers. He asked why and I said that there was no mystery where money was stored when customers were given very cold cash pieces for change. He blushed and said he hadn't thought of it in that way. The next week, a small floor safe (with a combination lock and combination given to employees) was installed. That's my fond memory of working with cold cash, as the expression goes but in reality too.