Luna, I don't spend much on beading,lady that gives me her clothes(same size as I am) gives me beaded gowns, fancy sweaters with pearls, Christmas sweaters with all kinds of jewels,pearls & beads.Yard salers aren't interested in buying that stuff, I keep what I like & give to DD & Mom too. The TS's when they were new had no idea what to do with craft stuff so would put all kinds of stuff in a bag I could barely lift & it would be $3.98 & not sell so go down to $1.98 & maybe even 98cents. They have gotten savvy now & are much higher but it was great while it lasted. Only problem is it takes "forever" using a thread puller to get all the goodies off the sweaters & dresses. 1 day TS had sample book of laces 18 in long by15 in wide by about 6 in high,all samples were stapled on,about 4 pieces to a page, so all pieces ready to use on projects for $1.98 for book. All colors too, too bad days of making wedding books is over. You know those brocade,lace & pearl books that you put the pics in several years ago. I do see some gals take jewelry classes & spend a fortune on supplies. If I do need something to finish a project I get it with coupon/or 40-50 % off at Joanne's or Michael's. I'm finishing up a beaded butterfly for the garden 8 1/2 in. long by 8 in wide, copper body. I had to buy stainless steel wire & then twisted 2 wires together for strength, some of beads came from old broken necklaces those are the larger ones. spaghetti bead on tail is from when I made beaded reindeer ornies, over 25 years ago. I saved up beads & broken jewelry as thought I would make a Christmas tree on board someday, instead updated & made a Christmas tree last year of Styrofoam cone & beads & old buttons & jewelry & didn't glue(U shaped wires) as some are very old & didn't want to damage any value they might have. I made bunch of hair combs last year posted on crafts & decorations forum & used combs I used to use when my hair was so thick, did get some beads on sale as I wanted the colors to match what I wear. Also GF & I trade back & forth, I get a bunch of black beads & give her some,she gives me stuff she used to sell at Quartzite when they had a booth each year. Jan

Like everone else is saying......your best source to find a person who can do this type of work and do it well is by word of mouth. Going to a dealer would be the way I'd handle it as well. Here's the issue the way I see it, however. If it's a 75 year old table, it's going to be depression era. I love furniture from that era, but it's still relatively common, not really antique, and priced far less than what it's often worth. You may end up putting more into the repair than the value of the table, especially if a lot of refinishing is involved. If it's cherry, it's probably been a good set and as you said, it has sentimental value, and it's hard to put a price on that. There are a lot of people in my area who do repairs and restorations, and as moonshadow said, they aren't big outfits, or even have advertising and listed business numbers. Their prices for identical work are also all over the board. You may have to get several estimates, and you need to decide in advance, the level of skill involved in your repair. IOW make it sound and the splits not too evident, or make it look perfect, not including the top refinished completely. I'm so sorry this happened to a piece you love. Many folks don't really understand the concept of irreplaceable or that older things are valuable, as opposed to just old. I suspect your husband feels bad enough already about what happened.

I may be able to help you locate someone - I have some AZ School of Rock Alumni in the area that I have trained over the last 2 1/2 Years that would be qualified to help you... get in touch with me and let's see what I can come up with - First though - let's talk about the "damage" that you have.. Can you send or post pics and elaborate some on what the issue or issues are that you are having with your countertop stone? What kind of stone is it - Natural, Engineered, etc? What IS the damage as you see it - how old is it? Have the tops just been installed? Need some more info to help you kevin

The case of the test is wrong! Can anyone remember the name of the personality type test (very very long) that involved a portion on what you would take to survive being stranded on an island? It was designed in part to see who had leadership potential ( was not the 2 island test). I think the results were determined partially by being able to sway people to your way of thinking. Any way, funny true story. A million years ago when I was young I started working for a corporation that I loved. The management was exceptional. Over time it went way down hill. Management was fornicating with staff, management was fornicating with corporate inspectors and smoking whacky weed with staff. This became the norm. Horrible. Without doing any checks on what past personality trait tests were given, they gave the above test again and again. Occasionally they would skip a year. One year we were told there was a meeting. I had a lunch date scheduled for after. Imagine my disappointment in finding we had to do that long stupid test again. I would miss my lunch date. So, in all areas of our group discussion part of the test I convinced everyone to agree with everything a true imbecile in our group had to say. I told them if they didn’t we would all be sitting there for hours and hours. The imbecile thought I was singling him out for his greatness. In the end I made my lunch date. A few days later the imbecile was made assistant manager. A more unsuitable person couldn’t have been had if you looked to the end of earth. A short time after that, I left. Right after that, the place was sold. The sale had been in the cards for a while I think.