I found a Presto Canner at a yard sale for $5 on Saturday. I wrote Presto and I also took it to my extension today. The dial gauge checked out fine. I will probably order another gasket even though it looks fine, no cracks, not brittle, and flexible. It has a pressure plug and came with a jiggle weight and a canning rack. It's got "MOD 01/CA 21H 0675 (I think it's a 21H, hard to see the 2, but the bottom part of the number is clear). It does have 409A at the bottom, which I understand is on all Presto models, indicating the product listing at UL labs. I could not find anything about it at PressureCooker-Outlet.com This is the reply I got from PRESTO: "It is a 21 quart canner and can still be used as long as you put rubber parts in it. We suggest you replace the sealing ring. The extension office cannot tell if it is good or bad by looking at it. You will need sealing ring 09907 This is a steam dial gauge canner. The weight if it is the correct one is going to be 15 pounds. As to its age, the date code of 0675 indicates it was made the 6th week of the year 1975. For your second layer of pints or half pints you stagger the second layer ( in other words put the top jar between two of the bottom jars." I have never heard of 'staggering' jars like this without a canning rack (from this site at least). Can you stagger them this way without a canning rack? I did ask her about using one. Or is that the way you do it WITH a canning rack? THAT makes more sense to me. It is the Harvest Gold canner, next to my green Sears Maid of Honor, which works quite well I might add. One of the interesting things about the Presto is the wooden handles with wooden pegs, not screws. It's too bad it doesn't extend more over to the side for release when it's hot. My ext. agent said she's seen a lot with wooden handles. She also mentioned how clean the inside of the lid was. She said you wouldn't believe what she sees. It WILL be tested with water first, absolutely! It's a 'find' I couldn't resist and always when you aren't looking for one! Im thrilled that I found one that I can double-stack pints. Now that I have a still-to-refurbish All-American and these two, maybe I will become the Pressure Canner Lady (ha ha) and sell any that I don't want to keep.

oh wait...I get it...you're building this house and this is the model. duh...I thought you were considering buying it for some reason. that explains the weird wall colors. Model home decorators always do weird wall stuff. I do like the cherry floors and cherry cabs. keep in mind that cherry gets darker with age so they will be even darker in a few years. To offset that, I would choose a lighter color granite than that in the model home. Something with gold tones in it but not too light, not as creamy as something like new venetian gold. Something in between. But nothing as dark as what they opted to use. That would really lighten the kitchen up without changing the cabinets or the floors.

How do you use the kitchen? Are you good about keeping everything off the counters that might stain or etch? I'm not, but a compromise might be to put marble on the island. Less chance that dishes will get left overnight or raspberry jam ends up under the toaster :) What about a darker wood island with a marble top? If you plan to have seating that would take care of little feet bumping against the island...and it would really set off the marble! For perimeters, maybe the darker gray with the white cabinets (so you don't look like you ran out of marble and tried to match it). As for the backsplash... consider whether you need something durable, behind the range. You might want to add marble subway tiles around the sink or do something different for the entire backsplash. Just a few ideas...

Incoming minority opinion: it depends. It depends upon how knowledgeable you are about plumbing and electrical issues, how extensive the remodel is, and how much legwork you want to do to find just the right outlets/switches/plates, lighting... How closely are you willing to spec the job and how much will you leave to the pros? Are you aware of the cost implications of your decisions? Can you coordinate the work from different subcontractors so they don't get in each others way and get their work done in a timely fashion? (This can have a huge effect on the time for the remodel.) Sometimes there are many more options than you might think. I don't know if this is good or bad, but some expertise (via GC or KD) is useful. We GCd a relatively modest kitchen and bath remodel a few years ago. In the kitchen we replaced a U-shape with an L plus an island, and put wood floors over vinyl. No walls taken out, no new plumbing and only one new electrical outlet. The baths were similarly simple with only a small amount of new plumbing and no new electrical. The guys did just what we asked them to do, and no more. It was reasonably successful, but there were some problems. For example, a couple of weeks after completion we had a water leak. Bad news for wood floors. The plumber blamed the cabinet guy (long but relevant story) and the cabinet guy blamed the plumber. In the end, nobody would take responsibility. Rather than go to court, we ate it. In retrospect, if we had been smarter (e.g. mined gardenweb) the end product would have been nicer. But it was still OK. We currently have a GC to take responsibility and a KD to oversee the details of this extensive and complex remodel. Yes, it costs more, but it is easy to overlook seemingly little things that become bigger later. Sometimes I simply don't recognize when I should ask a question. These guys do make mistakes and spec down, given the chance. So it really does depend on the project scope; your knowledge; how closely you want to spec the job; how much material you want the contractor to supply; your daily availability; your willingness to stand over the workers' shoulders and immediately confront something that does not appear kosher; and your patience. Wait until after the job is completed to try to quit your bad habits. You may even pick up a few new ones during the process.