I just used Rustoleum's Cabinet transformations on a medium colored oak cabinet and painted them black. I have to say the cabinet turned out pretty well. For now, I just tried one cabinet in a bathroom. The grain is definitely still visible. For my cabs, I dropped a piece of beadboard into the inset portion of the cabinet to cover up a majority of the grain. it's not clear how durable the finish will be; I've read posts from other folks who have said that the finish starts to chip away. time will tell; if the finish holds up I'll use the product on my kitchen cabs.

The question of, "why do I need to clean if I'm going to sand" hit me last night. The steps are pretty clean. I was at SW yesterday and the only Dirtex they had was the spray kind. That's all I'm finding anywhere here. I saw some other cleaning stuff like Krud Kutter etc. but didn't look at them too close. I have a hand sander I'm going to use. Have all my sandpaper etc. you recommended in my last thread about my stairs ready to go. I really like that Ready Patch stuff. Tried it on a different project and it was much easier to work with than stuff I've used in the past. So as long as I sand well and clean off all the dust (use tack cloth?) I should be ok without the powdered Dirtex? I'm going to pass on the TSP and water idea.

You can, and I have, but there are issues to consider which include weight (a big issue) stiffness...flannel flows much better than say an upholstry weight fabric) and pattern...a huge issue as that tiny print might not seem to show through when you hold it behind the fabric you are using as your drapes, but add sunlight...wa'la, the flowers look like crap coming through the top fabric. Another issue is just pure stregnth. Flannel blocks out the sun and protects your top fabric from the severe damage that even a year hanging can cause to your drapes. A less dense weave won't do this and you could find that your drapes fade badly or break down (including the lining fabric). One thing I've used as a lining and backing is coat lining. Satin on one side and flannel on the other, it's a wonderful one step answer if you can find it on sale in a light color. I have bundles and bundles of silk that I've purchased for less than nothing....and have to say, that even when it hurts I line with flannel. If you break down your costs and compare them to what the correctly made pieces would have cost you, even at full price the flannel won't be a bad investment. It's the rare material that really does what it's made to all the time...and hard to skimp past for a good finished product.

That's easy. Stop watering, let the new lawn up'n'die. The old stuff will come back, catch as catch can. The damage done by the aeration, if you aerated to the normal standard, is modest. Double or triple aeration would have been a problem, but you probably didn't do that; the soil would have looked like a minefield. After the explosions. Most of the fertilization on the fully dormant sections washed through already with the watering and didn't do any damage to the sleeping roots. It hit the water table (a kind of nasty-gram to Mother Nature), but again, a done deal at this point and there's nothing you can do about it. It stressed the greener grass quite a lot, but you already watered it through that so we're clear. The existing green grasses might take a hit if left to go dormant again. Dormancy is definitely not something that can be easily done twice a season. It costs a massive amount of energy, and doing it twice can and will kill grass. So let's come up with a realistic game plan that you can handle. 1) Stop watering now. 2) If nature doesn't do it, water again in, say, a week. Our target here is to keep the existing lawn alive until rainfall resumes, so give it a good, long drink. Normally, the target would be a full inch of water but...I'm going to just say water it as deeply as you can. This will also encourage those deeply dormant areas to begin waking up, and the deeper you can water, the better they'll be encouraged to awaken. Shallow watering doesn't really wake them up much. Those deep, water-seeking roots have to get wet and stay wet. 3) Continue to water weekly until temperatures cool or rainfall resumes, which is probably going to be mid-September at worst. Around this time, the dormant grasses should also be coming back to life if they haven't already. 4) You already fed, so let's skip the normal early September feeding. Feed instead around September 15 when the lawn is waking up. At that point, temperatures are cooler, the lawn is up, there's more water, and it's definitely time as fall is coming on. Even if areas are dormant, we're good to go--but I'd recommend using Milorganite if you can handle the weight. Because that's a lot of Milo over three quarters of an acre. If not, ignore me and just use a synthetic. 5) Feed again around November first. It sounds odd, but after a season like this, a good-night "midnight snack" is going to really help with winter survival and, in your area (not so far from my area) will keep the lawn greener or downright green if we have a winter like last winter. If that works, great. If not, cut any part of it that doesn't work for you. But I think the lawn will recover, for the most part, even if you take a hands-off approach right now. The watering you did will really help and washed out most of the fertilizer, which was the most severe mistake.