Mike, Hey sounds like you have a great handle on both the 5-1-1 and gritty mixes! It took me a long time to find all the ingredients and figure out the fertilizer side of things, but once you do some reading of this thread and the previous eight threads it does make sense. Al was most generous with his time, both on and off-list, and answered many of my "newbie" questions. I'm sure your plants should respond much better using these soil mixes next season. My trees are showing huge root growth this season in the gritty mix. Granted, hunting down the ingredients, sifting fines, and mixing the soil it is a bit more work than just buying a bag of MG potting soil, but I have no doubt that in general plants grow better in the 5-1-1 and grit mixes with proper fertilization, watering, drainage and air movemnet through the root zone. The peat in the MG soil acts like a sponge and retains far too much water for far too long, preventing air from getting to the roots and keeping the roots soggy. I agree that typically the big box stores are not very helpful when it comes to finding the right ingredients for the soil mixes. Granted, a few list members have found the right size of pine bark, turface or even silica sand at a HD or Wal-Mart but typically in my area you have to go to local hardware stores, feed stores, etc. to find the ingredients. In my experience, if you go to HD or Lowe's and ask for turface no one has any idea what you are talking about. Sounds like you've already found some great sources for your materials! Good luck next season and be sure to keep us posted on how your plants do in the new mixes. Thanks Dave

Hello again. I have been so wrapped up in trying to find a cabinet maker that I've been slow to respond here. bmorepanic, thank you so much for all the thought you've put into this! I really appreciate it. I have been walking around the house trying to make it work the way you envisioned. I love the thought of opening it the way you've proposed... A few things. So sorry that my drawings are misleading, the access to the eating area is the same in my layout as the current layout, even with the longer island. People will still walk around the H2O and down the island by the glass to the eating. There is no interference in that case with the inside 'business' of the kitchen. I've spend a ton of time there over the last week or so trying to get your design to work because I really like the ide of having that space open. Unfortunately the only thing that's going to work is to keep the kitchen footprint where it is now. The reasons are twofold: first the plumbing issue. Second is the interference with the windows which would mean I would be putting a 36" range and 33" sink on a wall that is not too long, meaning there would be only a few feet of counter space. I was thinking I could use your idea of the range on that wall and the sink where it is now, but that seems awfully far to go from sink to range. So, i need to work within the confines of the current layout. I am just not willing to block the glass wall. I could not extend the island, but I feel like the increased counter space and lower cabinets would be really nice. Any thoughts on that? Interesting that you wrapped the counter around the pillar in the last one, I was thinking of doing that in mine as well. Also was thinking I should move the fridge more towards the windows...but then it would be away from the counter under the bulkhead. Will have to look at that wall more. Thanks so much again, this has been a really interesting few weeks just trying to visualise everything. I will take a better picture from the east side so you can see the end of the H2O and how it interacts with the counter.

Hi Becky. I live in West LA and I got it from Jackie at Lincoln Pipe, 310-396-2667. She really is terrific and I love her store. I'm sure she would send you one if you just called. Definitely tell her I sent you -- um I suppose you should email offlist for my real name? Or if you tell her I'm the person who gave her the bike at Xmas time for her needy-kids drive that would work. She'll grill you, though, as to what happened to me; I haven't been in in a while. I didn't realize it wasn't widely available. But Jackie has a select small amount of stuff and what she chooses is, I believe, good. She's very high on that touch-faucet (Delta?) too. I would be spending more time with her if she hadn't screwed up a bathroom faucet purchase for me. That gave me, for better or worse, the permission I was looking for to go the cheaper internet route, but it's always a dilemma about supporting brick-mortar v internet. Most of the bigger "brick-mortar" places are *also* internet, but not so this place. This is truly small, single-family. They have potted toilets all over the place. They're located in a renovated garage; that should give you an idea of the size of their "display floor". Their coffee is delicious and I'm missing the weekend fantastic cinnamon rolls as I write - I had thought about going in this morning but didn't make it! :( Anyway, I had no idea this was so limitedly available. If we could boost it that would be rather terrific. If Jackie can't/won't mail it to you I'm happy to. Email offlist. Thanks. Does anyone want a photo of the underside of my deck mount? It's a tube about 8" max, I haven't measured it. The 20" of the nozzle is the measurement to the base of the nozzle head to the start of the crinkling, so that means the hose is probably a little bit longer.

Has anyone used the Euro model yet? If so, how is it? The TapMaster site says you can push the lever in any direction...left, right, push in, pull out...and it will work. You're only limited to left/right if you want to lock it "on". Now that I finally installed my NeverMTs, I'm ready to tackle the TapMaster battle ($296 @ Conservastore)...I want one for my prep sink, at least. (I suspect once my DH sees how nice it is to use he'll want one on the cleanup sink as well...) So, any input on the Euro style is welcome! (The cabinet door one is out since I sometimes lean on the sink cabinet doors w/my knees while working at the sink.)