The "Fading" referred to by the cable company for Plasma tv is normal wear and tear. Old fashioned CRT TV's also fade over time. The current Plasma TV technology has a lifespan of 60,000 hours until half-brightness. This is about 8 years of daily use. Since, when the TV is new, you want to make sure to turn the brightness WAY down, by the half-life point, you could just turn the brightness way UP, and have plenty of life left. The yearly Maintenance, that's something I've never heard of before. Unless, they are referring to replacing the light bulb in the rear projection systems (like DLP). Those are supposed to last 1-2 years under daily use, before needing replacing.

Jack, we bought our plasma lift console like that. Ordered it and had it shipped to our home here in New Mexico from the Los Angeles area. I believe that it was around $125 for shipping and included set up in our home. These consoles, even without the tv mounted on them, are VERY heavy. If you do buy one this way, I would definitely plan on being there yourself when it's delivered. Check it over thoroughly before accepting the delivery. The distributer of ours contracted with a local delivery company to bring it out to our house. The first consiole arrived with a 7" hole in the front of the box where somebody's forklft went right through it . . . and the front door of our console! The replacement arrived three weeks later, delivered by the same inept delivery company. They were clumsy, ill-prepared to move it from the truck, up our front steps and into our home. We had to call neighbors to help. They also could not mount our flat screen onto it and left the parts, screws, tv, etc. strewn all over my family room floor. My DH was livid when he got home that evening and saw the mess. It took my husband, son and I the better part of the weekend to get the tv mounted and the console in place. But, that said, we love our lift console and are glad we bought it. I just wish we could have found it locally from a furniture or well know electronics store whose employees knew how to deliver and set it up. Lynn Here's mine down: and up:

angeldog- We are using Smarthome's "Reporter with voice" heat sensors around our pool. This provides a level of security as well as pool safety. When any of the sensors are triggered, the wireless receiver in our house sounds and you can also listen to anything going on around the sensor. You can also talk from the house to the sensors at the pool (like an intercom system). The sensors also have a relay that closes when triggered and can be used to turn on a loud outside siren which can be reset from the house. This is a wireless system that is super easy to install and is battery operated. I replace the batteries in our outdoor sensors about once a year and the receiver in the house will let you know when it is time to replace the batteries in the outdoor sensors before they die totally. The sensors are small and can be hidden easily. We have found multiple uses for our system: security, detecting when someone is close to the pool for safety, intercom system between the house and the pool and we also use one for a driveway alarm to tell us when someone is approaching our house down our long driveway. Each sensor has its own sound so you can easily tell which sensor was triggered. We have 6 total outside. We are also using one of these sensors to turn on our pool slide pump automatically when someone approaches our slide to help save energy when the slide is not in use. I continue to be amazed at the flexibility of this system for the relatively inexpensive investment. Hope this helps!

We have a rainy day here so I've been playing....beginning to think maybe less IS more: I moved the other two prints and put them on the walls beside the FP. I am warming up to this now; maybe I was used to having four prints, and now that they are still in the room, it maintains the continuity I was used to. And......back to the chairs; a pair of these PB chairs has been hiding in the recesses of our CL: Pottery Barn Calais chair in leather They are almost brand new so not exactly a fire sale price; they are asking $500 for the pair. I think that's a little high, but assuming the price was right, do you think they would finish things off well? Or should I leave well enough alone? I'd purchase them only if they are more comfortable than what I have, and I won't know that until I see them. I can't test the link until I post, but in case it doesn't show the right one, the CL chairs are brown leather with espresso stain legs. I still really like the sconces but wonder if this is just as nice in some ways. I am now looking at my FP and wondering if the sconces would look good on either side of my mirror! But, no worries, that will have to wait for another day, lol!