It is going to be a cold weekend, so if you decide to stay inside rather than in the garden Saturday, February 11, bring a covered dish to the luncheon at the Will Roger's Garden Center, and join us for a slide presentation of Florida Mecca from last year. 12-3 p.m. That ought to warm you up!

Papering off subfloors or even covering the whole deck in #30 felt seems extreme to me. And just how sloppy are your taping guys? if you want the framers to throw every piecfe of scrapo in the trash you are going to wast a lot of usabloe lumber. (sic) When I started building, my project manager let the carpenters get away with this, using their rationale that pulling nails out of of wood was beneath them. (Pretty much going along with whatever the trades did or asked was a tactic the manager used to endear himself to them.) Once on my own, I was pulled up short by an old world carpenter who admonished me for scrapping small pieces. Since then, I keep cutoffs down to 10" on site till final cleanup. You can't assume it means one or the other definitively. Maybe not in a court of law! But as a rule when I see a messy site, I know it's a care-for-nothing-but-the-bottomline builder, usually an absentee investor or first timer. And no matter how pretty the place looks in the end, I know there are loads of hidden flaws. I watched one of these messes go up and heard all the tales of woe from trades who had been on site. When it was finished I went to an open house. I didn't want to be critical to the listing broker as it would look like builder rivalry. But then he said, "I could show you half a dozen things wrong in each room!" In the end, that builder made a killing largely on the basis of the impressive fake stucco mouldings on the front elevation. Good for him!

Blondelle -- thanks so much for the lovely words about Atticmag, I am so honored by your praise. We are moving and reformatting it, as Allison said, and hope to have it ready in about 3 weeks. I do think you'll see an improvement in the photos and even more than the 236 kitchens we already have (including Allison's gorgeous gray kitchen). Plus, there most definitely will be Bathrooms We Love -- finally. It's also true that the site started right here in the kitchen forum when I first learned to scan my inspiration clips to exchange ideas with another TKO kitchen forum friend. It was linked to the finished kitchens blog for a while. Some of us have been around so long, though now not as often as before, so it makes it incredibly gratifying when our ideas (not to mention our well-seasoned kitchens) are rediscovered and appreciated here.

Congrats, Deborah !!!! That is really beautiful . i am so happy for you and now we have 2 celebrities....hehehe. I just check HMF and Wow...what is there not to like ? Beautiful color, heat tolerant, rain tolerant, shade tolerant and fragrant . I have to say this....I have never heard of rain tolerant rose. sounds too perfect for raining state. How often does this rose bloom ? i know HMF says once bloomer in Spring or Summer. Sounds perfect for me but i prefer blooms more than once afterall I live in all yr tropical climate. I wonder if anyone grows this rose in FL? jin