wow, although I do not live in the United States, I am not really all that far from you and with those conditions. I have very sandy soil near lake Erie.I would upgrade the soil before anything else with compost, 3 in 1 type soil mixes, peat moss, and so on. This is so important right from the start. The soil will dry out so fast, and loss its nutriants as quickly. If you can hold off till fall to do your planting that would be the best. hope you enjoy your new home

Since the walls are rocked, it's a little late to address changes in the duct system. Hopefully, manuals J & D were addressed to optimize your system. You should inquire as to the type of furnace (number of stages). Model numbers would be nice. Since you have a large house, how will a single stage unit handle things if only one zone is calling for heat. Is there a dump zone? Would a third zone give you better control? Unfortunately, the best time to address this would have been at or before signing the agreement of sale (after doing a lot of research). Now, you're kind of at his mercy. How about air conditioning? Other home qualities are excellent (insulation, windows, slab heat for basement). If basement is to be air conditioned, will need to have controllable supply and return registers (off in winter). Good luck with your home. V

I agree that 17 years is a good long life for a fridge, and that your electric bills will drop like a ROCK if you got a new Energy Star fridge. It's also likely to be a lot quieter, and your frozen food will keep its quality better if the temperature is not constantly cycling. We had to buy a new fridge when we moved into this house in '04 because there were mice nests IN the coils and compressor area and the stench inside the fridge was unreal - I don't know how the OPs could stand keeping food in there! I bought a really nice Kenmore (made by Frigidaire) fridge, basic as basic can get except for the "upgrade" to glass shelves, for only $499 at Sears. I don't like icemakers and suchlike, IMO it's one more d@mned thing to break and cost me pots of money in repairman bills not to mention leaking water all over Creation (can you tell I've had such gadgetry go kaput before?), not to mention it takes up a good chunk of freezer space and I always need every cubic inch of that. It's a great fridge, very quiet, keeps its temperature, doesn't slurp electricity in vast amounts. I don't personally like having the freezer on the bottom, we use a good bit of frozen stuff (esp. in winter when we eat the largesse of people's gardens that I froze for later) and so I prefer having it up on eye level so I can see what's on hand before it gets freezerburnt, and getting down there to rummage around just doesn't do it for my creaky bones. So, your mileage may vary depending on how you use you fridge. (If there was one bell-and-whistle that I could have "a la carte" it would be pullout shelves, those are awfully nice.) I wouldn't go stainless just on the basis of a trash can, no way nohow... SS can be kind of a pain in the patoot to take care of (fingerprint city, and matching across and sometimes even within brands can be a nightmare, for instance, there are complaints on Epinions that Frigidaire's "Easy Care" stainless does NOT match other Frigidaire SS appliances well so you're kind of locked into buying only the "Easy Care" line), you have to really want it bad. You can accessorize with SS quite easily and choose appliances that take less fuss to keep looking nice. Do you have a good stove or is that on its way out too along with the dishwasher? If your stove is good enough that you expect to get a decade or so out of it, and you're cool with the color then by all means get the almond although it may not be easy to match it exactly. But if you'd rather have white get white even if it doesn't match the other things right now; we put up with a white fridge and almond-and-black stove and black-and-white dishwasher for 3 years because we knew we wanted to replace the stove (which I just got for Solstice, yay!) with white. DH just said in a couple of months we'll get a new white range hood to match, double yay. :-) I'm crossing my fingers for the 14yo dishwasher to hold out another year, at which time it'll be replaced with all-white and finally everything will match. :-) It's a process but eventually we'll have all things we're really happy with. Another thought, if you want to go white with the appliances, I haven't done it myself but people have repainted stoves with high heat enamel spray paint, which is available in many colors in auto parts stores catering to the hot-rod crowd - the range of colors is much bigger than you get in hardware stores and it'll stand up to the heat of car engines. Prep would be the most time-consuming part: clean all surfaces with a greasecutting cleaner and rinse well, then sand all surfaces thoroughly to remove the gloss, wipe thoroughly with microfiber "tack cloth" (regular ones leave a residue), then prime and paint per the directions from the paint company. If you didn't want to DIY, auto-body shops repaint appliances too, although you'd have to pull them out and schlep them over. There are also housecall appliance refinishers, but IIRC they don't do stoves on-site, although it's worth asking - look for "appliance refinishing" in the yellow pages. That would be much cheaper than replacing even with the cheapest appliances, and buy you time to research the dishwasher and stove while waiting for them to kick the bucket. ;-) I hope your cramps get better soon. Got a heating pad? If you don't, fill an old sock (no holes) with rice and microwave it for a minute or two until it's hot, and cuddle up with that, a good book and a cup of tea.

plant to the point where the stem is white.. that is where it was planted before ... err toward high ... those are tiny .... do you have a spot.. right up against the house... as a temp bed for this fall ....??? .. like within a foot of the foundation??? NEVER FERT A HOSTA IN FALL .... late next spring would be ok ... but you need years.. not fert.. to get them big ... what bruce said on mulch ... we arent mulching to extend the season ... we are piling it on.... NEAR GROUND FREEZE ... so they dont pop out of the ground... in late winter.. early spring ... leaves from the lawn.. have to be cut pretty small.. so they dont suffocate the plants .. i used to suck them up ... very dry ... put then in the street.. and then reduce them to about little finger nail size .... so they stayed fluffy ... snow cover is irellevant ... its good ... ignoring my crack about snow thaw in june.. lol ... dont leave them in the glass of water for too long.. they are not aquatic .... few days is OK ... ken