FYI Standard drywall is not a combustible item. from Wiki When used as a component in fire barriers, drywall is a passive fire protection item. In its natural state, gypsum contains the water of crystallization bound in the form of hydrates. When exposed to heat or fire, this water is vapourised, retarding heat transfer. Therefore, a fire in one room that is separated from an adjacent room by a fire-resistance rated drywall assembly will not cause this adjacent room to get any warmer than the boiling point (100°C) until the water in the gypsum is gone. This makes drywall an ablative material because as the hydrates sublime, a crumbly dust is left behind, which, along with the paper, is sacrificial. Generally, the more layers of Type X drywall one adds, the more one increases the fire-resistance of the assembly, be it horizontal or vertical. Evidence of this can be found both in publicly available design catalogues, including DIN4102 Part 4 and the Canadian Building Code on the topic, as well as common certification listings, including certification listings provided by Underwriters Laboratories and Underwriters Laboratories of Canada (ULC). "Type X" drywall is formulated by adding glass fibers to the gypsum, to increase the resistance to fires, especially once the hydrates are spent, which leaves the gypsum in powder form. Type X is typically the material chosen to construct walls and ceilings that are required to have a fire-resistance rating. Fire testing of drywall assemblies for the purpose of expanding national catalogues, such as the National Building Code of Canada, Germany's Part 4 of DIN4102 and its British cousin BS476, are a matter of routine research and development work in more than one nation and can be sponsored jointly by national authorities and representatives of the drywall industry. For example, the National Research Council of Canada routinely publishes such findings.[21] The results are printed as approved designs in the back of the building code. Generally, exposure of drywall on a panel furnace removes the water and calcines the exposed drywall and also heats the studs and fasteners holding the drywall. This typically results in deflection of the assembly towards the fire, as that is the location where the sublimation occurs, which weakens the assembly, due to the fire influence. When tests are cosponsored, resulting in code recognized designs with assigned fire-resistance ratings, the resulting designs become part of the code and are not limited to use by any one manufacturer, provided the material used in the field configuration can be demonstrated to meet the minimum requirements of Type X drywall (such as an entry in the appropriate category of the UL Building Materials Directory) and that sufficient layers and thicknesses are used. Fire test reports for such unique third party tests are confidential. It's important to consider deflection of drywall assemblies to maintain their assembly integrity to preserve their ratings. Deflection of drywall assemblies can vary somewhat from one test to another. Importantly, penetrants do not follow the deflection movement of the drywall assemblies they penetrate. For example, see cable tray movement in a German test. It is, therefore, important to test firestops in full scale wall panel tests, so that the deflection of each applicable assembly can be taken into account. The size of the test wall assembly alone is not the only consideration for firestop tests. If the penetrants are mounted to and hung off the drywall assembly itself during the test, this does not constitute a realistic deflection exposure insofar as the firestop is concerned. In reality, on a construction site, penetrants are hung off the ceiling above. Penetrants may increase in length, push and pull as a result of operational temperature changes (e.g., hot and cold water in a pipe), particularly in a fire. But it is a physical impossibility to have the penetrants follow the movement of drywall assemblies that they penetrate, since they are not mounted to the drywalls in a building. It is, therefore, counterproductive to suspend penetrants from the drywall assembly during a fire test. As downward deflection of the drywall assembly and buckling towards the fire occurs, the top of the firestop is squeezed and the bottom of the firestop is pulled. This is motion above that caused by expansion of metallic penetrants due to heat exposure in a fire. Both types of motion occur because metal first expands in a fire, and then softens once the critical temperature has been reached, as is explained under structural steel. To simulate the drywall deflection effect, one can simply mount the penetrants to the steel frame holding the test assembly. The operational and fire-induced motion of the penetrants, which is independent of the assemblies penetrated, can be separately arranged.

Gorgeous, thanks for sharing? We are currently choosing countertops for our kitchen reno and your pictures are selling me on Superwhite! Questions: 1. What edge did you use on your counters? 2. What is the height between your countertop and the bottom of your cabinets? I think 18 inches is standard, yours look a bit higher which is what we are thinking of doing in our new kitchen. 3. Do you know the company that made your cabinet knob hardware, where did you buy it? Thanks much!

After all is said and done: I LOVEEEEEE my marble countertop/backsplash. Yes, I still notice the seams, but no, I am not bothered by them anymore. I would do marble again in a heartbeat (but not with this fabricator/company). When my fabricators did the mixing for the edging epoxy, I could see how difficult it was to match, especially when there's so much veining involved. He worked w/ me with different options, and I had to choose the least of the evils. At that time, I just didn't like it. But now, the epoxy is so minimal in the whole scope of my renovation, I don't even see them now. Sorry, no reveal yet. We're enjoying the summer (off to Canobie Lake Park tomorrow), so we'll tackle the remaining tasks after school start. Big cooking day today: on my beautiful countertop, I made a delicious Dominican cake for my Dominican husband for his bday. Made meringue cookies w/ the extra merengue. I also whipped up for his bday Guinness chocolate ice cream, chilling in the fridge right now. This is the only current picture I have so far (my friend's phone camera) This post was edited by huango on Fri, Jan 9, 15 at 7:51

Use google to search with the word gardenweb and other words such as pull size, pull location, horizontal, vertical etc and you will get lots of info. One of the popular and inspirational kitchens on gardenweb belongs to breezygirl. I linked one of her posts here Breezy's kitchen- all horizontal pulls In another post Breezy listed the sizes she used for the various door or drawer widths. These are her words " I did all pulls in my kitchen also. I don't like the look of two small pulls on wide drawers so I looked for pulls that came in multiple sizes including an 8". I aimed to size pulls on various drawer stacks following the rule of thirds or the Golden Mean, roughly translated into the pull covering the middle third of the drawer front with one-third of the drawer visible on each side of the pull. After my pull order arrived, I walked around with the various sizes and held them up on my cabs to see what looked best. I ordered a couple dozen extra of each size pull to give myself flexibility. So I ended up with this:" Drawers 30-38" wide stacks have 8" pulls 18-24" stacks have 6" pulls 17" drawers have 4" pulls Cabs (very few) all pulls are horizontal on cabs 11" doors have 4" pulls 15" doors have 6" pulls