Hi, I recently joined Garden Web, although years ago I joined in the gardening section. But, went back to work, long hours, long travel and just to many hours away from home to enjoy the beauty around us. I recently became unemployed due to General Motors (worked for a company associated with GM) and my husband has moved to MI to continue working for GM. Now I am back and forth between MI and TN since we are not giving up our home here that we plan on retiring at. So this year has been a struggle on knowing which direction to follow. I have extra time on my hands and I find recycling junk very interesting. I live in southwest TN and love it here. Although the weather has been far too hot to enjoy. I know it has been like this everywhere. So now that the weather is cooling off I should have more time outside to start and finish things I am in the middle of, due to getting involved with junk. :) I googled glass totems and found this site. My mother n law had made a couple and I fell in love. I have since made some and really got into making plate flowers. I also have copied many of the things posted here and hope to try them all in time. I plan on selling some garden junk items at the yearly OctoberFest in my local area next month. Just getting started and not really wanting to get rid of anything I have made yet. So not sure what all I will be selling. My birthday is coming up soon and I will be 57. Too young to retire and too old to look for another job. I want to be able to travel back and forth to MI to see my hubby so I need something flexible. So I am thinking of getting into re-purposing junk. Hubby will be home for the weekend and I might go to MI next week. I haven't been able to show him the mess I made of the barn with all of our junk we had and the stuff I have been buying at TS,GW and antique places. I have an area to work once it isn't 100 degrees and love it. I would love to go see Shabby Joes display at an art fair in Marshall, MI not far from my hubby. Well, this is it for me. I am excited and have things to finish before DH gets home late tonight. Thank you all for the ideas here and the support you give each other. Suzq

Solarpowered - regarding the Demeyere fry pans. I am looking at the 11" size. Now I need to decide whether to spend $225 on the Proline fry pan (which Demeyere calls their "5-star'), or $150 on the Multiline fry pan (which Demeyere calls their "4-star"). I understand that one difference between them is the 5-star is made of 4.8mm 7-layer material, while the 4-star is made of 3.0-3.3mm 7-layer material. Also the handles are cast on the Proline, while the Multiline handles are stock--not sure how significant that is. Otherwise, I do not know what is causing a $75 price difference. Is the extra $75 worth it I am wondering? Perhaps the 4-star is lighter and actually easier to work with. While I understand you cannot make a spending decision for me, I would be interested in your thoughts (or anyone else reading this thread) on the differences in fry pans for that $75 upcharge. Thanks. Part B - And while I am at it, I notice there are matching lids: an 11" Atlantis ss lid for $72(!), or an 11" Apollo Pyrex lid with ss silvinox knob for $20. Why on earth spend $72 for a lid when the $20 one would fit perfectly?

Thanks everyone for your input. solarpowered, that's the existing subpanel in the closet. I'm hopeful (but also doubtful) that maybe they will let me keep it there. I've had conflicting advice - some say that because I'm not adding any circuits, I will be able to keep it. Others say that just touching the panel will constitute a change and will require moving it. I think if we have to move it, we might move it to the outside of the same closet (facing the kitchen entryway). patty-cakes, thanks for the tip on the pendant lights. I think we will stick with 2. (Which is also probably for the best, as 3 would've given us problems with Title 24 too). I am concerned about the ceiling looking like a landing strip and am trying to weigh that with all of my other concerns. I'm finding this really difficult to find the perfect solution. modernhouse, the indirect pendant is an interesting idea. Do you have any pictures of your kitchen and light fixture? I also posted this question on the lighting forum and someone there suggested using a ceiling fixture instead of recessed lights too. In some ways I really like this idea - that the indirect light off the ceiling would be softer than downlighting. I'm worried though that it would not give me enough fluorescent wattage to offset the halogen pendants. Also, because our cabinets will be so dark, I was hoping to cast some pools of light down the cabinet fronts. lightguy and dim4fun, thanks for the discussion about LEDs. I'm interested to see what these lights look like. We have LED lights in the garden, but they have a bluish-tinge. It sounds like these recessed LEDs have a warmer color, similar to incandescent. Dimmable is great too. How do they compare price-wise to fluorescent cans? I will have fluorescent undercabinet lighting, so that would be my main task lighting. The cans would be more for ambient lighting and to light cabinet fronts. If I have 2 x 50W halogen pendants, 68W of undercabinet fluorescents, then if I went with LED cans I should be able to make Title 24. Anyway, I'll look into it some more. Meanwhile, I have come up with a lighting plan attempt using fluorescent and halogen. In the diagram below, green is Fl undercabinet lighting, yellow are halogen pendants, red are recessed fluorescents (26W lamps in 42W cans) and blue are dimmable recessed incandescents. I know, it looks like a lot of light. It may well be too much light and too many holes. Here's my thinking behind it - I figure that the blue incandescents would be on a dimmer and would be dimmed most if not all of the time. If we're in the kitchen cooking, we would have the red fluorescents on. The kitchen is visible from the living and dining areas, so when we're not in the kitchen, we could just have the pendants and the blue incandescent lights on low for ambience. In both instances, we would have the U/C lights on. Is this a stupid idea? Would it look odd to have 2 kinds of recessed lights? I'm totally out of my element here, but trying to educate myself. Any suggestions welcome. I'm also open to the idea of a ceiling fixture, if I can also find a way to put some light on the upper cabinets and have some dimmable light for ambience (maybe I could use the LEDs for this ...)

I have dimmable fluorescents cans, and I really like them, but they may not be solution for you. Mine are regular cans by Juno that fit a dimmable screw in fluorescent bulb and I purchased the dimmable screw in fluorescent bulbs and made sure the elcetrician installed a compatible dimmer that I purchased from the lighting store, and that the lighting store made sure was OK for use with the dimmable fluorescents. The bulbs were expensive but available through a subsidized program with the local electric company that brought the cost down from 18.00-30.00 per bulb to 8.45 per bulb. It is called the Smart Living Ceneter run by Energy Federation Incorporated (www.efi.org) and subsidized by the state of CT and Connecticult Light and Power (CL-P.com). If you go to the efi website, there are 3 or 4 different manufacturers of r30 dimmable fluorscents that should fit cans. The prices are more reasonable than the local lighting store here, even if your local electric company does not have a subsidezed program. I think from what others have written, you need pin type fluorescents in CA, and cans to accept them. But if you go to the EFI website and click on Consumer Division products and then search for "dimmable" you will come up with a large variety of dimmable fluorscents bulbs and you can read about them and find out the "color tempature" of each and get one to try that will be the least objectionable to you. Sue