Yay! Someone likes my bathroom! You have no idea how I had to fight contractors et al to see my vision! Unfortunately, my vision has things like floating cork flooring.. (no glue down, as the rep from Torleys told me that the trapping of moisture is more likely with glue down), to slate, that everyone told me would need to have the heck sealed out of it continuously (turns out it's on a "need-to-do" basis, probably every 6 months to 1 year). I sealed the slate 3 times, twice with a paint roller LOL, just to make sure it was sealed. It's so sealed, I can't wait for some of it wear off the 2" x 3" tumbled slate floor. It's a little slick, when you add shower gel (no bar soap allowed in our bathroom now, as it adds oils that you don't want to build up). For 3 months after we bought the slate, and before it was installed, I had literal nightmares over the fact that I thought it was going to be COMPLETELY black in the shower.. it's not!! We added one shower light in the middle of the shower, just to calm my nerves, and I am very glad I did. It highlights every aspect of the lovely stone, without glaring at all. The picture above is with natural daylight on a snowy day, so you can see how NOT dark it is! The other "issue" we had with the slate was that it was/is randomly thick. Some were 1/2", some were 3/8" thick, and some were over 1/2" thick. The blacker tiles are harder stone, and of course the reds/oranges, are less so, but still we were able to cut them down even as thin as 3/4" for trim around the window. None of the strips snapped. The slate is called African Gold, made in India. It truly is the hardest slate I have seen. So far no shaling off of pieces and no crumbling. The worst thing if there was anything bad with it, was that two boxes we bought were completely cracked in half, but we used them in the archway (that is a foot too high.. long story!) Originally the door way into the shower was far more of a "hobbit" style, but I was vetoed, and I caved.. last time that happened on this job! We do have a window in the end of the shower, but the glass is a textured?/frosted glass, so the outside light is muted somewhat. I did have a moment of worry, once the slate was up, and knew that the paint colour would darken the room somewhat. To a degree it does, but all in all the room is cosy, warm, and a million times better than the room we had! And it has a... door! Our old bathroom had a bifold closet door for a door, and it sucked! The alder door we have now is a perfect compliment to all the "golds/warms" we have. The bathroom, although gutted to the outside walls is no bigger than it was before, but it seems miles larger now. It's still 9' x 5'. Our laundry room is part of the bathroom, but separated by a stud wall. A piece of advice..don't try and do too much in such a small space! Our machines are stacked, ginormous, and ate up every inch of the space I had intended not only for washing clothes, but also the storage cabinets that I now cannot install! Ah well.. I'll just fold on the lovely new Desert Gold granite in the bathroom! I do hope you do what feels right, what you want, and most of all..what you love. I may sound like I just blundered my way through, throwing my weight around with demanding certain products, but not one of the items in that bathroom was put in without the "OK" of either tile experts (who greatly informed me on my choices, products, and practicalities), to visiting many many sites, stores and product lines when it came to the cork/paint/lighting. If I had not recieved the go-ahead from the proper people, none of these items would be in the bathroom. There will always be debate on all these products, but heck, I am old enough that these things will outlast me! After that, who cares? LOL Once we have baseboards up, towel bars installed, we're throwing a bathroom warming party.. you're more than welcome!

I really like your sleek, modern kitchen. Those floor tiles are great. I like the linear suspension light, but maybe you need one with more presence? I fell in love with the Flos "Long & Hard" linear suspension lamp designed by Philippe Starck. I kept walking around it at the showroom. It is so slim and clean and simple, but really has presence, especially with the undulating silver texture. Not cheap, but it is lighting and art in one, lol. The name is a bit much, but it is one sexy fixture. The Artemide Talo suspension in silver/gray is also cool, and a bit less expensive. Here is a link that might be useful: Long & Hard

can you stop the floor from ambering? short answer is No. You can get finished that dont amber, like Bona Mega Clear. but will enough sunlight change the color? slightly yes. Ways to avoid it, is to limit the amount of sunlight that hits the floor. which means when you're not home, cover the windows. But if you're home enjoy it. if you know a certain time of day the floor gets an a lot of light, think about blocking the windows during that time of day. There are some UV coatings you can put on windows and glass doors, i dont know if they would help or not, but one more thing to think about. White Oak, and any species of wood, will amber/sun bleach, with enough sun exposure Dont bleach the floors unless you like that look. it wont help with ambering. If you dont want beveled edges on the floor then get site finished. If you dont want to mess of finishing and sanding, get Pre-finish. Wire Brushed floors is a style of distressed look. some people like that look, some dont, its completely up to you. I have noticed some distressed floors tend to gather gunk overtime, but havent figured out if from poor maintenance. 4lb dogs generally are not a problem. still would try to avoid play fetch with them on the floor, but 25 + lb dogs who are active on the floor are where the real issues come into play with scratches.

Question 1 - I was really blown away by how deep and big the taproot is growing on these trees. It's like most of the energy is going to create this big root. It's thicker than the trunks in every case, and the roots are easily twice to sometimes 3x as long as the seedling itself. So on on of them, I cut back the taproot a little bit... I took about a half an inch. I had read Al mentioning that slowly cutting back a taproot over time can help spur the tree to grow more roots higher up. I hope I didn't take it out of context. The first day the lowest leaf of that seedling, which has started to go brown on the rim, became pale and collapsed on one side of the leaf. Then yesterday it went dry. Today there has been no further progress of the leaf's collapse and no further signs of stress. The seedling seems strong... Was I wrong to try and trim it back just a little bit? Or did I do alright? Is this seedling out of the woods for now do you think? Young plants are nearly all dynamic mass, and as such, have a very strong "will to live". If your plant is currently doing well, there is no reason it will take a turn unless something cultural forces a change in course. Bonsai practitioners have learned that lifting seedlings as soon as the first set of true leaves emerge and removing the seed radicle immediately below the root to shoot transition zone and treating the top as a cutting eliminated taproot issues entirely in most plants. In stubborn plants with a hard tendency toward vertical roots, you'll need to regularly remove all first order roots (attached to main stem) growing downward from the root to shoot transition zone as well as all second order roots growing up or down off the first order roots. Question 2 - related to question 1, regarding the other seedling I root pruned a little. This one I took a little more off of because of root rot. I know I had to take it off, and I also took off a bit of taproot for this one too. The seedling itself seems fine. The uppermost leaf - which is fairly new and thin yet - went limp the first day, but has become stronger and greener these last two days. I know I had to take off the bad roots, but I was worried I went too far. I'm hoping I'm seeing indications that I didn't? Only way to tell is by putting a waiting period behind you during which the plant retains its turgidity throughout the daylight hours. Stomata close at night and slow water loss, so unhealthy plants have opportunity to recover from low internal water pressure and wilting. No wilt during the day is a good indication to bet on full recovery. Question 3 - When I was done, I investigated the 5 'dead' seedlings. Two of them looked like some of Al's bare-root pictures. The main part of the taproot was healthy, seemed alive, and had small alive roots still growing from it. but the end of the root was truncated in mush, much of which fell off into the soil. I washed them as clean as I could in a mist spray and cut off the mushy end to clean root. Then I potted those in 5:1:1 too. I'm hoping against hope that I might be able to save them. The top id dead back to the twiggy stump... Any thoughts if they might come back? Anything special I might do for them to give them the best shot - for instance a special fertilizer or watering strategy? Withhold fertilizer until the plant recovers. DAMP or MOIST are the operative words. If the fungal infection has gummed up the plumbing such that a vascular connection between roots and shoots isn't in the offing, it's a goner. If the infection isn't systemic, the possibility of retaining viability is still on the table. What kills cuttings is the inability to make that plumbing connection due to rot, or the cutting having an inadequate energy reserve. If the plant/cutting/seedling runs out of reserve energy while it still a net user of energy instead of a net producer of energy, it's over. 4: I have 5 I have not yet repotted. They seem to be okay... though 3 aren't doing much of anything, they're just existing and may have some first sign of browning on lowest leaves, but I might be looking too hard too... One is finishing it's fall flush of leaves, and one is start starting it's fall flush... I'm not sure if I should repot them so close to winter or if I should let them be until spring, since they seem okay right now. I especially am not sure I should mess with the one putting out new leaves. But on the other hand, what if I really am seeing some warning signs and some suddenly start taking a down turn in the next week or month? Wouldn't it be better to do it early, now, rather than later? The only reason I re-potted the ones I did was because I was sure they wouldn't make it through winter... I am not sure on these ones. If they were your plants, what would you do? A dearth of mobile nutrients, over-watering, root congestion, soil compaction, can all lead to loss of lower leaves. I'll ask you to spare me from having to do the research by telling me if these plants would normally enter a predictive dormancy during the fall to winter transition? If yes, then waiot until spring but guard against over-watering. If no, repot only if you suspect strongly that the plants will no longer be viable come late spring (June). 5: Fungus gnats. =( I manage to get rid of them for a while, but they always come back. Of course, I was always using compost mixes, particularly organic ones, and they're usually lousy with them no matter how much a brand claims they pasteurize/sterilize for pests. Do non-mineral soil media mixes have the same ability to attract and support these and other soil-borne pests? If yes, which ones to watch for? If you don't already have a good understanding of what constitutes the comparative degrees of container media (as in unusable, practically unusable, just plain poor, ok, better, and the variations of better from 'sort of better' to 'really a whole lot better'), making that a priority will almost certainly propel your advancement farther/faster than anything else you might apply yourself to in the near term. If you need the info that can tie soils up into a neat little conceptualization, I'll be really glad to help, but I think trying to do it in a thread that covers so many topics isn't the best format. Are you familiar with and understand the concept discussed here? Which brings my follow-up: If it can support pests that spent part or all of their life cycle in soil, then it should be able to support their predators too, right? I prefer to combat pests with their predators, like nematodes, predatory mites, aphid lions, etc. Would this be doable if needed? How about we work toward providing a home for roots that doesn't provide creature comforts? In the immediate, mosquito dunks and a restrained hand on the watering can are potential remedies. 6: For the future of these little babies of mine, what would a good strategy be for keeping them happy growing in a container? You'll find an outline here that will provide a plan for maintaining woody material in containers and in good health indefinitely. I know I need to keep them smaller than if they were in the landscape, and that means eventually removing the taproot. I also understand that taproot removal usually starts after a year. But these trees don't actually seem to have much besides taproot... smaller roots branch off of it, and a few have some smaller roots that come from the trunk matrix but not most from what I've seen. Would the best bet be to gradually prune the tap root back over a few years in an attempt to get the trees to put out more roots higher up? Or should I go for broke and just cut it way back and defoliate? Or is it possible that the poor media I have been growing in so far as not encouraged growth at the higher and mid root range and drove the roots downwards looking for air? I'm sorry I haven't taken any pictures to share to give you a better idea. If I end up re-potting any of the others, I will take some. I think I covered these questions above, but if not, ask again. Al