Sorry for not putting away the crates with files in them that are on my desks right now to complete some major deadlines so I can then take pictures of my neat home. I have been having a difficult time training a new employee, buying a dishwasher, taking continuing education credits to keep my license and get updated for the year, and major projects. I will take pictures this week and share. I can't wait. I love the BM Bone White in the Pearl finish on my walls that really are so warm and look nice in all my rooms downstairs. I also like the bigger baseboard trim but I wish I went with gloss and not semi-gloss. I wish the installation was a better job but despite that, I do love having hardwood floors. The floor is solid but is not so hard like walking on a concrete floor due to the floor muffler but the floor feels like a solid hardwood floor when walking on it. I love the color of the floor and the pretty grain (had no idea Brazilian Cherry had so much grain and such a variety of grain since I never saw wide boards of this wood species in person) and amazingly, wherever I have lamps or anything on the floor does not have a light spot underneath it when moved. I am thinking maybe this is because the wood sat around for several weeks before being installed and then after the wood was mostly installed, I ran out of wood (wish I hired the installer who told me I was short a box and if I was going to be picky to buy two boxes... amazingly there was a lot of bad boards and I was so upset that the installer kept installing many of them and using wood filler) so I kept all the windows open with the floors bare until I found a painter to paint and put new baseboard trim on the walls. Then I had to wait for the new wood and finish that job. The floor is not too dark like I feared but it is richer and prettier than when I first looked at it in the boxes when it looked then so brown to me. I like the wide boards since they make the big rooms look bigger(my living room and dining room is a combined one big room with a half a wall high and long in between the two rooms) but the first installer did not use the 3M tape when he was installing the floor floating it over the floor muffler so the sides of the boards where they connect are not as tight as they should be in many places having some space between them which is still bothering me. I wish I installed the floor myself and just rented a machine to cut the wood but I was afraid to cut my hands and my back and neck have been hurting me from the car accident I had 2 years ago. But I should have had my employee cut the wood and help me install the floor if I was going to have the first installer do the job and not care when I told him which boards I wanted to make sure they showed on the floor and were not hidden with cabinets. If I had the 2nd installer do the floors as well as the walls and trim, I would have been so happy but he could not commit that many days at first. The 2nd installer has the boards very tight next to each other which is why I spent extra on the BR-111 for the tight boards with such a tiny micro-bevel. The floors are so easy to clean but unfortunately where the bad former installers dropped tools, there will be scratches forever but I have gotten used to the scratches since I can't change who I hired that was referred by a client. My 4 little dog's nails do not scratch the floor but I had to buy two new expensive sets of wheels for my two office chairs with real rubber on them since the first set of wheels for wood floors were causing some scratches. I love not having a floor mat under my chairs. My little dog's skin allergies cleared up and I also can breath better in my home office. My computer is not so noisy anymore since it is not getting filled with all the dust from the carpets. I also like the way I rearranged my home office and family room furniture making it feel more spacious and relaxing in the three rooms (living room & dining room is my home office and my family room also got the wood floors). I am glad I did not put the wood in the kitchen since my 20 year old dishwasher started to leak on the Linoleum floor so I bought a new dishwasher. One bad thing, is my little 5.8 lb Maltese, Sassy is still having problems with her fear of walking on the floors despite being a lot better than when they first were installed. My other little doggies have no problems at all and seem to love the floors.

Hi All, Thanks for all your posts. Well, my wife called up the installer and had him install the higher performance model Goodman listed above. It is now installed, and it really puts out the heat. Of course, the GMH950703BXA has about 66% better heating capacity than the other model, so I guess it is not surprising that there would be a substantial difference. I have another question though; I went up into our attic to look at the AC wiring going into the unit and it appears there is no emergency power disconnect installed. Would you recommend that I get one installed? Apparently, the installer just grabbed some armored cable I had in my garage and ran that from the furnace, along the attic roof and into the ceiling--not sure where it goes from there. Also, it appears he didn't run a ground wire in there, just hot and cold wires. I suppose the unit gets its ground from some other pipe or something (gas pipe?), as the furnace is not supposed to run without a ground connected, according to the installation manual (which also says there is supposed to be an emergency disconnect, which I suppose the installer didn't read, or ignored). Thanks for any info you can give. Good nite, Mike

lazygardens photo shoes variations, but just different shades of the same tone. RED is a whole different family than Brown, and I can't imagine the same wood turning RED with a simple varnish. I'm with you. I would be bothered by the completely different color hues. It would be understandable, light vs dark in the SAME color family, but 2 different families on one piece of wood? Looks to me like 2 different woods. I just walked in our pub and looked at the butcher block top, stained in a walnut tone, and yes, there are variations, but every little piece of the block has the same tone. Maybe the fix would be to strip the whole thing, stain it all one color, and then apply varnish? I am sorry this happened to you. Good luck with getting the contractor to fix it for you. If you still owe money you do have leverage. An unhappy customer is not good business for any contractor. Fingers Crossed for you!

A Shaker door is composed of vertical stiles and horizontal rails that have a groove routed into them for an inset flat panel. Because wood expands and contracts at different rates depending on the growth pattern of the wood, how it's cut, how it's finished, etc. and the humidity levels of homes vary widely over the season, the center flat panel must "float" free in the stiles and rails. If it were glued in so that it didn't move, your door panel would warp. No caulking or any other substance should restrict the free movement of your center panel, and the expansion/contraction will cause separation of the paint along the joint lines of the stiles and rails as well as between the stiles and rails and the panel. Many cabinet lines require a signed waiver explaining this to the customer. Using a MDF center panel instead of a solid wood panel on a painted door will minimize the expansion cracks, but nothing will stop them.