Katsura is great for bonsai, but only if you plant it in the ground for a couple of years to thicken the trunk (no root pruning please). It has to live outside and will be fine where you live. Don't let it get dried out in summer though (don't turn it's 'bed' into a marsh or anything, but if you get a few days-week of hot sun, water it sooner than later. Plums are great also, but you can't go digging anything now - very bad timing. Definitely get hold of some bks (videos won't do much and there are very few). Your best learning of all will be a local bonsai club, but you'll have to find it - you didn't say where you live. Otherwise look for recent bks by Colin Lewis, Paul Lesniewicz (for indoor tropicals), H. Tomlinson's 'The Complete Bk. of Bonsai", even the Sunset bk of bonsai (any garden ctre) to start you off will help. Amazon.com has a great 'Used" bonsai bk section with really inexpensive stuff (the condition of each bk is given) and it's a very good place to start looking. Suggestion - don't spend money on anything (trees) yet til you've done some reading, don't buy little trees in little pots at Wal-Mart, H-Depot, etc. and whatever you do don't follow the info. on their 'care tags'.

Don't feel bad. What you're trying to do does require a lot of finesse and without the experience it's a learning process for sure. If you can figure it out you'll definitely save some money. It's especially fun when you can go to a second hand store and find a great piece of furniture that's cheap and unwanted because the finish is in bad shape. Okay, so you're at the point of over sanding and cutting into the underlying stain. I'm assuming the color is different and it's not just the white haze caused by sanding on varnish? It's probably still possible to blend the lighter spots back in but I'm not sure you'd want to purchase the supplies to try the techniques out. I sometimes use touch up markers from a commercial finish supplier or raw pigments and dyes mixed with thinned shellac. You'd have to invest $50+ in supplies to attempt a technique that is difficult even for a pro and may fail and the supplies will likely go to waste afterwards. Now if I were working on that table, I'm guessing I'd be swinging into full strip and refinish mode. The reason is that you say your husband's poly is cloudy in spots. If that was there before you started sanding then it could be water damage. Otherwise, it's almost certainly an indication that the finish has separated from the surface below. Trying to finish over the top of that would be a waste of time. No, you don't have to sand all the finish off. It's also really difficult to sand off an old finish and end up with nice, even coloring afterwards. Using chemical strippers is a lot easier but also a little intimidating if you've not done it before. For starters, you need to do it outside because you don't have the equipment to ventilate the fumes. Secondly, you'll need to invest in $30 of gloves, scrapers, brushes and other supplies if you don't have them already. This will also remove most of the stain and require matching the new finish to the chairs. Your best bet is to first see if there's a reputable shop in your area that is setup with a flow-over strip system, outsource the stripping but do the refinish yourself. Chances are, it'll cost you almost as much to get supplies to get started with the chemicals as it will to pay a professional to do that part. If you do that job yourself, you'll need plastic drop cloth, heavy nitrile or neoprene gloves (probably multiple pairs unless you find the good ones), some scrub brushes, plastic putty knives and half a dozen pieces of Scotch Brite. That's in addition to the stripper and the solvent required to wash away the residue. I use methylene chloride stripper but it's potent stuff. Breathing it is bad and it will burn skin within seconds of contact. Plenty of ventilation is a must when using that and since some companies add flammable solvent to the mix, explosion-proof ventilation is a must. That means work outdoors or own professional finishing equipment. The citrus-based and soy based strippers work fine but are slower and in my experience, more expensive. 3M Safest Stripper is very slow but effective when used properly and can be used indoors. Downsides are water content will make the wood moist and it was more expensive than the others the last time I checked. If after reading that, you prefer the hard, dusty work of sanding, then my approach would be to get good coated (minimizes clogging) sandpaper from an automotive finish supplier and start with 80 grit on flat surfaces. Don't bear down on the paper, just use even, smooth strokes and let the paper do the cutting. Stop using the 80 as soon as the wood starts showing through and move to 100 to get most of the remainder off. 120 is good for cleaning off the last residue and you can jump to 220 to prepare for stain. Always sand with the grain of the wood. For profiles and other details, I'd not start below 150 grit. Be careful sanding on that top though. It may be a thin veneer so avoid removing any wood. and that's another reason I use chemicals instead of sandpaper.

Thanks very much everybody for the input! After I unpacked the Aloe's when they arrived they weren't in the greatest shape, I had to wait another few days before I could replant and by that time some leaves had to go, and others were blotchy and unhealthy looking! I eventually repotted them and set them in their new place, and waited about 5-6 days before I watered them, still looking unhealthy and fatigued! About a week or so has passed and the leaves are fighting back! The blotchy parts of the leaves are bbeing filled with smooth gel and the floppy hanging leaves are beginning to look strong again! They just needed a good drink! Just to check, how often do should I water roughly? I will check soil at different times aswell. And I won't rush the fertiliser or anything but I am told this is the season it should be done! Don't want to rush it tho, thanks for all help team!

You are training them well! Your comment about the hampers is correct. I end up having to collect clothes from their rooms. My 15yo daughter is the worst. I have to avoid her room if I don't want to ruin my day, and her clothes are the deplorable. The underwear, the deodorant stains, and she is the brute on the soccer fields, her uniforms are always stained up. She is a lost cause for now. I can just see your little guy sorting his clothes. ..I think I still have some time with my boys to get a few lessons in, after I learn them myself. I have been washing my clothes since I was 12, but I never learned how to properly do laundry, even in Home Ec.