We have a rim lock on one of our exterior doors, supplemented by a deadbolt. We have an old house, and there was what I guess was the original rim lock there when we bought the house, but it had no keeper. To replace it, I got one of the more ornate rim locks with keeper from HOAH. What I discovered was that the door frame wasn't on the same plane as the door, so I had to affix a piece of wood to bring the keeper in line with the latch. Also, the doorframe didn't seem to have enough wood behind it where the keeper needed to go, so the screws holding the keeper kept coming loose. I solved this by affixing the aforementioned piece of wood further way from the edge of the doorframe. So this is a long way of saying that you would need to let your contractor know that the doorframe needs to be able to accomodate the keeper. Also, if you live in a cold climate, you'll want to get draft covers for your keyholes. Here is a link that might be useful: Draft cover

I would like to know some advise for buying furniture directly from overseas? Happy to provide my opinions. 1.How much do you need to pay for the custom stuff for 20' container in your country? Not sure what you're asking. You can name your price depending on the quality and complication you will settle for. All Asian furniture bought directly from the Asian factory is paid for before it leaves the factory. 20' container is small. You will have problems with a factory that doesn't think you can do enough business. 2.What kind of after-sales service do you usually get if you buy from your country. In the U.S. and Canada we expect proper service and resolution to reasonable problems. If necessary we can go to court. Of course in Asia that is not realistic. 3.What is the rate of the tax? Don't know what the import duties are, however, for bedroom furniture it can be quite high unless you protest and win. 4.Wooden furniture would need to be disinfected, so how much would you need to pay? The wood needs to be treated first before anything else is done to it. Once the furniture is made its too late to treat the wood. I know of several companies who lost a lot of money because their Asian factory skipped this step to save a few pennies. 5.Besides custom staff, tax, what else do you need to pay for importing furniture? If yes, how much for each items? You probably need to hire quality control inspectors to regularly monitor the factory. You need to spend money on catalogs and trade shows to promote your products to store buyers. Plan on frequent travel within the US as well to make additional visits to store buyers. Some furniture will arrive damaged or with missing parts. You will need to maintain a warehouse for replacement parts or your dealers will make deductions from future payments to cover the costs of repairs and missing parts. 6.Would you like to try to buy directly from overseas, why or why not? No way. Unless you can do a lot of volume, you will eventually lose all your money. Thanks so much for your kind attention and comments. I take pleasure to lend an attentive ear to your idea or suggestions for the points mentioned above, as I plan to retail furniture to overseas. I would like to see wheather it will work or not. Thanks. You have many competitors now, and the retail furniture sector is in a major recession. In fact, I would call it a depression. My advice would be to attend the international furniture trade show in Las Vegas in January and see what your competitors are offering. There are many business opportunities for an Asian entrepreneur in this economy. Furniture is probably the worst. Why would you choose furniture?

We are starting to request quotes on our low budget kitchen remodel. My kitchen layout is great. In fact it was what drew us to buy the house in the first place. The cabinets are in good condition except for the doors, which are vinyl and peeling. Out plan is to repaint the boxes (which are plywood) and get new doors. I have gotten quotes for painted shaker style doors from 2 companies - Maple Craft USA and Advantage Cabinet Doors. The Advantage quote came in at $1200 for 18 doors and 12 drawer fronts. Maple Craft (who I really want to use) came in more than $1000 higher. Add to that another $500 upcharge from both for having 6 of the doors made into mullion doors. Given that the total projected amount for this project will be about $6000 (and that includes new countertops) a $1000 difference is a big hit to the bottom line. My question is, have any of you done business with either company, and if so, what were your feelings about them? Many thanks in advance!

After starting this thread I thought I should have searched these forums first. So I did, and I found several people who have used TM Cobb doors but only two of them said anything about the experience. Wow. TM Cobb doors. Everything went wrong with these doors. Wrong glass, wrong style, wrong hinges, poor quality, warping, pulling apart at the seams, spintered jambs, mis-cut sills, poor service - the list goes on and on. We lost probably 4 months to the problems we had with their doors. Out of 50+ doors, only one didn't need some sort of reworking/replacement. Never again. http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2328858/poll-what-is-one-brand-product-you-will-never-buy-again?n=62 We endured record rains, record heat, cost-overruns, head scratching stupidity, inept subs/ordering/suppliers, the worst door order ever shipped from TM Cobb... http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2331265/in-its-true?n=15