Looks like you will be busy with your new stuff! I like your swing too! Are you going to put different pic in each "pane" or 1 thing flowing from pane to pane? country scene-walking down road or stream & background etc. Guess would be lot harder doing 1 scene. Someone on mosaics did a river on her stair risers & it was beautiful! Keep us posted on your progress! Jan

Here I found some tip for marble installing... Here is a link that might be useful: How To Install Marble Tile

I used antique walnut. After the first coat, I was running low (because of the 3 coats I did on the first try and I had a tiny container) so I bought another tiny java and mixed them together and that worked well too. I probably would have preferred all antique walnut. It's a nice dark brown without being super espresso.2 coats of antique walnut will be so nice. Brushing on with a foam brush and then wiping off with a sock in the direction of the grain will give you a nice, dark, stained (not painted) look. You will still see the grain for sure. I'll post some pics from my phone in a minute. I used arm-r-seal and it is very easy to apply. You wipe it on with a shop towel or old t-shirt. However it is oil based and so it has a longer dry and cure time than the water based. However the water based is kind of milky/hazy looking so I'm not sure how it would go over a darker wood finish. My table is wood on top with white skirting/pedestal that I painted. I used arm-r-seal on top (4 coats of gloss and the last 2 satin) and then for the base I did 2 coats of primer, 2 coats of white paint, 3 coats of satin high-performance on the pedestal and 5 coats on the skirt. I used all GF products, they have a good reputation and I'm happy with how they turned out. I'm doing the matching windsor chairs for the table right now (currently primed and about to do first coat of paint today). The prep is the longest and worst part but it's the part that makes the most difference in the finished product! Okay, here's the photo. top left, before touching the top, old orangey oak finish (after I painted the skirt and pedestal). top right, after stripping with citristrip and lightly sanding with 220 grit and cleaning with mineral spirits. Bottom left, after 1 coat of antique walnut, brushed on with foam brush, wiped off with sock in direction of grain. Bottom right, after 1 coat of antique walnut and 2 more coats of antique walnut mixed with java gel, and 6 coats of arm-r-seal (4 gloss, 2 satin). It is curing and we will start using it in about a week. We are a family with 3 young kids and I want to give it time to get as hardened as possible before my kids treat it like crap! citristrip is super duper easy to use, it's just a bit messy, but I did the entire thing inside because it was winter and also I don't have a garage so it was done in my upstairs landing area outside my bedroom! I had a tarp down, then a big flat piece of cardboard, and then I put plastic drop cloths on the walls around in case anything splattered because my walls were recently painted.

Apparently I'm all alone in the no clean up camp. Either that or nobody else will admit to it. I leave everything, including the 8-12 inches of oak leaves that routinely fall on my main hosta beds. After the first killing frost I simply walk away. The birds do love the scapes, checking those out all winter long, even when there is no hope that any seeds remain. It also gives me a nice number of volunteer seedlings every spring. I have not had any problems with pests or disease in the 25+ years I've been doing this, and yes, even the mini hostas will come up through the oak leaves, which by spring have composted down to almost nothing. I do walk through regularly when the hostas start to show green, and manually remove any oak leaves that have pips coming through or showing underneath (alright, I mostly use my foot, but pedally just sounds odd). This is for the hostas in my upper gardens, which are mostly for public viewing. My lower garden a work in progess, and is mainly for growing out divided plants, lining out small divisions, but also has some more landscaped areas. And by landscaped, I mean 98% hostas, but grown more as specimens, with 2% astilbes, bleeding heart, ferns, and a few other perennials. This area gets no attention at all until I'm ready to start dividing hostas in the spring. Maybe a little weeding if I'm feeling up to it, but for the most part those hostas make it all on their own. That area gets some oak leaves and lots of walnut leaves. My only slightly coddled hostas are some very small minis that live in a bed that generally doesn't get many oak leaves. Things like Manzo, Kifukirin Otome, and few other tinies live near cedar trees, but in a mostly sunny area, in a slightly raised bed, and they overwinter very well.