Don't give up yet! I'm in Zone 4 also, and last week finally saw the first significant round of tomatoes set (besides cherries, which I've had for about a month). If the weather cooperates, we might be okay - even if it means ripening on windowsills, as mentioned above. I have one very awkward Cherokee Purple that is gigantic (and green as can be), but the rest are very small and have only been around for 7-10 days. Some of my neighbors who water with more intense ertilizers have much smaller, thin plants with lots of tomatoes set. Mine were planted into composted beds, with some liquid seaweed applied earlier in the season. It sounds like our tomato plants are in the same boat. Here's hoping the weather works with us - don't give up!

Lots of criteria to consider...length of discrepency, lighting conditions, intended finish, etc. My experience has been that with a large area you are better off doing it right, from the framing out. Skim coating is typically a very thin coat of mud that either feathers blems out or simply covers slight imperfections in the paper of the sheetrock. I dont consider a very thick layer of mud skim coating. You may be setting yourself up for an even bigger mess down the road when/if settling occurs. To me...I would insist its done right. I get tired of these tradespeople pushing off second rate work and practices under the guise "we do it all the time". It is your investment. They are only concerned to keep you at bay for a very short period of time.

CAChris, I am totally surprised to hear your comments comparing your gas cooktop to the Wolf Induction! I've never cooked with gas and have no point of reference there. I always thought gas was super speedy. Prior to our move last summer, I had a Viking Induction cooktop for 4 years. Comparing its performance to the Wolf Induction is what made me think there may be a problem with my new Wolf cooktop. I was expecting it to be comparable to Viking. But Viking Induction blows Wolf away--however, it's not nearly as pretty! I suppose I will get used to the Wolf in time. There are a lot of positives about the Wolf--I do like the textured glass top which is MUCH EASIER to keep clean than any other glass top cooktop I've ever used. And I think the timer is quite handy. I have not observed any hot spots on the Wolf and it appears to cook very evenly. It holds a constant simmer beautifully. Thank you for your comments and for your doing the timed water test.

Thanks for all the sympathy everyone - I know you all know how I feel :) Kateskouros: that's funny, but looking at it, it does seem as if ice skates would make those scratches - haha! There's little ice skating around here right now though since it's in the 80's and 90's, so I guess they'll have to come up with another excuse :) Kat: I know you realize exactly how I feel since you've heard all my rantings through email :) Maybe I'll have some GOOD news eventually! Remodelfla: yes, we've decided that it practically has to be a sanding issue. The scratches are hard to describe and actually look a bit different in person than in the photos. The kitchen photos do look as if the scratches were sunken in, therefore maybe didn't take the stain, but in person look a bit raised - I know that sounds crazy, and it's the weirdest thing I've ever seen!! I don't know much about woodworking and definitely not refinishing floors other than what I've read, but we're wondering if the reason it became so apparent once the poly was down is due to the waterbased Bona opening the grain of the wood - does that even sound possible?? I posted a question on the floor forum but have gotten no replies - it doesn't seem to be very active compared to this one! Anyway, I'm putting one more photo below of the scratch in the bedroom (which we KNOW was there before the sanding started) because it does look slightly more as if it's raised. Picture a scar - you know how once scar tissue forms, there's a raised area. That's kind of what it looks like in person! I have no idea why the one in the kitchen looks as if there's no stain at all because it does have some on it - but the more they tried to "fix" the worse it became. Desertsteph: we saw the floors after every process dried, so we first saw the stain and there were no scratches, then one coat of poly, and that's the odd thing I was referring to above - only after approx. the second coat of poly did the scratches emerge. So I saw the floors one morning when I was leaving for work, and then we didn't go up until later that evening when the poly dried. We IMMEDIATELY noticed that and contacted the floor company. The "coordinator/scheduler" said that he was out of town, but would send the guys over to look at it the next day. That's when everyone said they had no idea how it could have happened but it couldn't possibly be from their equipment. So...we began investigating and found everything I wrote above to Remodelfla. We haven't moved anything back in and weren't planning to for several days just to make sure we gave the floors plenty of time to "cure" or whatever. Unfortunately, everything is in storage which we are also paying for much longer now! Seaglass7: thanks for agreeing that it's unbelievable that the company would try to blame us for the scratches and that I'm not just being picky! I was honestly beginning to question whether we were just expecting way too much and if anyone else would think it looked fine (as the floor company tried to say!). We asked them if since they think it looks fine, if they are OK with us posting photos everywhere as a reference for them - see what they say about that - haha! Rubyfig: we do know that the refrigerator was pulled across the floor, but it was well BEFORE the floor company started. And we didn't worry about the fact that we could see scratches in the new unfinished wood because we thought they would be sanded out!!! And none of the appliances were moved after the floor company started - they simply stained around them. It would have been impossible to move the huge refrigerator and get it back in without completely messing up the floors after finished, so we just elected to stain around it. Not the best option, but oh well. Lukkiirish: Yep, that's the "profesisonals" we were lucky enough to choose. You'd never believe this company has been around for at least 5-10 years and isn't just some one-man operation with a hand sander or something - haha! They seemed fine until we had issues - that's when you find out what companies are TRULY like! I'm beginning to REALLY regret not going with prefinished :) Floor in bedroom - scratch corresponds to one that was there BEFORE sanding. It was a fairly deep scratch made by the bed which we just ignored knowing that we'd eventually refinish them - little did we know we'd have the scratch forever - haha: