Hi Gail! I am so happy to see that you are still growing clivia. Are they not such a beatiful plant in and out of bloom? So easy to store somewhere until the spring comes back too! I personlly have noticed that mine bloom whether root bound or with room to grow. What I did notice was that the plants that are not with tight roots are all around better looking and more robust than that of the others, which also encourages bigger bloom! I also noticed that inner roots and those roots rubbing up/or surrounded and or strangled by others tend to rot away, even in an open mix when very tight. That is why I don't like letting them get too tight/root bound. The outer roots always seem to be the ones that thrive while teh inner ones can easily fall away in this setup. many times I loose some roots that tend to push themselves out of the soil and sit on top. I just stuck them all outside since they can take very cold temps in our very much appreciated open mixes. It is a myth that they don't like their roots disturbed, or that they have to be root bound to perform well in my case. Just watch for earwigs that set up shop in their crows deep within the leaves. Newgen: I use vinegar at every watering when I think of it. There are some that I know do just fine without being on the acidic side like Clivia and Fragran Osmanthus, along with Hoya which love lime. I would check out your plants needs and find out what range of pH they thrive in. :-) Al: As always great advice since I have learned from the best!:-0)))) Al, is there a great pesticide to use that will prevent erawigs and other critters from crawling into the deep crevice leaf joints near the crown? Thank you I heard that 'Seven' and or 'Diatomaceous' sprinkled into the deep leaf crevices that are attacked to the main trunk works wonders. Please, what is your take? Mike Have a happy day everyone!

cmarlin - if we keep them, I'll clean them, but no paint, I think they look pretty rich and even though old, I actually like them. I think I'll probably put in something like Silestone in a mocha color and it would look great. What will determine whether we keep them is if I can find a good match that will appropriately fit. kelpermaid, I think they painted in the house recently, though I'm not sure - going to try and find out. I know they've lived there for 6 years, so if they are the only people who smoked there in the last 25 years since it was built, at least 19yrs of it had no smokers - but not sure how bad the last 6 years have been. creekside - now you've TOTALLY confused me! In some cases, homes need to dry to the interior. Kilz will prevent that. So will some other products. A spot of Kilz here and there won't hurt anything. Rolling it on all the interior walls may promote mold growth. So, if you are going to use Kilz after cleaning with TSP or something like it, you can't paint everything?? I'm sure I'm not understanding something here - I'll try to read the info on the link you sent - maybe call the co. next week. Carol_from_NY -thanks, I think my cleaning list is growing by leaps and bounds. The way I'm going, I may have to put my mother on the top of the car and tell her to hold on to the luggage rack for the trip up I'm going to have so many supplies to take! Thanks for mentioning the steamer, I have one and wouldn't have remember to think about taking it. I've never heard about putting gum in for smells, that's a new one. I'll try ANYTHING to get the house to normal. Thanks for all you suggested. Well, at this time we are in limbo. Inspections turned up a few problems, two problems that could be major, one that definitely is and has to do with a foundation failure. I am trying to get the owners to agree to fix what's on the repair list I sent them - which isn't everything that needs to be repaired, I took on the cheaper and more easily aspects of it. Will know more next week whether the deal goes through or falls apart. Wish me luck!! Thanks again to all - everyone has been extremely helpful, and it's all appreciated! Oh, one more thing - my Mom was there during the inspection and told me they had a machine running to take the stink out and she thought it smelled better in there - was probably an ozone machine. My nose will decide (if we close on it, that is) THANKS!!!!

Thanks to all of you for your comments and help! I think I need to start over and try M Tex again. Although I would still like to hear from happy Dorado folks, if you are out there. I did get a response back from Dorado and was told that a mistake had been made. I was also told that while I only need 24.6 sq. feet, he's gonna round it up to 25 and charge me for the 25. Why does this seem to not be ok to me? Part of the problem is that I have a small kitchen, only need 25 sq. feet of stone, and am trying to stay on a budget, ie: keep the shipping costs low, and install myself. Maybe I should get one of my male friends to do all the talking for me and see if I get better results! I'm going to call Michelle next week, and I'm also going to check out Soapstone International. Thanks to all of you, so much! I will keep you posted with the result.

Hi andrea and no.s & uncle -- thanks. As an appliance garage, I agree with all you say. I don't have one in my kitchen and was never tempted. I don't actually have a problem seeing appliances sitting on countertops (obviously; if you've seen pictures of how I live you will notice a certain high bar an tolerance for clutter). But you're right, andrea, it's the tambour door I'm after, not the appliance-housing capacity. I wondered about that reliability issue. If you install them yourself is it any better do you think? I'm pretty much anticipating the door being open much of the time. It's intended for waist height in a floor-ceiling narrow-ish stack used for linens and things. It's located on a hallway and I think having a drawer at chest-and-above height will not be so good. But I'm worried about cabinet doors opening smack-dab at chest height into the walk-way. So I was thinking at that mid-height to nix the doors altogether with a "roll-away" one. I saw those swing up doors but worry about their stick-out-edness the same as swinging cabinet doors. An open shelf could work but I'm afraid it would look a little cavernous. So andrea - what's a "garage door" style door if not a tambour door? Maybe, having wider slats? I don't know the lingo. I've seen those open and slide back type doors on cabinets intended for TVs ... I could look into finding the hardware; it must exist. That's a good idea. I hadn't followed up on that. But you'd need to keep the side areas of the space clear. I can imagine when housing a massive TV that's easy enough, just position it on top of a shelf, which they do. When the space is intended for kchatkes, I'm guessing it might become a nightmare and unusable very quickly. Good point about the cabinet above needing to stay closed for the up-and-out hinges. Actually, best would be a tambour that slid horizontally all the way around - not up but sideways. I bet that would be better-functioning. You wouldn't be fighting gravity... I haven't settled on the making of these cabinets. But we had our kitchen done by, basically, a maquiladora. That's a whole nother set of options when on the border. For some reason I feel a little queasy about this, though I'm no fan of nationalism --- anyway, that's what we settled on before. It worked well-enough in the end, but it was something of a fight that I've been reluctant to return to the fray of. Still, it is likely where we'll wind up. And yet, none of it is settled. They certainly could do inset but it might look a little funny? Though the tambour is essentially inset, so there you have it.... Thanks for thinking about this, all.