Hi Emma, I'm doing this from home and don't have the leather handles with me, but its quite normal to see significant variances in aniline-dyed leather even within a given batch from a tannery. The higher grade the leather, the more they vary as a rule. Nevada and Canyon are Aniline-dyed, which means they are vat-dipped for color and are not corrected with spray paint (pigmented). Can't recall if Tuscany is aniline or not. Here's the general rules for leather and leather like products: Vinyl: Dead-on color. As it should be with a man-made product. BiCast: Closer to vinyl but consistent in color. Finished: Painted leather with topcoating. Mostly consistent colors, but can vary lightly. Aniline Plus: Vat dipped Aniline, but color-corrected with paint. So-So variance. Pure Aniline: The best! Vat-dyed with high color and significant shade variances. Looking at aniline-dyeed swatches is best done from about 10 feet back, seriously! Also, anilines tend to changes tones when pulled tight,so you see one shade when laying loose as a sample, and the finished product on the sofa will be lighter in most cases as its pulled tight. If color is absolutely critical, then you can request a cutting for approval prior to order production, but this often causes more difficulties than its worth. First off,it slows production about a month on average. Second, if you decline the sample, chances are you may have to wait another three to four months before a new leather batch arrives. Third, the sofa will look different from even the best cutting sample as the leather 'takes' differently in color and shade when upholstered. Hope that helps Duane Collie

I bought my Francis Meilland from a nursery clearance three years ago as a half-dying potted bareroot rose, and it bounced back pretty well. I put it in a pot for one year, and after two years being in the ground, no matter how hard I pruned it back, it grew to 7 feet tall. (I removed about 3 feet from each stem after the first flush.) It's not stingy for me at all, blooming regularly every 5-6 weeks. Maybe it just needs some time to mature. I only fertilized once in March and water my roses every three days in summer. We're not as hot as other states/countries, though. Photo taken 3 days ago.

Thank you for the comment! I have an 8x8 kitchen in the guest house, and that guest house is just for my teenagers to hang out really, not like we are expecting the Queen of England to visit, and I was all ready to get an ikea kitchen because it looks easier to install with the rails and etc. But then I got overwhelmed with choices and parts and assembly and their planner tool... So my $1500 kitchen plan quickly morphed into $3500. Plus the planner tool said I needed like 200 items (feet, shelf pegs, rails, hinges, toe kick, yada yada just too much work for one impatient person. So then I thought, I know Knoxhult! Modular, so easy to order, few decisions to make... But you can only put an RV sized sink into that. So then Homedepot unfinished have served me well in the past, and they have a 60" sink cabinet for $159! It looks nice, I mean it's not hand-hewn teak but whatever. I would rather stain than paint because I hate painting... But now I'm thinking artichoke green with wood counter would be so nice. Anyway, I have a few months before moving forward but I think I'm going with the unfinished. Good luck on your project! And the dogs look innocent to me... I think the cat framed them!

Oh yeah, Mtn. About 30 min south of where I work in an old textile town, you can buy a fabulous historic home for next to nothing that would easily be $1million here. However, high poverty, crime, etc., lack of amenities. I’ve gone to estate sales there, too. Some of the people who buy there are empty nesters or others with no school-age children who love old homes. If anyone ever watched the Cinemax series Outcast a lot of it was filmed there. They didn’t really have to clear the downtown for filming because there is zero traffic there.