Thanks for your kind words! I wont let the chair set in craft heaven to long LOL! I was more upset over loseing the purple flowers that was planted at the back of the chair, dont know what there name is, but they had the most wonderful scent, you could smell it just walking by, if anyone knows I sure would love to find out there name, I was told its a annual. anjabee,I read alot of the fourms, just dont have much to contribute most of the time, I do enjoy reading the painting fourm,and looking at all the photos, you all do a beautiful job! maybe if I get back to the other chair and fix what I dont like I might post a picture. Mammie, the white glue will give you a crackle finish, so much cheaper to use I will post a link to the site where I learned how to do it, not good at giveing instructions myself and there is alot of good info at the site, so nice of the crafter to share with us! http://reviews.ebay.com/Confessions-of-a-Lazy-Painter-How-To-Paint-Stuff-QUICK_W0QQugidZ10000000000018516 at the bottom of the page look under more guides you can read about the crackle finish, hope this helps, also dont ever feel bad about asking a questions if you dont understand something, there are alot of helpful people at these fourms, with alot of good info, and willing to share. Happy Crafting Oddie

Bright199, i am in northeastern north carolina. i am in belvidere, north carolina. it's about 25 miles west of Elizabeth City. and about 1 hour west of the outer banks. very flat land and very rural farming area. i am originally from the foothills of the nc mtns: morganton and still have family that live there, so i go there about 3 times a year. where are you from? yes i can send you pics of things i've done. i have all our creations on a shutterfly album, and i can send you a selection of pics that i think you would be interested in. just send me your email address. i do everything from outdoor stuff to indoor stuff. my husband i are getting ready to make a farm dining room table out of old porch posts and old barn boards. we are also going to make a couch or sofa out of old doors. i also rent a space in our local antique shop and so far so good. o.k. thanks for replying to my posts and let me know if i can ever help you with any of your trash to treasure projects. sherree

This thread is inspiring! I am dying to just clear out crap (or not so crappy stuff which I still feel is weighing me down.) We're going to try to sell our house next year and move back to the city, so we will need to get rid of a lot of stuff. Books... no one brought up the issue of bringing them to a library, so I thought I would broach that topic. As a librarian, I have to advise against this! I cannot tell you the CRAP people bring us. Most people are well-meaning, imagining that we can use as many books as we can get. A fair amount of people, though, bring thing to us which are obviously junk, leaving boxes outside the building when we're closed, rather than making the effort to go through things and then bring the junky stuff to the dump. Even the well-meaning people almost invariably end up making more work for us. Even in small libraries with limited budgets, space is usually an issue. And, librarians would rather be able to use the precious space for new items they've selected themselves, in keeping with their Collection Development policies. At best, we can store the donated books and try to sell them in a book sale. Usually, though, the donations make more work for us and the return on the "investment" (of effort) is not high. Most librarians want to create and maintain goodwill in their communities, so they will rarely turn away anything but the worst donated items, but in every library in which I have ever worked, they turn around and gripe to their colleagues. So please... use other avenues (like Got Books? in the northeast) to get rid of your books. Burning books... it sounds horrible, so Fahrenheit 451. But really, very, very few books are precious. There are so many copies of most books, and so many books become obsolete quickly. Others simply aren't in good shape. Don't feel bad about burning your books. Sure, if you have some books which are not on topics which can become outdated, and they're in wonderful shape, consider donating them to a charity which specifically requests book donations. But otherwise... you are not harming anyone or anything by burning books.

Egad, again, I managed to put my foot in my mouth and "annoy" someone.... What I really meant to imply was NOT that GWer's do not have "expensive" kitchens.... What I wanted to convey was that if one is worth hundreds of millions AND has homes that are worth tens of millions, one does not often do one's own shopping.... Peacock kitchens are bought by people that have homes that are worth many or tens of mil. They "hire" the people to execute what they want. Seattle is full of these people (but not even remotely close to the number in NY). There are many companies that cater to these wealthy people. You should be able to find someone that should click with you. Igloochic, If you want to embark on a project that is less hands-on, the most imporant part of the work is to find a designer/architect that you trust. Many of my friends/colleagues builds houses/remodels with architects/designers without being very hands on. They end up with very beautiful kitchens/houses. The way they go about it was to have the architects/designers present them with a "few" options on much of the finish work and they just "picked" from those options; door handles, cabinets, appliances etc. Obviously, if they felt strongly about something, then that stays in the design. Sometimes, they go shopping for what they want with the designers. Often, they don't worry if the project cost them 50k or 100k or 200k more than what they thought that it would cost. They just pay the bill and move on. If you are comfortable with this type of arrangement, then you can build with much less hands-on involvement, leaving you time to get on with life. Money can give you the luxury of time if you don't care whether or not you spent 100k more than you needed/planned or not because having someone take care of the details were worth it to you. The end product can be and often are quite well done, "IF" you pick the right architect/designer. To do this, you have to trust the person you are working with AND let them do the work for you. This is not necessarily something that "control freaks" like me can let happen. As I am getting older and my budget is getting "more" comfortable, I am tyring to figure out a good balance of when to call in the calvary and when to trust my own design sense. There is an amazing designer/artist that works near where I live. His projects are all over US. He has been written up in many art magazines. Rococogurl may find his work intriguing. I WISH I could afford to have his work. But at 20k for a simple couch, mere mortals cannot afford his work. http://domesticarchitecture.com/ I asked one of my friends who spent probably about 2mil for their remodel, if she talked to him. It is the type of architecture that would interest her. She said even she could not afford him. What I am trying to say is that like everything else in life, there are people working at many different price points. Design/architecture is no different. You have to find good people at your own price point. Here are a few other contruction companies in Seattle that do good work. http://www.schuchartdow.com/ http://www.dovetailinc.net/ http://www.loganshammer.com/ Luxe interior magazines for Pacific NW also feature nice homes that are multi mil in price point. They often list architects/construction companies. You can get the magazine at Barns and Noble in Seattle (?Port Towsend). I wish you the best.