I suppose we will all confirm our fears and we typically find only what we seek. If you want to belive that gardening is less popular, or that the globe is an average paper- it would be easy to confirm that with investigation. I do think Garden Web is a much better way to get gardening info- That was my main thrust. I guess i am coming from a different angle. I am comparing items, Globe vs other papers. Garden web vs Globe gardening articles. The globe is a great paper (to me) because they have a valid editorial staff and great washington DC office. What I mean is that they still produce indepth, new- news. Not many papers do that any longer. This is the era of Fox News. Ick. I see no evidence that Gardening is on a downward trend. Home depot, Lowes, Walmart, They might change the market, but (again my opinion) that proves that there is a larger market than there used to be. I venture to say that there are more gardeners now than there ever were, they are growing flora that my parents never knew about, and they can find better information in 20 minutes of research online then they could from reading 20 years of Boston Globe Thursday gardening articles. Still- perhaps they are less sophisticated. I live in Franklin, and the town library has wonderful historical films on VHS, and Dahlia's and Rose gardens were pretty well represented in some of the back yard images. those gardens were very impressive. Today is not "better", just "different". I have many 30 yr old friends that garden, they do so for the same reason people did it in the films. Gardening is good for you. It always will be good for you.

I also received a resurface quote that was substantially more than new cabinets, including the install for the new cabinets. You can only save money if you DIY. I am going to try this on my small powder room vanity someday. I wouldnÂt experiment for the first time on a kitchen. These are the reasons to resurface instead of going new:  Your cabinets are structurally sound and the frames and shelves are in good condition.  You donÂt want to change your layout.  You want to avoid having to remove all the items from your cabinets (they tape up plastic film).  You donÂt want you kitchen to be out of commission for several weeks. Typically a resurfacing job takes one week and thatÂs about it.  You like your counters and everything that sits in them  sinks, cooktop, Etc. IÂm including the link to the DIY site I found when I considered this option. Here is a link that might be useful: DIY Resurface

Les, totally agreed: all you need are some testimonials from people here and a rockin' website, and you'd be off. And in the Chicago area, you could probably charge $50/hour instead of $20, and people'd still count themselves lucky to have you! And the other talented people here, too: I love the idea of redoing one person's room/house each month. Thanks for these nice messages, everyone! Alas... DH has both our cameras and he's out of town, so I can't even take pics, let alone post them! I'll try to get a friend to take some, because I really do want to share them. THe part I most like about it all is this. My LR/DR/kitchen is one big long rectangular box, basically. We'd laid it out so that all the furniture was on verticals and horizontals, echoing the room's geometry and making it feel even boxier. Decorator Tom broke that up. My DR table is now on a diagonal, and so is the too-big sofa, but no traffic patterns are blocked, and the rooms are still very usable. (although my sons complained that now they can't do capoeira in the living room...) Also, he rearranged all the pictures, plates, etc so that wherever you stand in the three rooms, your eye falls on something pretty. I'm not quite sure how he managed that. Parma, my house is so dim, and I crave light... we had one wall dark in my MBR and it drove me mad. In another house, in my friends' houses, I love color, and here in mine I love deeply colored pillows, art, textiles... but I need the ambient light reflected by pale walls or I go off the deep end. Pam14, thanks for your sweet note. DS is OK now, thank goodness (I've posted to that thread). One more comment: Tom travels a bit, so if anyone in Phoenix, Albuquerque, or Denver wants his info, I'll pass it on. (:

Has anyone used this company for cabinet refacing or custom cabinets? How do they look? How were they to work with? Thanks.