I see what you are saying based on being a professional painter, but I think Ace Hardware actually has a pretty good reputation. Between Lowes and HD, I pick Ace if it has a product that will work for me for a couple of reasons: in my experience, the employees are helpful and tend to know what they are talking about, and the products it carries tend to be of decent to better quality, though the selection may not be as great. At the bigger box stores, in my experience, I have a hard time finding an employee to help me, period. Then, when I do finally get someone, I may as well NOT have, since they aren't that helpful! Plus, the selection of products may be huge, but the quality is terribly inconsistent. In my experience with paint so far (and this is my first full house painting experience) the SW store seems to have a mix of employees - some who do know what they are talking about and some who don't seem to know. Case in point, I needed ceiling paint and asked the SW employee to help me in my selection. I told him I was using flat on the walls. Based on the employee's advice, I ended up leaving the store with a 5 gallon bucket of satin finish in Dover White only to find out that Flat finish is pretty standard for ceiling paints (from this forum, actually). So, we got flat, b/c the satin had too much shine. As a homeowner, I don't necessarily have greater expectations from a name brand. I would actually much rather have a few options presented in different price ranges with an explanation of the differences in each paint and make a decision based on that. I actually think that American consumers are moving away from the automatic assumption that the name brand is better - thus the proliferation of "generic" items next to the name brand items... IMO, Cheerios are delicious, but I can't really taste a discernible difference if I buy the "generic" brand. Although I can with generic Lucky Charms... :) I guess that's the reason you test! cheers, ~kpk FWIW: Shoes and purse are selected for quality construction, materials, comfort and longevity! My Mom always said those are things people notice 1st, and that since people (rightly or wrongly) tend to make assumptions (however incorrect or correct) on appearances, it behooves you to present a clean, tailored and "put together" appearance. Plus, there's the whole price per use equation (she also taught me this) - if you buy a $500-1000 purse and use it for many years (she has - a Loius Vuitton that was her bag when I was in diapers 35 years ago, and she still has, and it still looks great) than it's price per use is actually quite low. If you get a cheaper, typically trendy purse that lasts for 2 months before stitching, etc., falls apart, and it looks bad, then the price per use is actually quite high.

>>Not sure how you can have adjustable shelves in particle board- (is that a possibility?) Not only do I have 19 yr old particleboard kitchen cabs in perfect shape (Kraftmaid frameless Euro6 line), I've owned painted particleboard bookcases for over 30 years, lugging them around from place to place. And yes, the KM cabs are completely adjustable with pins, no problem. There IS a difference in quality to look for. 3/4" is not as good as 1" (you can see some of the thinner particleboard cubes below show some bowing, although at 19 yrs in the same configuration they have yet to fall apart). And high-density is a lot better than low-density. Here's a photo of a mix of 3/4" and 1" bookcases and cubes. Notice the 2-shelf unit on the bottom LH, of 1" board? One of the oldest ones I have, it has been loaded with those extraordinarily heavy art and coffeetable books for thirty years. If you stacked up all the books that are on one shelf there, it's 30" high and I'll bet no person here would be able to lift them all at once. BTW, ignore the tilt in some of the vertical stacked cubes - we used L-brackets to bolt each individual piece to the wall for earthquake proofing, so it tilted some of the cubes forward as we worked upwards. Also, these are only half of the bookcases; we have 8 full-height teak-veneered particleboard bookcases in other rooms, also heavily loaded, and all over 20 yrs old. I can assure you, having moved these books and bookcases around several intracity relocations, each one of those bookshelves is holding much more weight than is being held on my fully-loaded, 75-lb capacity rollout KM pantry shelves in the kitchen. Lousy quality particleboard will bend under the weight of a few folded sweaters - I can attest to that, I've owned some of it (and had to throw it out). OTOH, lousy quality plywood is just as bad. We also own the "solid wood" Home Depot Masterbath bathroom cabs - what crappy plywood it is! 1/2" ply so flimsy, I was surprised it managed to support the weight of the double sink countertop without crashing to the floor. You'd better believe I'd never stand on the Masterbath cabs - but I have stood on the KM cabs without any problems, and at 230 lbs. I'm not exactly lightweight. The point made about the quality of interior veneers is an excellent one, and far too often overlooked. The interior veneer used by KM in 1989 is far superior to what they use now. I put dishes away wet and even had a six-month slow leak in our sink cab that did no damage outside of a quarter-sized bubble raised in the veneer, no substrate damage. There is an additional cost to using particleboard that should be noted - you should never go over 30" wide without a - I don't know the right woodworking term - front vertical support slat? - to help prevent the shelves from bowing. Plywood can go 36-48" in width, depending upon board thickness and weight capacity desired. Therefore, you should use more, slightly narrow cabs in particleboard, than you can use in plywood. That is the ONLY advantage of plywood, IMHO, coming from someone who has put frameless particleboard boxes through a lot more heavy use than most people ever manage. Being able to use fewer, larger cabs can sometimes save enough $$ to be worth the upgrade cost, for those who prefer plywood anyway. Plywood cabs are lighter and easier to DIY. Installers hate particleboard because it takes 2-3 people to do the install and it's a lot more heavy work. But either material IF of good quality, will be able to last so long you'll get tired of it before you'll see it disintegrate.

M, I have someone fabulous up here in P'land but I'm not sure he'd be available. I'll check and give you a holler. You want to be looking for "finish painters", not painters proper, a vital distinction I only learned about in the course of my own painting travails. My instinct would also be to do it myself, not trusting the average schmoe a contractor would hire. The fact that you know about caulking before painting already puts you miles ahead of most. It's really not about the money saved so much as not wanting to be disappointed in the final result. But I understand the hesitation. Francy! My idol, my inspiration, my fellow OKM cherisher! Long time no see. How's the soapstone?

ranger, A bit of clarification... Cardinal currently has three versions of HSHG coatings - LoE-178, LoE-179, and LoE-180. LoE-178 and LoE-179 are being phased out and LoE-180 will be Cardinal's only HSHG offering in the very near future (I believe that 178 may no longer be available). LoE-180 has a SHGC of .69, a .24 U-value, and VT of 80% when used on surface 3 of a dual pane IGU (3mm glass). But keep in mind that these numbers are for glass only and they will be different when the glass is installed in a window system. The LoE-180 is a single-silver softcoat and as a softcoat it has to be installed between the lites of an IG - it cannot be exposed or it will corrode and fail. LoE2-270, LoE2-272, and LoE3-366 are also softcoats, but 270 and 272 are considered moderate solar heat gain and 366 is considered low solar heat gain. Coatings 270 and 272 have two layers of silver and 366 has three layers of silver in the coating. Notice a pattern here? LoE-180, 270, 272, and 366 have to be installed inside an IG to protect the coating. Recently Cardinal introduced LoE-I81 which is a hybrid between soft and hard coatings. It has softcoat performance but can be used in traditional hardcoat applications. LoE-I81 is designed to be used as a surface 4 coating. Surface 4 is the glass surface that you can touch inside your home. LoE-I81 is designed to be used in conjunction with a softcoat on IGU surface 2. In an IGU, in combination with (for example) LoE3-366 on surface 2, and with argon gas infill, the IG will have a .20 U-value. A .20 U-value is more indicative of triple pane performance with Low-E coatings on two surfaces than with a typical dual pane. The intent of I81 is to increase U-value performance in dual pane IGU's to near triple pane U-value performance levels. Using LoE-180 on surface 3 and I81 on surface 4 would be a dream for the combination of HSHG and low U-value, but that make up is not currently avaiable (technical challenges), so in order to have I81 on surface 4, surface 3 will not be coated. On your southern exposure, if you want the maximum solar heat gain available while still using a Low-E coating, then you want to use LoE-180 on surface 3. For the other windows in your home using LoE3-366 on surface 2 and I81 on surface 4 will result in the highest glass U-value performance numbers currently available in the industry. You can also specify LoE2-270 or 272, but the U-value will drop off a little bit when compared with LoE3-366. And one final point of clarification - Cardinal's Low-E nomenclature will tell you the number of layers of silver in the coating and the VT of the coating in an IG unit consisting of two layers of 3mm glass with one glass lite coated. So, LoE-180 has one layer of silver and 80% VT. LoE�-366 has three layers of silver and 66% VT. Also the "2" in LoE2 is really supposed to be LoE "squared" and the 3 in LoE3 is supposed to be "cubed", but THS doesn't allow superscripting.