Thanks Otis, I have enjoyed reading various comments here as well and frankly I have a lot more browsing to do. I have noticed quite a few posting by yourself as well as Yan here. I'm sure we have a great deal of information to share. I'm looking forward to our discussions. Yan, although Helena proper is listed a zone 4, I am in the center of the valley, whereas the city of Helena sits on the side of Mt. Helena on the south-west side of the valley. My weather patterns are a lot different even though I am only five minutes or five miles from town. Winds here can be three times higher than in town, and the moisture levels are considerably lower. Our frost lines do get down to about two feet but that is where my garden stops and the bed rock begins. My six raised beds are dug down into the bed rock or approximately four feet. The deepest raised bed is dug down five feet and contains well aged cow manure/straw. This bed has a combination of red wigglers, Euros, and Canadian night crawlers added to it. The red wigglers have pretty much taken over the bin, however I do see evidence of the other two worms from time to time. In the fall I dig a sizeable hole in the center of this raise bed and fill it with garden scraps. In the winter I cover the surface with black plastic and place three window panes over this bed and let it sit until spring. Worms will migrate to the lower levels, but by spring they will have pretty much devoured all of the garden scraps. I use the composted cow manure for potting mixes and filling large garden holes with a 50"50 mix of compost and top soil for tomatoes, squash, pumpkin and cucumbers. I also add a cottage cheese container teaming with red wigglers to these holes as well. I have an unlimited supply of well aged cow manure. and horse manure in various stages of decomposition. I add horse manure with straw bedding to an above ground out door compost bin which sets under my deck. Like my raised beds it is 4'W x 8'L, and 3.5'D. By sitting under my deck and next to the concrete wall of the house, I get some protection from the cold. I cover this bin with a wooden 1" x 4" frame which has 14ml opaque plastic sheeting (painters drop cloth) stapled to the frame and a tarp thrown over that. This compost bin under the deck also gets a healthy dose of garden and harvest scraps before winter. The only difference in the two outdoor bins is the under deck bin gets dosed with hot water periodically from an outdoor faucet I installed a year ago. Some of the horse manure in this bin is fairly fresh so adding hot water helps to boost the decomposition process in the winter months. By spring a few turnings is all that is required to complete the pulverizing process of the 'horse biscuits'. This may seem like a lot of compost but I never have enough. The main garden 60' x 100', four 4' x 60' rows, six 4' x 8' raised bed, fruit trees, etc., use a lot of compost. I also bring in three pickup loads of the well aged cow manure to till in each spring. I would like to figure out how to post pics here to help explain some of the things which I have been posting. Will do that as a follow up as soon as I can determine how its done. As a side note Yan, I wore out a shovel and pic ax establishing my garden, bins and planting fruit trees, and I have a rock wall 200ft long, 10ft wide and 6ft deep extending my back yard into a 40ft barrow ditch along my back year. This wall has been a dumping site for corn stalks: potato, bean, pea, squash and cucumber vines; and layered with horse manure as well. I have added another riser to my 20 riser irrigation system to plant this area next spring. It already has dill growing in one corner, and I figured I would decorate this area with an assortment of colorful gourds and maybe some small pumpkins this spring. Each year I now have people stopping who want some of my corn stalks for Halloween decorations. Figured they could help themselves to some gourds as well. morgan

2.Unpack the .zip file and run clear.fi client setup.exe You should have a folder on the desktop with a zipper on it, that is if you downloaded it to the desktop,. To "Unpack" it. Just right click the zipper folder, then choose "extract", you can extract it to the desktop, once you extract or unpack it. Look for and Double click the clear.fi client setup.exe

Great thread. I've made many mistakes over the years. When I needed drapes for 5 very tall and wide windows, I thought I would save money by making them myself. I ended up buying 30+ yards of a synthetic moire on sale at a chain fabric store, along with drapery lining, and after making up one panel, found that even with lining, the light coming through the fabric made the color brighter and kind of gaudy. The bolt is still in an upstairs closet, and I found 96" crushed voile panels online that I like very much for about $20 each. Lesson: keep it simple. A couple of years ago, I hired a local designer mainly to help me choose paint colors and advise on accessories/tweaking. In the master bedroom, I had some custom green silk drapes that I never liked that much, and she talked me into spending the money to have them interlined and a printed fabric border added, along with custom shams with the same fabric. I had already spent $2000 on the drapes, and now I spent another $1000, and I still didn't like them. I took them down, and they and the matching euro shams are in the closet in the guest room. I put up natural linen-look semi sheers from target, and I like them better. Lesson: keep it simple, and don't throw good money after bad. We weren't using our formal dining room much, and the same designer suggested moving the dining furniture into one end of our large living room, and making the old dining room into a den and the old den into a home office, which was really needed. Since I wanted to replace the old LR sofa anyway, I moved the den furniture into the living room and had a custom ($$$)sofa made for the new den. It was not a huge space, and we tried to keep the sofa scaled down. When it arrived, the fabric was gorgeous, the style just what I wanted, but the seat depth was so shallow that it was not very comfortable. I had also slipcovered the old den chairs to go with the new sofa ($$). I ended up moving the new sofa to the living room, where it was more appropriate for perching ladies than lounging TV viewers, and now none of the colors I had chosen (with help paid for by the hour) for the LR and new den would work. Plus, the newly slipcovered den chairs (on swivel rocker bases, I love them) don't work that well with the old sofa color. Fortunately, I hadn't painted yet. Lessons: Don't buy furniture without sitting on it. Choose paint colors after you are certain of your fabrics. Don't let your designer talk you into stuff you don't really need. Keep your major pieces fairly neutral. The worst was the master bath update. I had chosen tile for the walls and floor, and the tile vendor gave me a couple of names for the installation. The guy with the higher quote was very highly recommended but I went with the other guy because he said he could also do some other work I needed done. Even though I had a gut feeling I was making a mistake. He did a horrible job on the tile, broke my toilet, and disappeared. I had to buy more wall tile and pay another contractor to replace it, and I'm still stuck with a bad job on the floor. Between the cost of doing the job, redoing the job, and buying a new toilet, I could have had the better contractor do the job, and replaced the vanity and sink as well, and upgraded to a better tile. Lessons: A jack of all trades might be a master of none. Go with your gut. Ask contractors for their license numbers and CHECK IT online with your state to see if it's in effect. I've made more, but these are the recent highlights, LOL. I feel better having confessed them here.

When I open my idea book, the upper left square (tge "first" position on the page, same size as all of the images) has a large green "+" sign. If I click on it, it allows me to upload pictures and files. You are allowed to upload multiple files at one time. I used to have a folder for each room, but as we are nearing final design choices, I consolidated my preferences into a single ideabook. Of course, then I added another for misc/interesting things I want to save and will figure out what to do (or NOT do) with at a later date. Someday there will be a 12-step program for Houzz addicts! Good luck!