Tony, can I ever relate. The only difference is that I had never made a thing grow in my life before. The plants I received during the many hospital stays, I managed to kill within the year. I had three failed back surgeries which left me with no use of my left leg and foot, a back that I can no longer bend, turn or twist and lately severe Arthritis has attacked my entire body (especially my hands) and horrific pain 24/7. I was in deep depression for a very long time and perhaps if my children would have helped and worried about me as you do about your Mom, I would have pulled myself out of my world of self-pity a long time ago. Alas, I was not that lucky, however, one can only live like that for so long, before thoughts of ending it all take over, and I thank G-d for giving me the strength to find the will to search every avenue to help myself. Also, I have a family physician who is modern and not adverse to giving me enough medication (even narcotics) to take the edge off of the pain. When my youngest moved across the ocean, I bought a samll computer to keep in touch with her. I taught myself how to send e-mails and then I started wandering around the Internet. It was then that I came across GardenWeb and after reading the different posts for days, I got the courage to post and ask questions. You would not believe the many replies I received with all kind of advice on how to start a garden (some giving me sites where to find more info) Last winter I kept myself very busy planning my little garden, searching through catalogues, gardening magazines and the Internet, looking for perennial plants that have "good garden manners", as my garden buddy Newt taught me.I have several container plants and start working on them when it is too cold to plant in the ground. My garden takes up most of my time (even the many long sleepless nights). I agree with the poster that said that outside help can be very frustrating, however, if you have the time to supervise then they will do as your Mom would like to have in done. Who knows, I just might find another hobby to add, that will ensure that I have no spare moments to dwell on all the things I can no longer do (I was not born disabled) Also, I am not adverse to getting a little psycological help now and them when I need it most. I have to digress here for a moment and tell you that the great friends I found here on GardenWeb gave me a new lease on life. I still write to some and they answer when they are able. We exchange jokes as well as gardening information,links where you can find more information for every subject and seeing that we are in the same boat, in one form or another, it gives me the strength to carry on. (We understnad each other) Perhaps that is why I am so grateful to GardenWeb,and to this new Forum. The advice you got in the previous posts are excellent, and if I may, I would like to suggest that if you do build a raised bed, sitting on the wall and twisting around to care for the plants does not always work for everyone. I know it doesn't for me. I don't know if my solution will work for your Mom, however, I had four large (tall) rock garden stones with relatively flat tops placed in strategic places so that I can move around on them (not have to twist my spine). That way I am closer to the ground and can get my hands in the dirt. I guess I will have to leave the composting to purchasing it in a bag (not quite the same as making your own, I understand, however,it's the best I can manage.) Just one last thing, I have purchased some excellent "Enabling tools" through a Catalogue,the name is called Gardenscape, they have a toll free number, which is: 1-888-472-3266, the are situated in Toronto 416-698-5339, they are very reliable, guarantee all purchases and ship promptly. The Catalogue is Free. (I believe they are a GardenWeb sponsor) Good Luck, and G-d Bless Punky.

The intended purpose for laying down plastic is to retard the transmission of soil vapor (which is in almost all soils except in extremely arid areas, and inexorably rising due to changes in barometric pressure) from coming up into the basement space. The fact that you are using a dehu means that you have a perceptible soil vapor problem (at least that's why you are paying the electric co. to run the dehus, which is comparable to running an A/C, in some cases). Note however, that I said retard, not completely prevent the rising of soil vapor into the basement atmosphere. Nothing I know of will completely keep it out. Because we now have a goal of sealing up our houses in the name of energy savings (and have modern, and different, whole-house heating systems) rising soil vapor can get stuck within the building potentially causing damage to the structure or contents or residents, if mold develops. Of course your house, like mine, was built with long-tested systems that did not expect, or require, the house to be as hermetically sealed as we sometimes try for these days. In 1857 the vapor was a-rising just as it is today, but it was exiting the building much more easily. Two other factors: people lived and worked at home and were more likely to be aware of and able to adjust the basement openings during the day, promoting additional passive ventilation to remove the moisture. And they may have highly prized that very same moisture if they stored food in the basement. Of course they also didn't have nifty stuff like cross-linked plastic molecules made into cheap (if you don't take into account any off-stream environmental costs), easily laid-out rolls of plastic to put to use, either. Soil vapor is also coming from the basement's walls as your inspector noted. But blocking that moisture is as hard as, or harder, than blocking the soil vapor. If you had thoughts of converting your basement to modern uses (family room, media room, exercise parlor, etc.) you may be disappointed as this is rarely successful in old houses such as ours. So the remaining issue seems to be: how tight is the house above the basement, and how might that tightness be interfering with the house's natural ventilatory patterns. (I think of it as how the house is "breathing", albeit in a passive way.) And of course, it also depends how much more you may be planning to do, in the name of energy conservation, to further tighten up the house. You have run smack into one of the central dilemmas of old-house care: how do you integrate (without doing damage) modern building and energy standards with a structure that was designed and built to support a completely different system? Solving one problem can easily create a new, perhaps more difficult to manage, unforseen issue. There are many opinions and oxen-to-be-gored in this arena. As a practical matter, if you want to lay down plastic (though I recommend special-purpose materials intended for vapor retardation instead of construction poly) and can seal it well with tape where sheets are overlapped, and along the bottom of the walls, you can susbstantially reduce the amount of rising vapor within the basement cavity. But you should know there are some who posit that doing so will shift this moisture (perhaps with damaging consequences) to adjacent soil spaces, including under and in the immediate, exterior vicinity of your foundation walls. This (according to some) may super-saturate the soil, disturbing the necessary firmness and creating settling or susidence problems. Does it? I surely don't know, but it does create - over time - a very moist soil under the plastic. (You can test this by laying a yard-square scrap of plastic on the dirt floor and see what happens.) Others recommend various systems of forced, or air-pressure augmented passive ventilation to remove the moisture laden air from the basement before it can rise into house interior and replace it with (theoretically) drier exterior air. This method has the advantage of not monkeying around with existing soil mositure states, but it is complicated, and may take personal attention to adjust during each day and/or electricity to run. If you have just purchased this house, I think you should observe the ebb and flow for a while (at least a calendar year), as you think about this. And keep the issue in mind as you contemplate any further sealing and insulation projects. It sounds as though the dehus are keeping things in check, so nothing (except cost of power and fuss of removing condensate) is lost by taking a go-slow approach. And by all means, test for radon if you have it in your area. (Your local or state health department is a resource on this.) An upside of the necessary ventilation to control radon can be a reduction of basement moisture since the gas and at least some of the air vapor are removed at the same time.

I had the same plastic tile in a rental! After I took it off, it took about a gallon of joint compound to level the walls, and even then...those were my newbie days. So dumb I used ready patch instead of mixing up some good stuff that I could breathe while using. The house had been moved three blocks in the 50's and the walls were really off, above and beyond anything my simple patching could do, so I added textured wallpaper in a nod to the lincrusta/analgypta style (except it was the 12.50/roll stuff from HD because my landlord was thrifty-minded): Wish I had a picture without the sagging oak leaves and with the chair rail we eventually added. We enjoyed that bathroom for a good three years until we finally bought our own fixer. And I was glad for the practice on that place; gad what a newbie I was (and I'll be saying the same thing of myself now in 5 years). but at least thanks to casey, worthy, brickeyee, and macv, I use the right stuff on plaster now (bonding agent, durabond, and sometimes easysand, depending on the situation). Anyway the lincrusta look worked very well for us. We painted it with BM blue lapis, then bought the bottom of the color strip (darkest, I think it was simply called Navy or Blue), mixed 50/50 with glaze, and rolled on, then wiped off with paper towels until we had the tone-on tone look we were going for. Man I loved those walls, and got lots of compliments. They were inspired by the bar in the the British show As Time Goes By, if you ever saw that one. Except those were a brownish red instead of blue.

I iron my top sheets and pillow cases. Any wrinkles in the fitted bottom sheet come out when you put it on the bed. I have tried to buy iron-free sheets but they are usually sateen sheets and even though they are 100% cotton, my husband and I don't like the feel of them. We like crisp, fairly heavy sheets and they are hard to find, especially if one's on a budget. I have one perfect set and 3 other not so perfect sets in addition to sets that have gone to Goodwill because we hated them.