After my adventure with landscape fabric, I must say I'm not a big fan. I had mulched my shade bed with wood chips over 2 layers of landscape fabric. Over about 5 years, with all the leaves that fall, and the wood chips decomposing, I had all sorts of plants growing on top of the fabric, and the soil underneath, which was pretty bad to start with, was rock hard. The biggest part of the mess was my hops. They were planted at the back to cover the bull fence, and had crawled out underneath the fabric four or five feet, coming up wherever they found a hole. I removed as much of the landscape fabric as possible, without completely ripping out all my plants, and put in lawn edging to contain the hops. My Stella D'oro, which hadn't bloomed for years, had grown to the exact size of the hole in the fabric - I had a square plant, which has turned into about 15 little ones. With a little manure compost added the flowers were much happier, if weedier this year. I actually use chopped up straw for mulch in most of my beds and my garden, about 4 inches thick. It stops most weeds but does bring in more dandelions and some grain, of course. All I have left out now are some carrots, the potatoes which could use a couple more weeks to toughen their skins, and the parsnips which are waiting for a good frost. Everything else will wait until later. One thing about all this rain and BRRRR, I may not be able to finish cleaning my windows this weekend - darn :). Maybe I'll have to do something tough like bake or sew. Connie

Thank ya'll for the help and info, I really appreciate it. You've clarified some things for me and also opened up some new questions for me... I really was hoping to stick with waterbased primer and paint...the small projects in the past with oil-based paints just seemed to end up messy with paintbrushes that I never could get clean. I'm sure I'm gonna need the knowledge of working with the oil-based stuff sooner or later anyhow. It looks like the materials procurement is going to be a chore in itself. I'm gonna have to do some long-distance shopping. Looking in my local yellow pages I come up with one paint dealer...a Pittsburgh Paints dealer. A problem that I run into is that I'm rural and have to drive roughly 65 miles to the nearest Lowe's. I'll probably have to venture up to Montgomery, AL to find a true paint store....that will probably be 130 miles roundtrip. It looks like several SW stores are up there but not many "mom and pop" stores...I'll see what I can find. Do the SW stores normally handle other brands of paint/primer??? PG, your view of caulking and the cost difference between good and mediocre brands makes sense to me...with your's and Faron's recommendations I'll be returning the Alex Plus and looking for something along the lines of Dynaflex 230. I went to Lowe's last night trying to see what sanding/scraping/etc. supplies they might have that will help me get the old paint off/sanded. I was going to pick up a respirator. They had two different ones in stock (can't remember the brands), one stated it was for sanding and insulation and teh other stated it was for painting and spraying chemicals. Reading the fine print both of them stated they weren't for use with lead. I didn't buy either one. I figure it was the basic "we warned you, don't blame us..." statement and that they probably would work fine...I'll keep a lookout for a 3M brand. Sanding equipment...I looked at different electric sanders and figured I'd get a *real* good dust bath with one of those...ended up simply getting some sandpaper and sanding block along with a couple of foam sanding blocks. I'll see how that goes...mostly will be used to feather edge the remaining paint. I'll be doing a lot of windows later on...if I do decide to pick up an electric sander would an random orbital or a 1/4 sheet finishing sander be better? As for the ceiling itself... In some places there are definite large gaps between the T&G pieces. I've already pulled some large strings of caulking from between some of the pieces. I agree that T&G should fit snuggly together. I don't know if the caulking was used when the house was constructed or if it was added later on...it's a silicone-type so I guess it would have to be of more recent year vintage. It appears that most of the caulking was used more toward the outside areas of the ceiling closest to the weather so it probably was used to fill weather-created gaps. ??? I'm curious as to whether it will be worth my while to order some caulking by the case...that big window in the pictures is one of sixteen that size or 2.5X that size. I may wait and see how much I use on the two windows under the porch and then order some accordingly...or hopefully find some locally (at least as local as possible). weed_cutter, you are right about the roof...flat and no ventilation to speak up between the metal top and the T&G. But, the reason for the bad condition of some of the T&G is pretty much due to several bad leaks that existed before the metal roof was installed. Thanks for the vote on the Duramax...it's supposed to be the one-coat/no-primer stuff but I still want to go down with a primer coating. In regards to windows...is DAP '33' good glazing material? I'm going to need to re-glaze panes in several of the windows. Well, I'm adjusting my shopping lists and will plan on a road trip to Montgomery. Thanks for the help! Ed

Hello! I was searching the web when I stumbled (thankfully!) onto this web site. Excited to see so much info. However, my main problem and question is about the outdoor canvas art. We are in the process of a makeover for our back patio. Have extended the concrete, will stain it soon. I have made a bench with a cushion and would like a picture to hang on the wall above it. I am planning on one similar to the picture I am posting, but with different, much brighter colors. I found a 60" X 36" canvas print originally priced $180. at Hobby lobby, marked down to $30. Impulsively bought it. I want to paint over it, but am now second guessing myself as I wonder how to weatherproof it. All of the info here has my mind a bit muddled. I just need to know what kind of paint to use, not sure what the original on the canvas is. Also, what to seal it with. I am not an artist and know NOTHING about paints. The picture I plan to do is one of several different colors painted randomly on the canvas. Then using painters tape I will mark off lines, paint over that using a solid color, then remove the tape. Any simple info would be most appreciated!

If your bay window is cantilevered out and not holding up a second floor bay... Would you rather have island seating than a breakfast nook? It would be a much bigger project, of course. It looks like you may have the room for it. I've proposed this for other folks and this image is the first example I found. In your case, the range and the clean up sink would trade places, so you you might see the range flanked by windows from the front door instead of your pretty table and windows. Just thought I'd toss this out there...