Iris, that was a great idea, and so useful. Glad you thought to share it with us, and hope you will keep coming by. This place is really good "therapy", gets you all excited about making new things. I'm so sorry about your loss, can't imagine having to go through that. I'll let the "experts" on here help you with the pic size. Hugs, Luvs

What an outstanding community project. We have not grown hangers for several years but when we were doing it we used wire framed baskets with some sort of fiberous lining (for the love of me I can not remember what it was). Timing was the hardest part - we worked back from the sale date and started the plants accordingly. We transplanted them into 606's and let them size an start to bud. Once they did that (hopefully about 2 weeks before the sale) we transplanted into the baskets. The plants were big enough that they full and were transplanted to give nice full pots. We hung the baskets in the greenhouse and kept them well watered and fertilized. When everything worked out the flowers were full and blooming for the sale. Unfortunatly timing was always problem - for us it was not a big deal as we also sold them from the farm so we took the best and held the others for sale later. We transitioned out of growing flowers into vegies (now we are not growing any plants for the general public just ourselves and a couple of other growers that contract with us). I am sure that there are many others here that are much more experienced with growing baskets than I so I hope they chime in. Tom

Hi Neesie, welcome and its nice to meet you! Hope you enjoy this Forum, we have some great folks here. The tablesettings and Kathleen's fattening fotos, LOL, keep us going thru the non-holidays. But its such fun to see all the decor when we are decorating everything up. Hope you had a chance to check out our Inspiration Album too. On my main page where you can go to, there is also a link for tablesettings the gals here have done. I am seriously dish-challenged but love seeing all the creations. hugs, Karen Here is a link that might be useful: Holiday Inspiration Album

The minute we walked into this house, we knew it was the "project" house we'd been wanting. It is old enough to have charm and to need work, is well-built and well-maintained so it doesn't need massive structural work, and has not been updated for many decades (excepting some fixture replacements...not all...and a few things here/there...all perfectly acceptable!). A blacksmithing family built the house in the late 1800s--we have a photo dated 1890 in which the house figures prominently, so it was built at least by then--and five generations of the family subsequently lived there. The folks who sold it to us were doing so to settle the family estate. They are the last of the family line and live very far away, so they cannot live in the house themselves, but they wanted to ensure that the "right" buyers purchased it. Apparently it has been in limbo for some time and they have turned down flat several offers to buy the house/land because they feared the house would be torn down or unappreciated. My DH and I wrote a letter to accompany our purchase offer: he is a planner with an architectural background, and I recently graduated with my MAHP, so historic houses are just our thing. :) It's the funniest thing...when the realtor was showing it to us she was very apologetic about the kitchen/bathroom and how dated they are. To me, the kitchen is one of the best rooms in the house because it hasn't been gutted of any of its 1940s-50s charm. It's an addition that hasn't changed much since it was built, as far as we can tell. PERFECT! I had to tell the realtor after the closing how much her apologies had fallen on deaf ears. Every time we walk through the door I'm struck by how it feels like home. We have an electrical crew rewiring right now (fishing new wiring into the old K&T chases), but once they're done it'll be ready to move into. I can't wait. As we've explored the various trunks, dressers, hutches, etc. that are there we've found some fascinating family history as well as some great house history. I have shivers just writing about it. Of course, there are a few problems. At one point the upstairs bath (a closet with a toilet and the tiniest sink in the world) had a minor leak. We'll need to do some probing to ensure that there's no rot or fungal problem lurking. And, probably because of the moisture and heat, the kitchen plaster walls are not in the greatest of shape. However, the plaster in the other rooms is lovely, and from what I could see in the attic, at least the second-story ceilings are remarkably well keyed. Woohoo! The woodwork has not experienced the dozens of paint layers that frequently accompany old houses. There's no real wood rot, even on the exterior wood, that I can find. We'll need to strip off the steel siding to reveal the clapboard underneath, but that will wait until spring, after we've gotten a few other things taken care of. I know this is the longest post EVER, but I can't resist telling the story of this house to some folks who will appreciate it! Most of our friends/family seem to fall into the camp of "Are you nuts? You must be absolutely nuts!!"