Hello, Christopher, and welcome. It's good to finally hear from you. I was also a lurker for quite some time before I had to courage to utter anything. I have two of the roses you've ordered, Sophie's Perpetual and Mme. Dore. The former is a bit fragile for the heat here in Southern California but Mme. Dore is a beauty, with very good rebloom. I think you've picked very suitable roses for your area and wish you much joy with them. Diane, I added ORG Renae to my order of Marjorie Palmer and Leveson-Gower and am glad to say that all three have been confirmed. I'm hoping to add another rose to my order from the second part of the fall offer that should be available later this month, since shipping for four roses is the same as fewer. Oh well, I did say some time ago that I was done ordering roses....... Ingrid

Hi @Tracy I used Sherwin Williams Pure White for my cabinets, and also used it on all of our trim, doors, and ceiling. The name 'pure white' is deceiving as the color is more of a soft/warm white versus a stark bright white, but it doesn't have a yellow tinge to it ... hopefully that makes sense? I must have watched a gazilion youtube vides comparing different tones of white before landing on 'pure white'! We used knotty alder wood for our stained lower cabinets. I LOVE white oak, but it was not in our budget as we also remodeled our primary bathroom, fireplace and outdoor area (I've attached a pic of our bathroom below - same color palette as the kitchen with agreeable grey on the wall and pure white for the trim and same stain as our kitchen cabinets). I showed our painter a sample of the post oak flooring and had him make up a few custom stain samples that would compliment it. We wanted to go with a more natural look, he ended up only adding a few drops of brown and white into a clear coat to land on the stain that we have. I wonder if you can ask your painter to try and do the same or go into a Sherwin Williams and see what they suggest. I wish it was a straight up answer for you ... unfortunately I don't know what color of brown or white he added to the clear coat or exactly how much of it. I hope this helps! There are so many stressful decisions.

Now that's extremely funny to me, too, being from Ohio. If there is such a designation as "official homemade candy" of a state, buckeyes are Ohio's without a doubt. I've made and eaten thousands of these over the past 40+ years. They are called buckeyes because they look like buckeye nuts, which grow like crazy in OH, and are part of the logos (and origin of the name) for Ohio State Buckeyes sports teams. The candies should look like this. This site brings up a good point, also. The original old-school recipe did call for paraffin in the chocolate but although this makes it possible to hold these in your fingers a few seconds longer before you get messy, there is no other reason to put it in and they taste much better without it. The step about rolling in sugar before coating with chocolate is something I've not heard of before, and seems completely unnecessary. All of the ingredients are already very sweet, especially if you use one of the sugar-added peanut butters. The milk is also not an ingredient I've used for this before, either. I would recommend against it because it is just going to make things sticky while working with the mix, and as it dries out, the balls will become crumbly. Lately, I've made mine with peanut butter of 100% peanuts (usually has a layer of peanut oil on top) and powdered sugar, with no added butter. I think of it more as a process than a recipe. The premise is that you need to make the peanut butter able to be rolled into a ball and hold its' shape. So the butter is just unnecessary empty calories since all that is needed is to add sugar until the peanut butter is the proper consistency to hold together. If you do decide to do the recipe with butter, use real butter and not margarine. Margarine makes terrible buckeyes because of the high moisture content. Once it dries, the balls crumble when you take a bite. As far as the observation that the taste of buckeyes is similar to the "peanut butter candy" from the original discussion - that's spot-on. There's a significant textural difference, though. And, of course, the chocolate.

I used a similiar mix on a exterior T-111 rough sawed plywood I used on a guesthouse here in SoCal. Lot's of sun/UV abuse on this. I was told by a local paint store guy who had an old school formula which isn't "legal" now here in Ca. He advised me using a Duckback/Superdeck oil based sealer/stain mixed with the linseed, tung and slightly thinned with thinner to help roll on and penetrate the wood...also helps spread the tung, linseed evenly. I'm looking around for the formula now. I need to re-apply at least on of the sides that gets most of the sun on this T-111...I'll start with a light steel brushing to help remove any dried stain that needs to come off as well as ..I'm told to use a wood cleaner before applying the new mix. I'm not sure if I need to use the same formula or not...If anyone knows the formula and are what I should use for the upkeep second coating (3 1/2 years later) I'd appreciate it. Thanks, Terry in SoCal