My goodness, this thread takes me back in time! Mighty_turf, I ended up not using a solar cover on my 10x12 HFGH (decided my climate really didn't require it) so I am no help on best places to purchase. I believe conventional wisdom is that most heat loss in a greenhouse occurs through the roof. If I were to purchase one I'd definitely cover the roof, and probably lap it down the sides a bit, depending on the size I ended up ordering. Hopefully others here will have more specifics for you. If not, I'd consider starting a new thread with your specific questions about solar pool covers, to get a few more eyeballs on your questions. (Sometimes newer threads get more attention...?) Happy New Year!

Tomorrow is supposed to be the hottest day so far this year at close to 100. I work midnights and sleep mornings if I'm not babysitting the grandson. I usually go out once I wake up and have a caffine shot for energy. Today was so hot that I waited until after 4 pm before I could make myself go out. I roll up a bandanna,wet it, and tie it up around my face and slide it up into the edge of my hair to keep the sweat out of my eyes. I sometimes roll one up, wet it, and tie it around my neck also to help keep me cooler. I want to plant more trees closer to the house to help lower the temp. The drought is really hurting everything. The grass is crispy; the veggie garden is hanging on with soaker hoses; the trees, flowers, and shrubs are hanging in with hand watering. Since we just moved to this place last April (to be closer to the grandkids) most everything is brand new and isn't deep rooted enough to handle such prolonged drought without extra watering. DH is starting to worry about the well since rain has been almost nonexistent this summer. But, I can't bear to see everything drooping. So I water and pray at the same time. We are going on vacation next week and I intend to drive home midweek to water. We are going to mulch deeply and give everything a deep watering the day we leave. Before next year I want to lay soaker hoses and put them on timers. But, I still handle the heat better than I can deal with the bugs. They eat me alive. I even had a fly worry me to death while I was trying to water tonight for Pete's sake!! Can't use bug repellant due to allergies. Still, all things considered, I'm a blessed person and love love love my garden. It is worth all of the blood,sweat, and tears!! Ah, the dreams I have. So many of y'all have such awesome gardens and I drool all over the screen while I'm dreaming and planning. Thanks for posting all of those before,during,and finished pics. That's what keeps me going. Betty

Dandylandy, I'm so sorry to hear about this mess. You unfortunately do need to talk to a lawyer now. That doesn't necessarily mean you need to file a lawsuit--sometimes a stern letter or three from a lawyer is all it takes. Also, depending on the value of this (what's the total cost of the cabinets?) you might find yourself in small claims court or in mandatory arbitration, which is a lot easier and cheaper than a full-on lawsuit. Where I live any dispute worth $25,000 or less goes into arbitration, which just means you and the contractor show up (with or without your lawyers, but obviously I'm going to recommend WITH, absolutely) and say your piece to a group of three local lawyers who volunteer as mediators, and that group of three lawyers decides how to resolve it. It's much cheaper and easier than an actual lawsuit. If you're in NY, perhaps the cap is higher than $25k. Anyway, what I'm saying is that you may not be looking at a lawsuit at all; that's not the only way the legal system has for resolving disputes like this. So, put plywood on your counters or some other temporary fix, DO NOT pay the guy another dime, talk to a few local lawyers who specialize in real estate or construction law (ask friends and your architect for recommendations) and pick the lawyer who seems best to you. The first step will probably be for him or her to write a mean letter to the contractor, and then you go from there. Oh, about this: **"Some of the things that really bother me could have been avoided with better communication - e.g. if they couldn't go to the ceiling with the cabinets b/c my ceiling isn't totally level (or something, I am just speculating), and they warned me about it, that would have been a lot better than telling me "Yes" and then not delivering."** I don't even see how that would be possible; if your ceiling's not totally level, then the cabinets would stop somewhere below the ceiling and it would be up to you to decide whether to build up the ceiling a little bit or put some moulding on to hide the gap. In other words I can't think of a legitimate reason that your ceiling would prevent you from having ceiling-height cabinets. I just mention this to cut through any BS you may have heard from the cabinet guy. Anyway, gather together everything you have in writing (including any drawings or mock-ups) and write down everything you remember saying to or hearing from the contractor. Have your architect forward you any emails she sent to or received from the contractor. Also go through your voicemail and see if he left you any voicemails that could be relevant. Then try and write up in one or two pages exactly what you understood he was supposed to build for you, in every detail (dimensions, materials, etc.), and then what he actually did build, and what problems that caused or will cause (e.g. plumbing messed up, plates won't fit, layout changed so cost increased). Also note any scheduling screwups that occurred. Go over it with your architect and your hubby (if any) in case they remember things you don't. Then send this write-up to the lawyer, along with a copy of your contract with the cabinet guy and any other really critical documents like emails where the contractor committed to something that wasn't clear in the original contract or where he said X but it later turned out he did Y. It will take less time (and thus cost you less money) for the lawyer to read this than for the lawyer to "interview" you to figure out what happened. Best of luck.

Oh, golly, golly, I'm so thrilled that you all have taken the trouble to read my tome and offer comments! Thank you, dianalo, rhome and bmorepanic! I really appreciate the suggestions and will give all of them some thought because that is exactly what I was hoping to get: fresh eyes that haven't been over and over the same old thinking, as I have by now. A few quick thoughts: rhome: It's a good point about the small size of the counter to left of the sink (between DW and sink). I gave it that space just as elbow room in case I do have the DW elevated above the counter. Without that space, I thought it would make it feel like you were doing dishes with the sink nearly touching a wall because of the vertical side of the raised DW cab. I am definitely not wedded to it, nor to the little 6" space on the other side of the DW. That's probably going to evaporate, anyway, (except for an inch or to of framing to keep the DW door from being slap against the wall) because the room is about 2.5 inches out of square in that corner. Odds are on that I either a) won't have any DW or b) will have it at normal counter height merely to use as an expensive dish drying rack. I plan to set up the finalized "test" kitchen, and work it, live with all appliances and water installed, before we go too much further along. It'll be ugly as Hell, but I've lived with inconvenient and ugly for years. So getting it down to just one annoyance in the name of making sure I've got it right seems like a good trade-off. Since both rhome and bmorepanic have identified issues about the corner pantry area, that obviously needs more thought. The 30" door is fairly fixed in position; it can't move south (it may be possible to move it north) because this is a timber-framed building and its southern edge is right against an unmoveable framing member. That's what the small box with an X in it signifies. (Note the similar one on the opposite side behind the range; that one controls the placement of the stove vent hood.) I thought the diagonal step-in gave me more storage space than truncating it by running it straight across. The little closet is just a niche to store the fire extinguisher and emergency supplies. My current fridge probably won't last too many more years and then I thought a FD model would give me more useable space in front, which is why I'm planning for a larger appliance in that space from the start. bmorepanic's mention of the grocery-to-house pathway brings me to an admission about one of the driving forces of my plan. The grocery arrival path is actually through the sitting room door at the top of the drawing. One of my biggest issues with this house is the traffic flow from the outside to inside. It's a direct collision of three things: a)I live in a region of the country where no matter how formal the house, nobody except dead people in coffins ever uses the front door of farmhouses; b) even if I could manage to change this deeply-ingrained cultural pattern, the classical "front" Greek Revival facade of my house - complete with double door flanked by side and transom lights and appropriately dressed with columns and pilasters - is inaccessible to anyone who arrives by car; and c) it makes me ab-so-lute-ly nuts not to have a distinct, graduated, intimacy progression from outside to inside. This is the one thing (perhaps even more than the non-functional kitchen) which is at the root of this upheaval. I figure since I can't change either the people or the surroundings, the one thing I can change is the pathway they follow. So I've decided to alter the room functions to match my sensibilities; when people approach the house (by the inevitable backdoor entrance) they will find themselves, whether they like it or not, in my public reception rooms, leading to my formal rooms (sitting room, office, etc.). Buried deeper within the house are the rooms I consider more private, like the kitchen. It goes against the modern grain, I know, but to me kitchens are personal workspaces, truly the "heart of my private home", which is not something that I like to share with visitors. And definitely not where I want to entertain casual visitors from the census taker to local politicians stumping for votes to the man who comes to see me about the fencing. Right now the kitchen is the first space inside the house. Meh! It's not like I want to show off to my visitors or them feel uncomfortable - even my "formal" sitting room is very low key and approachable, and relaxed. But I so much want - and need - that step-wise gradation of intimacy, that I'll do anything to get it. I have gone and back and forth and back again weighing this. But in the end I have decided that if I can arrange my rooms to satisfy how I like and still leave the structure largely changed (because it is so old and I don't want to make structural changes), I'm willing to make some sacrifices: such as I'll have to bring the groceries in through the sitting room (actually the current kitchen) to get to my new kitchen. The additional the distance is only about about 6 feet longer (immaterial at a farm where the cars are stored in barns at least fifty feet away, not in attached garages), and it's unlikely it will be embarassing to us to haul the groceries through the sitting room, since we'll be the only ones present while hauling! I will put some more thought into the corner step-in area and see how it can be improved. Your observations are very useful to my planning. I truly appreciate the time and trouble you have taken. I'll post some updated sketches in this thread rather start a new one. May I also say thank you for your kind words about my amateur drawings. I have struggled to the point of tears trying to use computer room planning software. And because so many people who ask for advice have mastered this, until now, I have been too abashed by my lack of skill to post without a computer drawing. Back soon, with another version(s) of the corner pantry area. Anybody else want to put in their two cents? Nancy