Liz - you may want to get some indoor/outdoor carpet to put down on the balcony. Fortunately mine came with that green astroturf and with it being basically plastic (and of course spiky - although it's not the cheap kind with hard plastic "grass"), it has held spills that may have overflowed the saucers. It dries well and is easy to sweep when the debris is dry. Basically this would be in addition to any saucer or other system that you try. It should keep the wood dry. Luckily my balcony is poured concrete but I still have to be very careful with spills that go over the side because many of those here who have stuff out on their balconies, have put their chairs and sofas back up against the rail so that they can face inwards towards the windows and door and thus they can get splashed. ;-)

Orchid_pixie, 1. Buy a heavy duty tiller, if you decide to try to cultivate your soil. Don't do what I did and get the "cheap" $188 model at Walmart. It will only leave you $188 poorer & shaking your fist at the sky as you realize you wasted your money on a puny tiller that got you nowhere (and which, to boot, is hard to start unless you have the upper body strength of a titan). 2. I too, love gardenias & have been trying to grow them, with varied success. So far I've killed 1 1/2 plants (I would say two, but I won't know if the last one is dead until it warms up & I can tell if there are any remaining signs of life). Of the plants that have survived my attempts to grow them, I currently have two indoor veitchii (one at home, one at work -- I'm conducting an experiment to see which lasts the longest before dying horribly, or preferably, which blooms first!) and four frost-proof gardenias that I bought at Pike's and planted outside in my front garden bed. As for the frost-proof, they seem to be doing okay, and given that you're in the northern part of GA, I would give those a try before buying some of the less cold-hardy varieties. However, whatever you decide to do, do yourself a favor first and read the suicidal gardenia thread I'm posting for you below. The first time I read it, I literally laughed so hard that I had tears streaming down my face. Enjoy and good luck! Here is a link that might be useful: Suicidal Gardenia

Welcome Loisgriffin! It's so exciting to build and yet a daunting task to pick everything out. There is also a building forum if you ever have questions on construction or general building help. All of these forums have been invaluable to me since we built a year ago. Here is a link to the Building Forum I'll also give you a link to the Bedroom Gallery If you look near the top of the page, you'll see a button that says "Switch to galleries" and there all all kinds of threads over on that board that show pictures of paint colors, specific rooms and inspirational ideas. The bedroom style you are describing is pretty close to mine. I have Restoration Hardware furniture with a dark finish, Cappuccino colored walls and dark beige carpet. This combo (I hope) will allow me to change the bedding fairly easily since it's fairly neutral. In fact, the bedding we have is 10 years old and we always think about changing but haven't found something we both love yet. Here's my color scheme. This paint is a tad darker than it appears in this photo. ;c) Good Luck building and happy decorating! Lindy

Been doing a bit of thinking (and working) so haven't really had a chance to post. Davidro: Thanks again for the suggestion, but I'm not into the Silgranit or the drainage area. As far as I'm concerned, taking away counter space is a bad thing. As for the other things, I stood int he future stove area and there was plenty of space behind me for others to get by. I don't think thats an issue. Measured the fridge and will need to incorporate the dimensions into the layout. They're pretty close as they are now, probably a 1/4" here and there off. Opening my fridge to 90 degrees gives me access to pretty much everything easily. If I need to take drawers out (which I do like once a year now) I can either pull the fridge out or just remove some of the door storage shelves (they pop in and out easily). So, where I have it now is pretty good in terms of placement. I'm thinking of getting a 36" wide vent hood instead of the 30". i've been doing more reading and it seems like everyone is going 6" wider than the range/cooktop, especially with gas. Also, I'm thinking in the future, when this stove dies (hpefully not for a while) we'll get something a bit more high performance, but still 30" wide. Anyways, in order to get a 36" hood in, I need to switch the 24" cabinet to the left of the stove in the layout above to a 30" which is better for pots too. The cabinet on the left side of the stove will stay at 18". I'll have to rip my door trim down a bit, but oh well, can't have it all I suppose. So, I'll try to get my plan updated a bit although there aren't any huge changes at the moment. Still thinking about microwave placement. Have to do a rough layout for my laundry room as well. We're moving it from the main floor to the basement and the plumber that is coming to do the kitchen drains is going to do the laundry room rough in as well so need to get that planned out. Bye for now! Thanks! Dan