......and, "stress" is a normal occurrence, and what we're really talking about is "strain", the point of departure between the two. Convoluted? You bet! I think many trees were undergoing drought strain, even though I've never once heard those two words strung together like that, during that time span I referenced. Heck, even two summers back was considered moderate to severe drought across S. Wisconsin. I'll tell you what though, especially those of you inclined towards science, right across this state is a long-held zone of transition called "the tension zone" running roughly S.E. to N.W. if you will, the area to the north being considered well, north of the tension zone. And due to the orientation of this diagonal line, many locales near Lake Michigan, nearly all the way to Milwaukee, are also "north of the tension Zone". Turns out there's something to it. I live in a city which lies directly in this transitional ecotone. We've got groves of 300-year-old oaks in some parks, tamaracks and white cedar in other spots. You can almost see the line in action! So along comes this supposedly abnormally cold winter. I can honestly state that, at least where my tree farm is, 60 miles north of where I live, conifers could not look better coming through a winter. There's absolutely no winter burn, no off coloration, everything looks prime. So if this was supposed to be a "stress event", then I'm going to have to say stress, as such, is of little impact. Then too, summer and fall rains were copious in that region as well. This is the place where my 4-years-in-the-ground-from-seedling Norway spruce grew nearly 5 feet last summer. Sometimes, I think you just have to be in a good zone for what you're trying to do. Not possible, of course, for every conifer hobbyist to up and move, but at least should you be contemplating a larger-scale project, it might just make sense to relocate! Incidentally, the northern white cedar (Thuja occidentalis) which comprise a great deal of my woods up there seem to produce large amounts of viable seed year in and year out. Not sure what it would take for them to not do that. White pine are perhaps more cyclic. +oM

I absolutely love my Xyrons...I have the 150,250,510,and the 900 and adore them all!! I use the 250 and 510 the most and almost daily for so many different projects. I don't think you will ever regret getting either version. The Xyron would be a lot more affective and less messy than any sort of glue on spray. They are not only sticker makers but certain version can also laminate with no electricity. You also use a line glue instead of the spray on such as hermafix, even Duck brand has a line glue that is awesome and really inexpensive. With the scrapbooking industry there are so many selections of glue available it's mind blowing. I wish you much success and look forward to seeing your finished projects. ginger

Old River Cabinets is a custom company like Geppetto is with pricing about the same. Old river does not have a book and is a pain to price on the fly because you have to know every little upcharge that is based in their computer system they only have. Geppetto on the other hand has a book with cabinets every 3" with countless modifcation charges that I can apply to any cabinet to make it what ever size I want as I stated in the original post of modifying depth width or height in any combination. If they do not have a cabinet I can start with I have to fax in what I want and wait for a quote back. 3" increments just gives you an easier way to arrive at an exact cost. I can stack them verticaly, I can join them horizontaly up to 8' long for a custom look when they are installed. I can change the doors add a drawer anything you can think of. I can custom color match the fireplace which we are doing. I can custom color match the door sample which has the perfect color wood she wants which she has looked for 2 years to find. She is very picky when it comes to color. Geppetto will make anything I can dream. They are custom just in a manner that is easier to price as a designer who is not a employee of theirs. My overhead excluding gas is $3,000 a month. This business is about competing with the prices of the next guy. Lowes and Home Depot who's cabinet companies they represent sell approx half of all the cabinets in the US are the largest competition. 50% markups on semi custom products are about what you have to do to compete on price but then you can not compete on being as established as as they are when you are self employed per say. A typical set of semi custom cabinets cost the dealer 4-6k so a mark up would be 2-3k per transaction. Now since most people want to go with the established to big to fail company they will only buy with you if you give them a deal they can not turn down. So you drop your margin to do it if it is possible. Or you have contractors that want to work with you where the end price to customer is close in price to Lowes and Home Depot but they want money the owner is not aware of which makes you cut your margin in half and share it with the contractor. So either way you slice it I sell cabinets for the average kitchen that are all plywood dove tail full overlay soft close full extension for 6k most of the time and make $1,200 if you are lucky! So a custom kitchen which takes about twice as much time to figure out as there are many more ways you can layout the kitchen so you do multiple layouts before you find the perfect one for the customer has 400% more profit in it then the semi custom prices of the big box stores. And according to multiple posts on here the competition in supposed "custom" is 50k and up! Where I would be a total price of half that! I was not trying to make this about me I was more agreeing with the title of the thread of sticker shock shock. I have other people who buy fix and sell condo's and town houses here in the dc area where the cabinets cost me 900 - 1200 and I mark it up the same 50% to stay competitive. That translates to 450 profit. But wait.... that customer comes from a granite company that wants money for referring the business. So when you give them a 15% discount the profit on those kitchens goes to less then 200 including in home delivery costs. The industry forces you to work on percent markups. You spend as much time on a small job like that as you do on a semi custom kitchen which pays 1,200 or a custom one which takes a little longer that I doubled the price like other companies do I would make 25-50k on one kitchen? And people want to say that is the way you stay in business because you have overhead? Sticker Shock Shock. I agree. I must be to practical. I just wanted to give some context to the prices and point out that the orignial poster was correct to be shocked in my opinion and state some facts as to why it is true. Antss is right that it does take money to sustain a showroom. But you do not have to rip off your customer to do it by doubling the price of custom cabinets. How much money do you need to make on one job to stay in business when you are talking about profits upwards of 35k per transaction?

Just a guess, but, it looks like models from the 50's or 60's and could have been made by the Thomas White Sewing Machine Co. I googled and found one from that era named "The White Fair Lady" but not one named "The White House" I didn't search further but might be a place to start.