Chocolate Brug, I wanted to meet you. I did mapquest and you were just too far. I did think about you, how lucky you are to live there. The humity was so high, I finally just put my hair up in a ponytail. I really did have a nice time, the people were very friendly. I can't wait to go back, next time we are going to drive down. Just think of all the plants I can get in the big truck. I went to home depot to buy some glue for my husbands shoe, walked thru the nursery and found the purple siam tulip. They just put them out. I cannot tell you how many people stopped me in the store, and asked about the plant. I bet they were sold out by noon. I think its one of the prettiest blooms I have seen. The pink ones have bigger blooms, but the purple ones are fuller. I just bought purple. I bought 3 and condensed them down to a 1 gallon ziplock, so I could carry them on board. Everything looks great, I will loose some of the RP seedlings, but I think I will have at least 8 that will make it. Those trees were in full bloom while we were down there. Even my husband fell in love with the Royal Poinciana tree. We were told they would do great in Corpus Christi, and we are just 35 miles from CC. My huband shook a trees, to get a seed pod, that is how much he liked it. They told us they are fast growers, but not to put them out until they were at least 3 ft tall. Barbra,

I have been off work since Wednesday to take my two cats to the vet to be boarded while she was here. I have cleaned my house like a crazed women to relieve the house of cat dander since sis is highly allegic. So, my vacation after tomorrow for the year will be more than half spent.. I did call about a ticket to see if I could show up on her doorstep unannounced, but it was well over $1,000.00. I have to believe, as selfish as I would like to be, that maybe she should not have been here this time. Although the Texas weather is cool and calm, I just guess another time will be better. I am feeling better now, I was almost dumbstruck that she would not be coming, but it is what it is and I have to get over it. Damn the bad luck. Trin

Actually there isn't a board in the country that can tell you what you do with the inside of your house. Although it has been successfully argued on the supreme court level that the outside of the house exists in the public realm and therefore local governments can make rules about what you do to it, I highly doubt it will ever be considered constitutional to legislate interiors. The landmarking of interiors even in public buildings is very very rare and fairly difficult to do. As far as whether boards are arbitrary or not, one thing they are not allowed to be (if they expect their decisions to stand up to lawsuit) is arbitrary. The architectural review standards of any community need to be spelled out, even if the guidelines are vague and provide wide latitude to the board members. This is far from arbitrary even though they may differ from one community to the next. Yes, I sit on such a board and yes, we have rules and standards and yes, I am currently involved in writing new ones (and I have worked with/observed boards from many other communities, both large and small). As far as what is considered "remuddling" and what is not, that is, of course, subjective. In true preservation, you must first define the "era of significance" of the house. This is generally when the house was first built, but if a significant event took place there or a significant person lived there, it can be a later date. Generally the only time you actually take a house in full back to a previous era is if the home is/will become museums. I can't think of anyone I know, even in the preservation community, who would not want the modern conveniences of things like indoor plumbing and electricity in their house and a kitchen with modern, functioning appliances even if these things predate their homes. I have friends who have a really neat kitchen, with an old monitor top refridgerator and an old chambers stove (before they were made popular by rachel ray) but their house was built in 1840 so these "modern conveniences" still differ from when their house was built by 80 years. A good rule of thumb is to identify the "character defining features" of any old house... ie what makes this house special. Those are the things one should work to preserve. Original windows (that often come in configurations, have thin muntins and wavy glass), original doors, original trimwork, porches, etc are the sorts of things that make old houses different from new ones. Remuddling, for most rational people, involves stripping the essential character from the house. It could be argued that a kitchen should be in keeping with the age of the house but personally I'd be much less concerned about a ca1960 kitchen being torn out and replaced with a ca2007 kitchen, even if it's styled in a modern way than say taking down the original victorian bullseye mouldings and replacing it with craftsman style mouldings because that's what you prefer. In the kitchen example you're not destroying anything worth saving, in the trimwork example you should just buy a craftsman house if that's the look you desire. Of course remuddling is also a word used by those who feel they "know better" to beat people over the head for not doing things their way. I'm a firm believer, even though I have a background in historic preservation, that the best way to preserve a house is for someone to love it and use it and the best way for that to happen is to allow them to put their own mark on it. If people haven't been doing that throughout the ages then there would be significantly fewer interesting things about old houses IMO. Poorly done changes to homes are detrimental to the home regardless of the age. All that said, I do believe "new house" people and "old house" people are just two different breeds and disasterous things can happen when they mix. I lived in a new house and HATED it, couldn't wait to get out of there. Of course some people build new, beautiful homes that successfully copy historic styles... but if you want to turn an old house into a new one, look for one that has already been stripped of its character defining features so you can imprint your own character on it. Yes, by having an old house BE an old house you are limiting your potential buyers but at the same time realize that there is also a limited number of old houses in great condition too whereas newer houses with less character are FAR more common. I do think that the supply and demand are in relative balance for that segment of the market.

Dryers do not function properly when run with the door open. Airflow is pulled in from the open door, through the filter and out the exhaust, bypassing the normal route through the heat source (gas burner or electric element). However, sounds like you're definitely having a problem. Gas dryers operate on either natural gas or LP (liquid propane). Factory set-up is for natural gas. A conversion kit is required for propane. Propane is fed at higher pressure than natural gas so running a natural gas dryer on propane gas will cause too large of a flame. Did you have it on natural gas at the previous location and the new location has propane? (edited to correct natural gas/LP)