Cooperbaily, We bought the chairs in Amish country. we just made the small chairs, I stained the small chairs to match the big chairs. pbisjar, I really don't pay much attention to what's in and what's not! Hey, I still have border paper in my kitchen! You need to go with what you like, everything eventually comes back anyhow. flyleft, always use a virgin cloth with each application, no matter how careful you are with the cloth it will become contaminated with something, dust, pet hair etc...Same thing for the waterlox, pour out into a container just the small amount you think you'll need for the job (I mean for the one coat-at a time). Use the gloss Waterlox, and you can control the amount of shine you desire by sanding with 0000 steel wool or very fine sandpaper. Regarding major renovations, we have been through many! You have tempted me to do a thread on our bump out window project...Our marriage survived this remodel (another DIY project)with flying colors... It started on July 2 2004, and was finished just before Gobble, Gobble time! I couldn't believe how much work it was and how entailed it was. We did this project, without even a minor handbag scuffle! However, be prepared to see the remodel from hell! Both indoors and outdoors was a disaster. Our kitchen and bathroom re-model was a dream compaired to the window job. levelyn, I'm sure your table will be gorgeous! Thank you lafonda and everyone else. :)

jterriynn, the steampunk fashion stuff definitely has a sexual edginess. As for the steampunk decorating stuff, I've decided that it's not for me. ____ I really did try to take up this challenge but I've given up. Just thought I'd record a little of my journey and why I am going to quit. Surely a better thinker than I am will conjure a fabulous kitchen from the ashes of my fabulous ideas. First, I looked hard at the Metropole subway entrance and tried to channel it into a design. Didn't get anywhere. Without a grand high ceiling and skylight, this aesthetic is tough. Sure, I could have invented a high-ceilinged room with amazing glass and spidery separations between glass, but that's an architectural feature of the house or apartment that would be the impetus, not the muse itself. So then I got to thinking about Madame Curie and her cohort--now there were visionary scientists of the period! I asked my DH what he can recall of the huge science classroom that he worked in for roughly 30 years, in a c. 1900 building. He says "Hard maple floors. Oak cabinets--a whole wall of them. Long lab tables with a few sinks and bunsen burners. Tall curved faucets. Tall windows and window shades (the latter were removed when they got tacky looking. Not sure when this equipment was installed." I started working on a Marie Curie's lab theme for the kitchen olioboard--canisters lettered in that art nouveau Metropolitan typeface (see photo above) with "radium" and "pitchblende" stenciled on them and gaslight fixtures in ceiling and a steam radiator painted in an outlandish color but decided the whole thing was not worth my time. This was reinforced when I located a photo of Curie's lab, which made me recall that she had been allocated space in a "shed" outside of the physics dept, a silly woman working outside the mainstream. How's this for a setting for real-life science fiction? To quote her: "Its glass roof did not afford complete shelter against rain; the heat was suffocating in summer, and the bitter cold of winter was only a little lessened by the iron stove, except in its immediate vicinity. There was no question of obtaining the needed proper apparatus in common use by chemists. We simply had some old pine-wood tables with furnaces and gas burners. We had to use the adjoining yard for those of our chemical operations that involved producing irritating gases; even then the gas often filled our shed. With this equipment we entered on our exhausting work." All this just made me mad on behalf of Curie and did nothing for my peaceful kitchen. Besides, she was working with radium so the radioactivity might be hard on the family life and the cuisine. Here's another Curie laboratory image, I would assume for her later work== perhaps inspiring for another GW'er? a 40 x 30 print of this can be had for $200 Gotta admit: Science and cooking aren't in the same department. In fact, people make fun of modern "operating room" white kitchens--they are antimatter for a relaxing, gentle room. Then I tried to work up wallpaper based on Steiglitz's photo of a train yard...plenty of steam there! But I couldn't find a source of a blown-up version of the photo and I became afraid that the photo would be taken as being about trains--not a peaceful kitchen for me either! Then there's Joe Stella, a painter of 1920s who did numerous Brooklyn Bridge stylized paintings. I messed with his arches and colors. But this got me nowhere either. The truth: TNT explosiveness and edgy are not me and decorating with a steampunk science muse doesn't connect me to any worthwhile kitchen design. Sorry to be cranky, but I'm done here I think. I know it's fun but not the fun I can really enjoy. I look forward to somebody else's fun stuff on the postings Steampunk thread. Have fun stormin' the castle, visionaries! Here is a link that might be useful: Marie Curie lab poster from All Posters

Marilyn, Have you started reading the Grace series by Beverly Lewis? She has just come out with that series, #1 is "The Secret", and #2 is "The Missing". Also, have you ever read any of Lynn Austin books or Tamera Alexandra books? Lynn Austin is an all time favorite of mine and Tamera T. also. Lynn Austin is really, really good she will keep you spell bound from the beginning. "A Proper Pursuit", "A Place to Call Home", and "Hidden Places" are really good ones, but ALL her books are Great. She is comming out with a new one this Oct. She is the only author that I will ask my family to buy her books for me for Christmas at full price. LOL.

Annpan - you asked whether I had ever seen the Mapp and Lucia TV series - no, but I have heard good things about it... Does the series stay quite close to the story? I happened to find a title the other day which I am having an extremely hard time to put down. It was published in 1955 by author Brian Moore and has the appalling title of The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne. It's the story (fiction) of a (maybe) middle-aged (definitely) unmarried woman during the 50's in Belfast. She becomes enmeshed with one of her fellow boarders at the house where she lives, and, at the same time, is fighting really hard to keep part of her life secret. Really excellent read. She's not a particularly likeable character, but she stays with you. Reminds me a bit of Stone Angel's protagonist in some ways. And it has little to do with bodice-ripping type passion. BTW, just found out that there is a sub-category of bodice-ripping romance books focused on the Amish crowd -- called "bonnet-ripping".... :-)