We have a 3 acre yard on our small farmette...and have a Dixon XTR mower. LOVE IT! For years we had borrowed a relative's "other" riding mower(s), and they're just so slow...putzing along...the plus to that one is that you can add the attachments to it, unlike our Dixon. But...the zero-turn is fun to drive, fast, and no, no iced tea. I mow with my ipod, and even the levers got in the way of the cord for the headphones, I learned to keep the cord under my shirt. I've also used it for moving around bags of mulch or dirt, just throw 'em on top of it (where my feet go) and off we go. We also have a small 2 wheel yard wagon that we can hook up to the back of it, and it's got the power to pull that around. I use my lawn mower to clean my chicken coop, just hauling the wagon around. Another plus, my hubby is very knowledgeable on this stuff, so he can work on it himself. In fact, we bought this Dixon, non working, on Craigslist, and he replaced some parts, tuned it up, and we've been using it for years. I do 99.9% of the lawn mowing (hubby knows better than to take that therapy time away from me!), and I don't ever want to mow with anything else! We do not have a flat back yard, it's very hilly, lots of rock walls, curves, etc...but it handles it well. And we have a LOT of "stuff" to mow around....shrubs, trees, rock walls, sandbox, etc....it gets right up there. Love it. Angie

funcolors, you didn't answer the question...now that I know about lrv, I do ask at the ben moore place and they typically can provide that to me...they also list lrv on their color gallery. Where did you get the other info on feather down? And where might we look for such data? Or do we have to ask? Or is it simply not available to us ordinary folks? No, I didn't. Didn't want to veer too far off sis's topic. And at this point it's a long explanation without a clear-cut answer at the end. You are correct about LRV. LRV is also listed in the index of every major brand's fandeck. Sherwin Williams even puts it on the back of their fan strips and paint chips. We use certified color measurements and then do the conversion to color notations here at The Land of Color. We apply the same exact method to every single color because consistency of method is crucial in order to make valid comparisons using the notations. I'll tell you why in a second. Dunn-Edwards is the only brand that currently publishes notations - in the fandeck index right next to LRV. It's part of what makes their "Perfect Palette" pretty much perfect. Regarding that consistency factor... Even if all brands were to publish notations, it would be difficult to cross brands and compare notations. Because of equipment, method, and algorithm inconsistencies. It's a lot like gloss levels. The paint industry has no universal standards that they all stick to when it comes to glossiness. Which is why one brand's satin looks like another brand's semi-gloss. It's the same with color. No universal standards for measuring color. Even LRV measurements are inconsistent brand to brand - but LRV is less of a problem than gloss or notations because it's just one number, and it's simple, CIE Y; a point or two off one way or another isn't a huge deal. Regarding color notations... As long as you stay within one brand's set of notations, all is fabulous. On average, most people do stay within one brand for their projects. Usually because their painter prefers to use just one brand. With that said, inconsistent color notations brand to brand won't be big swings. Differences will show up in hue more than value or chroma. The general hue family, R, YR, Y, etc. will likely be consistent but the hue number is where measurement and algorithm inconsistencies will show up. Hope that helps.

I have mild/moderate DIY experience and an IKEA kitchen, so I'll give you my perspective. I am comfortable with most anything that involves non-powered hand tools, plus I have a lot of experience with a power drill, and I had fun using a jigsaw for the first time. DH has a circular saw, but I don't touch that. When it came time to do our kitchen, we hired most of it out. DH has extensive DIY experience, but he refused to install the cabinets. I joked that it was because he was resistant to redoing the kitchen in the first place... but in fact he was speaking from the wisdom of experience, because our house is old, there isn't a square corner anywhere in it, and he didn't want to have to deal with cabinet installation. The kitchen turned out to be a sort of parallelogram, skewed in all 3 dimensions. lol. Our installers did not level the walls, but they shimmed extensively. We had licensed pros do the electrical and plumbing, and we hired out the hardwood floor installation. This is what I think, given my experience: 1. You can assemble the standard IKEA cabinets, no problem. 2. You can paint. You can also learn to tile (I didn't but I wish I had, since I hired the wrong person to do our backsplash and I could not possibly have done a worse job than he did). 2. Customizing the size of the lowers will be a problem for you. 3. Changing the door size will be a much bigger problem and might in fact not be doable at all, with IKEA doors. 5. A much better option for a custom-sized cabinet (and more to the point, its door) is to order it from a cabinet company like Barker, Scherr's, or Semihandmade. Then you can get the size you need and have a door that fits. Your easiest approach would then be to have that company supply all the doors and drawer fronts instead of using IKEA's, so they'll all match. (All 3 of those companies routinely make doors to fit IKEA cabinet boxes.) 5. If you really want to change a door size yourself, buy one and try it BEFORE you set your kitchen layout plans in stone. 6. An alternative to points 2-5 would be to sit down with an IKEA kitchen person to see if you can fill your space without using custom sizes. Sometimes there are cabinets available that you don't think about. Measurements also get thrown off if you don't account for all the cover panels etc (including on the cabinets on each side of the range, if you have a range, to match the measurements of the cover panels you'll put on the sides of the cabinets over the range). 7. There are definitely areas of installation where experience would be a huge asset. For example, our counter height and counter-to-uppers distance changes throughout our kitchen because our floor and ceiling both slope in 2 directions -- but not in the same 2 directions. I did not think of having to have different counter-to-upper distances until I saw it happening. (You understand: we do not have sloping counters or uppers. It's the floor and ceiling that slope away from the level cabinets, in different directions. The installers had to do some creative toekick and crown molding cutting to accommodate this.) 8. The easiest way to get around point 7 is to not have uppers. Failing that, don't try to take them all the way to the ceiling with crown molding; go ahead and leave a couple inches of gap up there (the gap will be bigger in some places than others). Our crown molding makes a big difference in the look of the kitchen, but we could not have done it (to look as good as it does) ourselves. 9. Stacking the uppers will give you an extra layer of complication. Try to use a single row of uppers to simplify things. 10. I don't know what a Japanese saw is (other than presumably being made in Japan), but cutting in a straight line is only part of the equation. A lot of IKEA material is MDF, which is very hard to cut by hand, or particleboard, which leaves a jagged edge when you cut it. The part I cut out with the jigsaw looks completely ridiculous -- remember it was my first time using one. Luckily it's not a structural part and also isn't visible. Again, I suggest bypassing any need to saw anything that people can see, especially doors. 11. You will still need to saw toekicks and cover panels to length, but this you can handle (probably) given IKEA's good instructions and the fact that the cut edges will be covered. 12. Bottom line: you can install basic IKEA cabinets yourself (they are intended to be DIY-able, after all), but customizing them could be a big problem without experienced help. Installation will be much faster if you hire it out. You will definitely need to learn how to figure out your floor, ceiling, and wall slopes and how to account for them. (I don't know how because I didn't try.) Good luck! You do know that IKEA is changing to a different cabinet system this winter, yes? This post was edited by northcarolina on Mon, Jul 14, 14 at 11:55

I'm a wax and oil fan. I have Waterlox on my floors -- a miscommunication. I don't like it. It definitely flakes up. It is not a repairable finish. Some people love it, but I think it looks and feels plasticky, just like polyurethane, and the only thing they say you can do when it gets damaged is to paint on another layer of the stuff, which it sounds like you would need to do fairly regularly. I have a lot of wood furniture, much of it antique. Oil and wax are not rocket science. Don't overintellectualize it. You can use oil, wax or a mix, or use them in sequence. Oil, like mineral oil, is the easiest. I'd put a little of that on first. (But I'd definitely talk to your countertop person before doing anything I learned about on the Internet! They may have finished them with something, or they might be able to do something for you just for the asking.) A 50/50 mix of beeswax/mineral oil, sometimes sold as Beesoil, buffed on at room temperature is next easiest and lasts longer. Gives a nice silky feeling. Buffing on pure beeswax is harder, but it can be done. You need to build enough speed (remember physics class?) that you create heat, melt the wax and distribute it evenly. Don't do something like melt the wax on the stove and pour it out on the counter! You'll just have a big candle sitting there you'll need to scrape off and rub in. We're talking a microscopic layer of wax. But if you don't have time to wax, you can throw on a little oil in between. The counter shouldn't be sticky with any of these. If if is, you need to take the excess off. You can wipe up excess oil, and with the wax, you buff the wax off (the wax melts and cools down to a sleek solid layer), and when you do the floors, you can slide down the halls in your socks. They're literally sqeaky clean. However, once you try this, if you decide you want to Waterlox after all, you'd have to do a serious sanding to get up ALL the oil and wax. But in my personal opinion, the difference is like the difference between painted clapboards and vinyl siding. You're obviously accepting a lot of permanent damage due to chopping. A few water spots aren't going to bother you. That is a beautiful counter. But hey, have you ever thought of using a cutting board?