Ever heard of ONDO lighting? Basically, you get two cheap shop light fixtures, grab just the ballast from the second and use it in the first along with the original to drive just one fixture. Bulbs probably wont last as long, but they'll be 1.75x brighter^^; There's an aquarium life website that has diy projects that explains it. Keep in mind, I haven't tried this--so use at your own risk. By the way, I'd choose the second of those two. Personally, I think it is all about lumens with this sort of light situation--the more the better. For flowing I think the duration of the light cycle would be more influential than the spectrum, but that's just a guess really.

I am generally pretty happy with how our house turned out. It is about 3550 sq ft traditionally styled house. The only thing that I am kicking myself about now is the fact that while the house is perfect for the four of us, and could very easily handle another child (or 2!) I stupidly didn't plan for the fact that we had promised our dd a dog when she turned 10. Just didn't think about it in the design process, stupid, stupid, stupid. We do have a nice mudroom/laundry room near the back door with cubbies, lockers, sink, closet...it is perfectly designed for the 4 of us. It is NOT perfectly designed to accomodate a large dog crate and assorted dog paraphernalia. We are actually going to get a smaller breed than I really want due to this. We "could" expand the room...but who wants to take that on after just finishing their dream home? Plus, it would involve additional foundation and square footage as we cant rob from the adjoining room or garage. We'll make it work, but it is annoying that it could have been perfectly designed from the get-go. Sigh...

Don't have a digital camera, so can't help you there. I can tell you that if you're looking for a 35 mm point and shoot, you get what you pay for when you buy the cheap cameras. To get anything that lasts you're best off in the $100-200 range. Stay away from Vivitar. Consumer reports recommends the Olympus LT-Zoom 105, the Minolta Freedom Zoom Orion, the Canon Sure Short 105 zoom, or if you don't need as much zoom, the Canon Sure Shot 85 zoom is cheaper and just as good. I have an Olympus and it's been a great camera. Recommendations for digital cameras were the Olympus Camedia c-2020 zoom, the c-3030 zomm, and the Nokon Coolpix 800. Some less expensive choices were the Fujifilm FinePix 1400 zoom and the Kodak DC215 zoom.

When I built my dream kitchen, which I sadly had to sell due to my divorce, I used the following: GE 5 burner gas range. It was not a continuous grate burner so it wasn't as easy to move pots and pans around but it worked. If I were to do it again, I would look at Induction but, then I would have to replace all of my cookware. And I have a lot of money in my cookware. My wonderful ex-wife let me keep all the kitchenware. I would go with gas again, and with a 5 or 6 burner on a continuous grate cooktop. And, a separate wok burner. If I could afford it, I would go with Thermador as I like their star shaped burner. I had a GE Double Wall Oven. Both were electric and convection. Gas is a moist heat due to it's combustion and most baking needs dry heat. I would go with it again. And, I would look at a double door like the one above. Blodgett or similar. It makes more sense. I have OTC/OTR microwaves. I had the microwave in a cubby but it wasn't near the cooking area in that house. I would look at a drawer micro or mount it in a cabinet mid height. I would NOT get a Double Oven where one is a microwave. I only had one dishwasher in the old house. I would have two dishwashers in the new kitchen. One a standard dishwasher and one a drawer unit for quick wash like glasses, utensils, but NEVER knives. Knives need to be out of the way but accessible. In the old house, I just had them in a block. I know have them on the wall on a magnetic bar designed for knives. Much better. Another thing I would do in my new dream kitchen would be to move as much stuff off the counters as possible. And have more plug-ins. And more lighting. Those are my thoughts, from an amateur chef who has had recipe's published in popular magazines.