gonefishin, I should have provided a litte more information. Haha... I don't want to hijack this thread...but maybe people making these cages will also be interested in spacing too! This is my first summer to have my garden up and running. So I can't speak from any experience, but I hope that my soil and setup will work out very well. It should be very fertile soil. Here is my setup: Raised garden bed: 20 feet long x 40 inches wide x 16 inches deep (made with split-face cinderblocks 2 high). Soil: I made my own with some inspiration from Mel's mix and SFG. Here is my mix... 1/12 part vermiculite. 1/6 part Soil Pep (Mostly decomposed bark/wood chips). 1/6 part compost from landfill (made from trees, bark, grass clippings, various greens composted for 1 year+). 1/4 part Nutri-Mulch (Turkey manure composted with wood chips). 1/3 part Peat Moss. I actually took the time to mix all of the above with a cement mixer before filling my raised bed with it. So it is well mixed and hopefully provide a lot of nutrients. Drainage should be great as well as water retention. I tilled the soil under my beds (silty-clay loam) before adding my soil. Climate, I live in UTAH near SLC. We are very dry here and pretty warm in the summer (90's usually). I wonder if I should consider one of korney19's triangle cages. If those are 10 feet total then I assume they are a little over 3 feet per side. That would fit about perfectly in my 40 inch space... Thanks again for any help. And sorry to hijack this thread with some of my questions slightly off-topic! (Although hopefully helpful to others as well)

This is happening to me. Has for years. The house was built in 1980. The AC unit is enclosed in an area located in the middle of the house between the kitchen and dining room. The hole used to let the water drain from the unit is probably 6" in diameter (in the floor) but larger beneath the floor and it is at least an arms length in depth. I've had sooooo many overflows in to the dining room. I think the dirt is continually eroding and the flow area keeps clogging. Heck even my kitchen floor tiles continually break because the floor is caving.

so, lead. it is toxic and we all know it is toxic and has long-term effects. there is no arguing about that. the most typical pathway is ingestion. generally, i am relatively unconcerned about adults living in a house with lead paint. adults don't eat off the floor or chew windowsills. they do, perhaps, pick up some object off the floor and then eat without washing their hands first. also, if there is a garden close to your house, where chips would fall in it. but, adults are big and developed and this amount of exposure typically isn't such a big deal. Science has shown us that low-levels of lead exposure in pregnant women that wouldn't be a big deal otherwise can cause some neurological defects. Nothing obvious like a third arm, but something less obvious like a learning problem later in life. Or maybe the IQ is 125 instead of 130. But, as adults, if we are aware of a potential risk we can avoid that risk. A pregnant woman living in a house with lead paint chips or lead paint on contact surfaces (door jambs, etc) should wash her hands frequently, particularly before eating. Vacuum more frequently than usual and frequently vacuum around window sills and doors. If you exercise some caution, I don't see any reason to replace the windows and trim because you have a pregnant person in the house. But by the time that baby becomes mobile, you do want to make sure that the lead issue has been taken care of. How you do this is up to you. You can have the windows replaced by a reputable contractor that follows lead-safe practices (this basically means they use a bunch of plastic sheeting) or you can start with the worst offenders and fix them yourself. If you do this, you want to make sure your work area is isolated and that you aren't making things worse by tracking paint chips and lead dust around. I'm really not going to get into how to do the work yourself, but focus on the doors and windows you use the most.

rebunky: I've spent the past couple of days just silently circling my kitchen and pondering -- DH thinks this reno has sent me off the edge (why are these kitchen posts fraught with unavoidable puns?!). Have also polled a number of my friends out here, and they think it's super counterproductive (heh...counter...ok) to tear down H-CoW to open up space/light, only to put in a new 36-40" wide CoW (floor to ceiling!). I actually spent time yesterday climbing up and down a ladder, connected pieces of posterboard in tow, and mocked up a wall -- tried to see how much light would be blocked from my bank of windows: lots...far too much. Even with that little undercab window pulling light in, I felt like I introduced a mini-cave into my kitchen. Just can't do it. One of the main reasons I'd move the cooktop to perimeter would be to take advantage of the better ventilation (up and out). So, if I made the move, I wouldn't also keep the downdraft. (Envisioning people watching me cook, and I can't get the vision of Graham Kerr out of my head!) I did realize that my current oldie electric coil cooktop has its panel of controls/knobs to the right, so burners have always been ~ 8-9" from the island edge. I may take Pal's suggestion (TY!) of widening the island, but will add the 3" to the cooktop side/cabinet. This may squish that walkway just a bit, but will still leave us with a ~ 36" aisle. The cooktop edge will still be only 4" from the island edge, but the smallest burner of the cooktop is another 2" in from that. Frankly, we decided on this particular cooktop knowing we'd primarily use the large center burner, and the bridge to the left (closest to the downdraft for more effective venting, relatively speaking). We've never found our current 6" burners of much use, but when we have, pot handles are ALWAYS turned toward center. I'm now hoping that widening the cooktop cabinet to 36" may open up the possibility of a small drawer directly beneath the cooktop. With the vent hood housing being 30"w, perhaps this leaves enough space on either side for the drawer hardware to attach (don't know that drawer glides span 34", however). We shall see. Again, thanks to everyone for taking time to provide input!