INKcognito.. was there a specific reason for mentioned the carpet??? at least it jogged a memory of the basis of Bedoiun tent sizes. on the Lotus road: Uhde, 1903, press: Wasmuth, Ernst -Berlin verlag, Der Holzbau, ... the connection back to Egypt -> the lotus flower reverts to bud form and in the stalk is the shape of the columns with top of lotus bud (Collonade to Philae, Temple to Denderah, Temple of Edfu / bud top pillars of Tontmes III, Karnak / Necropolis of Giza IV Dynasty and also very apparent of the polebarges developed for the Nile) the bud top column developed into the Corinth (ian). The sidebar timeline into Mesopotamia / Persia exists as the pillar size/ square dimension determining the tent size of one, eg: Ibrahim Pascha in Wezanschehir between Urfa and Mardin / the stone tomb of Beni-Hassan. These derived from the 'abacus' (flat beam under-support & top of column) portion of the capital, based on the proportion of the lotus leaf/papyrus proportion. This lotus stalk base 'foot' is apparently removed at the proto-Dorian stage and with the removal of the pillar & eventually becomes the open lotus bud form to support weight equivalent to the abacus... shortform as my Alt-Deutsch is rusty at the skimming level. This effectively places the open Lotus flower form as a base to weighted forms and then perhaps the Kouzama = abacus (grin... just for Yamakami san) Correlating to portions of this pillar history is Forest & Civilization, Yasuda, 2001, supported by pollen counts/Sasonoo = Gilgamesh, Mykonos, etal. an interesting sidebar to read and see, is the duplication of the Torii form as the base in the tombs in Lykos and Mykonos and an uncanny likeness of the Tomb of Telmissus to the stone tombs of Japan (Buddhist). (hmm, opposite of anything I've ever read) makes one think... ah well, never enough time for indulgent research. edzard :), INKcognito, when will you be defending this thesis??? can I come too??

that's one way to look at it. It sounds worse the way you describe it... He/we borrowed money to pay off credit cards... which consolidated everything to one lower payment a month so then he figured he could afford a motorcycle payment. After I said we can't afford it, he got together with his parents & they discussed how it would save money on gas and all the pluses... he could get to work & home faster. Then his parents made me feel like a heel for wanting to deprive their son of having his own motorcycle... after all, he works so hard. His brother has one & soon after DH got his, FIL bought one... they said to go riding together, which hasn't happened yet. He justifies it because he works 40+ hours at his job, works at our business on his days off & in the evening, maintains the 6 acres during Spring & Summer. He does work hard, but I disagreed, his parents butted in (with his invitation of course) so when they complain he hasn't made his payment (on the debt consolidation), I ignore it or tell them how much he loves riding his bike... when it's not raining or cold. He doesn't miss the motorcycle payment though. No, it doesn't escape me that he is willing to buy what he wants & tell his daughter we can't afford it when she WANTS something. He does pay for the health insurance but I pay all the co-pays and other things because he puts his entire check toward the bills, including paying his parents back for the debt consolidation loan... and it was mostly HIS pre-me debt. He did sell his truck because it was only driven a few times a year & we wanted to get rid of that payment when the economy tanked. If she needs something, he will make sure she gets it. But, he'll take it out of our bill paying account & then tell me he needs me to cover some of the bills that he usually covers. It still comes out of my pocket... but it is really OUR pocket. I buy those things because it was what I did as a mother for my own kids... he thinks some of it is unnecessary ~ the extra's like school pictures, yearbooks & fundraisers, not the health care. He also doesn't like shopping & doesn't have patience... he used to go into the store knowing her current size & buy a few cheap outfits at a department store... sometimes the SAME outfit in different colors. That was when she was 5-6. She's now 11 & he would do the same.. he took her shopping for school clothes & dragged me along. It was a nightmare for me because he is so impatient & they argued over what she could get. (wanting low rise skinny jeans) plus she was upset that nothing fit her. Then he about had a heart attack at the register... until I told him that the last time I took her shopping, it was at least twice that much. AS for the update on MIL: We went to dinner at the restaurant last night & left baby at home with my DD. MIL sat furthest away from her parents (across from me) & SD between us at the end of the table. She interrogated... er, conversed with SD about life at our house & life at her mother's house.... anything to avoid her own parents, who seemed miserable. Then, MIL had planned us to come to her house tomorrow evening but I had plans so she moved it up to tonight. DH went straight from work. I took SD & my DS stayed at my house with the baby. By the time I got there, they actually had tried to cancel the whole thing... DH was upset that I didn't bring the baby because THEY WANT TO SEE THE BABY! So, I asked him WHO is making such a big deal about the baby being there? HIS MOM of course. I told him that first of all, the baby is not really related to anyone... he's a step-great great grandson at best. I doubt they really want to spend the night fawning over him as much as MIL wanted to see if I let SD play with him at HER house. Secondly, he wants the attention of the room. When people are talking, he tries to get in on it & gets noisy. I asked hi do we really want the evening to be about DGS or DH's grandparents & Aunt? So, since SD is having trouble in school (all F's & D's), I had her bring her homework. She took it out & MIL spent the entire time (along with MIL's sister) helping SD with her homework... focusing the entire evening on SD. I think that's the way it should be... SD is their granddaughter & SHE is the one that needs attention & help, not DGS ~ who would have demanded the attention & SD would have been ignored. MIL hardly said two words to me.. trying to remain pleasant for show but she was probably pissed at me. Oh well, I told DH that after what MIL did at the luau & the way she has been on me about SD playing with the baby, I am not putting the baby in the middle of that mess. He was sleeping at home anyways.

I ended up getting the red oak stairs and the white oak floor. Did white oak, no stain, water poly. Stained the stairs darker to make it look intentional. I might have been able to get away with keeping the red oak stairs natural, too, if the floor installers had been asked to, and they had looked for boards that were redder and installed them near the stairs. There were some boards that looked like red oak. Here's the thread and pics ... [https://www.houzz.com/discussions/red-oak-stairs-do-i-install-white-oak-floors-or-red-dsvw-vd~3697644[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/red-oak-stairs-do-i-install-white-oak-floors-or-red-dsvw-vd~3697644) Make sure you read the part at the end about the nosing strip. That was a real oversight on my part. (I miss my stairs looking like that - they look cluttered now with the railings.)

We are about to install hardwood floors and the contractor said, in general, you want to run them in the direction that you are walking when you enter the front door. Since we are also putting wood floors upstairs, the direction will change -- in that case we will run them in the direction we are walking after reaching the top of the stairs. Our subfloors are diagonal.