We have been crazy busy this last week removing all the steel studs, furnace and two 50 gal water heaters from the basement to make ready for the new concrete floor so sorry I am just now getting back to here. We just finished late yesterday and we are both really sore from all that manual labor getting everything out. The company that will be putting in the concrete started at 7 a.m. this morning welding the iron that will hold the corrugated steel sheets that will hold the 4" concrete floor. When they are done with that, we will spend the next three days laying in the vapor barrier to cover the dirt and we also have to put extensions on the two sump pits. Prior to this, we had to have the OSB flooring removed and about 1 foot X 2,200 square feet of expansive soil removed, new helical piers drilled, the second sump pit installed and new perimeter trenches dug and new french drains and rock put in so this has been a horrific costly project. We have done any and all work we can do ourselves to defray costs. Thank you all for so much helpful advice...I appreciate all of it!! We did check into having tubes put into the concrete to carry heated water to heat the floors but about 80% of the floor will be carpeted and we have been told that heated floors would not be efficient with carpet. There may be some great pad to use under the carpet that provides more insulation too. There will be a tiled bath and a work/hobby room that we will put the heated mats under the tile. We may put in a high efficiency stove/fireplace in the future. I have been reading about all kinds of concrete sealers, one has tea tree oil in it which protects against mold and it seals against radon too so I think we will seal the concrete floors for an extra layer of security! We will also have this super heavy duty vapor barrier down on the soil. We live in Colorado so it can get very cold here and we also have radon issues. Back to the stair issue...I have received about 50 responses to the ad I put on Craig's List. One guy said he was experienced with stairs and it was probably a half day job and would be about $100 labor plus materials. That sounds really low but I plan to call each one back and screen them - or at least the ones who answered my ad in the way I asked them to - and the ones that look good I will have come look at the stairs and give me a bid. I realized that it doesn't make much sense to have them look at it until the concrete floor is in which will now be the second week of June.

The order that the electricity flows is switch, switch, lights. Multiple wires at some lights mean they are travelers from one switch to the other and do not get connected to all the others. A physical inspection by someone familiar with 3way switches would be in order. We have no way of telling from here which wires are incoming power, travelers or outgoing power. A wiring book will be helpful. If you study a few wiring setups it can be figured out what goes where.

I found a link from a NJ graite store. I am not recommending this place. I am not from NJ and do not know them. I just found that they list their granite prices based on letters. A, B,C... http://www.tsstone.com/page3.html And I found this second site it lists some prices too. G G is considered a Group C and is about $53-63 dollars per sq foot but this also depends on edge, location, seams... I do not recommend this place. I do not know them. Maybe they will be fine. I was just doing a search of prices in New Jersey. http://www.stonegalaxy.com/index.php?option=com_rsgallery2&gid=5 G O was in the same price range as Uba Tuba and Verde Peacock. (Within a 100 dollars.) from my quote. Sometimes granite yards have a bunch of slabs they want to get rid of so offer them to installers at a specific price. I am not a granite guru just guessing why the GO was so much cheaper in New England. Best of luck on finding a good price. G O is a pretty stone. I saw some amazing slabs in New England.

Thanks Aloha -- when I start a new thread I will definitely add that! Have you tested "png" or "gif"? I'll test those as well. [I'm going to start a new soon -- the exising one is around 200 posts and it's getting unwieldy.) Oh, and I think I'll add something about converting PDFs to JPGs for those who only have PDF. Again, thanks -- great addition to the Read Me thread!