Well guys, We still live in the house we bought to in 2014 in order to move Donna's aging mom who was (at that time) showing symptoms of dementia. The dementia progressively took its toll on her mind, and then in October of 2016, she was diagnosed with stage 4 bladder cancer. She lived until early February 2017 and died here at home with us, as she wished and she had made us promise not to let her die in a hospital or nursing home. She died surrounded by family and a hospice nurse was present. I only relate this story because Donna's mom's health situation was the reason we bought a house big enough for all of us to live in, under one roof.........and the subsequential multiple projects and renovations.........were the reasons I dropped off of the forum. As soon as we moved into the house, I had a long list of things that HAD to be done, and a long list of lesser things we WANTED to do......so my time on the forum just could not be justified.....I simply had too much to do. The first things to be done were to come up with safety measures to help prevent an elderly woman with dementia from injury by being proactive about preventing her from "escaping" the house. I had to equip all exit doors with a deadbolt lock keyed inside and out (all keyed alike) and we had to come up with a nearby "hiding place" close to each lock location for spare keys in case of emergency. This house has a full basement with stairs, and we did not want her mom to have access to the stairs, so I included the same deadbolt on that door too. The sliding door to the second floor deck was a challenge in that it had a key lock on the outside ONLY with just a paddle lock lever on the inside. I had to come up with a way to make that door lockable with a key from the inside. My solution was to remove the lock assembly from the door and "reverse" location of the paddle lever plate and the key tumbler plate, so that the key tumbler would be on the inside. I stripped out the guts relating to the paddle lever and covered the hole where the paddle shaft came through with a small brass plate.....heavily epoxied in place from the backside (inside the door). All you can see from outside is a small hole blanked off with brass. The deck is on the second story on the backside of the house with stairs leading down the the pool, which is enclosed inside a fence, so we never use the sliding door as a "key entry" point anyhow. Then there is the attic storage space epic adventure. The attic space when we bought the house, was almost non-existent. There was a total of 4 sheets of 4' X 8' plywood (128 sq. ft.) on the joists at the top of an extremely rickety pull down wooden stairs. Stairs were the first to go. Replaced with a sturdy aluminum pull down folding stairs. Then I hauled 22 4' X 8' sheets of 3/4 OSB into the attic space.(each sheet was cut in half lengthwise to fit through attic stairs opening). We now have about 800 sq. ft. of usable attic storage space. I built 2 inverted trusses (strong backs) to attach to the joists on the sections spanning the 12' kitchen and the 18' den. These trusses ensure that the load imposed by the extra OSB and stored material are ultimately borne by the load bearing walls at the hallway, den, and both walls of the kitchen. The addition of the trusses assures that the ceiling joists do not assume a sway back shape over time resulting in cracked ceiling gypsum board. I assembled the trusses in the attic and fabricated them to have about 1/2" "preload bow" on the 18' truss and 3/8" preload bow on the 12' truss. This was to ensure that the trusses were actually carrying some load right from the start. After I got the trusses built and fastened onto each joist they served with metal strapping, I built a 30' long, 2 tier shelf system into the truss structures. Shelves are 24" wide and the bottom shelf is 20" off the floor, while the second shelf is 46" off the floor, so you have the attic floor under the shelves, and the 2 shelves themselves for storage, That yields 180 sq. ft. of space, plus the remaining 720 or so sq. ft. of attic at various head space. The tallest overhead clearance is about 6'2" at the rafter collar ties (and I added collar ties so that every rafter has a tie, instead of every third rafter as the house was built). There were 4 rafters that had "split" open due to improper orientation by the rough carpenters. They had placed rafters with knots situated on the lower chord of the rafter (tension side), which is a no-no. These rafters had to be jacked back into place and reinforcement panels of 3/4" plywood "scabbed" onto each side, glued and screwed. The original scheme had the ventilation exhaust fans from both bathrooms simply dumping into the attic space, another no-no. I extended the exhaust hoses over to the gable area of the house and busted through the brick and installed 2 bona fide exhaust hoods with insect screens. On the longest hose, which was a 4" hose....I built a booster fan box in the middle of that run and wired it so that it turns on when the original fan turns on. I felt that a 16' run of 4" hose would probably need all the fan power it could get to keep from simply "stalling out". The other hose was 6" and only 8' long, so I felt it was adequate with no additional help needed. I could go on and on about other projects, but these were some of my most major undertakings, Now, about my employment. I no longer work as a forklift mechanic in the shop. In midsummer 2015, I took over running the parts department when our longstanding partsman retired. This was challenging in that it put me to the task of acquiring and dispensing the parts instead of installing them on vehicles. It has also been challenging in that I was the first partsman in our history to actually have the capability of searching the Volvo and Daimler websites to look up parts. It was in the summer of 2015 that the company finally got onboard with software to enable this. Prior to that advent, our method of ordering parts involve looking the parts up in hard copy paper parts manuals, or talking to a vendor/dealer on the phone and trying to describe what you wanted, it was sometimes a crap shoot whether you would get the right parts or not. The outgoing partsman never had to use the computer to look up and order parts, and when it was introduced, he refused to do it saying that his time was too short to need it, so he told me to get all the training and he would just watch. LOL He and I worked side by side for 3 months while he showed me most of the ropes before he retired in October 2015. That is a summary of what I have been up to. I know this was completely off topic, but since the request was posed here, I felt OK in responding here.

Apple TV is a digital media player, or receiver, for internet streaming of video and audio media, as well as local area network playback. Basically the same as Roku, or several other of the media players now built into most Blu-Ray DVD players and internet connected televisions. Quite frankly, it has never been known as one of Apple's more successful products. Media players require two prerequisites to be successful: ability to provide high quality display of various files and streaming formats, and access to content and service providers of program material that people really want to watch.

It definitely seems heavy on the black and white and greys color scheme, which is fairly neutral and somewhat easy to pull off as far as then blending your furniture into that. I have a lot of white ware, cream ware and depression glass stuff, which is very adaptable to a lot of situations. A few choice show pieces with color and texture because that is all you can afford. As for using old junk as furniture and ornaments, that was "in" during the 90's too. So Gaines style to me is just a black and white version of shabby chic with industrial touches thrown in. Not my style, but I can see how some people might find it restful. Some of her stuff is great but some of it makes me shudder as far as being practical. I don't mind words as art if it is poetry, inspirational quotes, or great calligraphy or even an old advertising poster. But random huge words just to take up space, not so much. But then I love art too much and have too many bookshelves, so I am never at a loss for what to put on a wall! So I too, have a hard time understanding what people want. Do you want a cool color scheme emphasizing black, grey and white? Do you want a mix of industrial and shabby chic reclaimed pieces or the look of that, maybe mixed in with some more traditional pieces to give an eclectic look? Plain Jane background with texture in your art and furniture and accessories?

Thank you, Jim - yes, the funny thing is, there already is a French drain there and I’ve never seen even a drop of moisture in it. The moisture seems to stay above it in the cinderblocks and doesn’t seem to make its way down to the bottom cinderblock in any obvious way. I know the laws of gravity and hydrostatic pressure probably say otherwise, but I was trying to understand how a French drain helps when there doesn’t seem to ever be enough to actually “drain” away. ‍ Yes, I received estimates from well known companies for rather elaborate systems that would run along the entire basement out to my back yard - just wondering what would actually “run” out there? Water vapor?