I like the look, although I don't know anything about gel fuel fireplaces. I am confused by your statement that a gas fireplace is hidden behind glass--my fireplace (natural gas) has nice realistic looking oak logs, and lives happily behind my bronze/cast iron surround and it's open grille-work front. Granted, it doesn't crackle, but the flames are open and look real, and put out heat. Since I had a chimney already, I just hooked a new set of logs (once I found some small enough to fit the area) up to the existing piping. If you are going for an insertish thing, I think they make ventless ones...and I thought it was an option on any of them to remove the glass panels?

Bookmatching happens when two slabs are cut in sequence, so the pattern is identical, then they are opened up like the facing pages of a book, and those are the surfaces that are finished, the surfaces that were originally together. So you get a mirror image of the pattern on each slab. Then you just lay out the two pieces of the template such that where the seam will be, the pattern matches up, vein for vein. It doesn't have to be an edge, but each piece of the template has to be placed in the corresponding location on the two slabs. I'm not explaining this very well. Do you sew? It's like matching stripes when you lay out a pattern. You can get chevron patterns when the veins are going diagonally up on one piece and down on the other, and they meet in a "V" formation.

Sorry Joy, I definetly wasn't awake.lol http://www.pspimhelp.com/ http://maegg.com/psptools/36 76 pages of tips and hints here http://users.adelphia.net/~suzshook/9tips-index.htm database of tutorials--tons to choose from http://www.pluspsp.org/cgi-bin/in/index.cgi?display

I second Gary's opinion--take a look at the new induction ranges that are out. If you have had induction for the last 20 years, you are not going to be happy with a standard electric range, I can almost guarantee that. I've had a ceramic top electric for the past 17 years and I have hated it--I'm going to be very pleased to get rid of it and am replacing it with induction. If your husband doesn't cook, then his opinion doesn't count when it comes to appliance choices. You can tell him I said so. :-) Seriously, though--your cooktop has given it's all, and at that age probably won't last much longer. If you're planning on replacing it with a range, then get something that will fit in the space you have planned for it. Oherwise when the cooktop goes, you'll have to re-do that space to fit the new range, or replace it with another cooktop. Good luck to you! Cj