I found the tax shelter in this posting when searching for a gift for my brother. He is a tax preparer and has everything. So I just had to share what I did for him. I took one of those woodcraft houses from Walmart- removed the two screws from the base. I cut a 1" block of wood that fit into the bottom of the house. I glued this block onto the base thus allowing the top of the house to be easily lifted off the base. I cut a 1/2" groove in the center of the block with the table saw so I could set a card of thumb tacks into it. This was hidden in the house until the top was lifted off. I wrote a poem for this & read it to him while my daughter did a Vanna White presentation of the house. Everyone got a good laugh out of this and I finally did a complete craft project! It's been a while. Hope you have as much fun with this as we did. Here's the poem: I drew your name for Christmas It's an honor, don't you know To get my brothers name for Christmas Ah! ashopping I will go. But then I started frettin After searching high and low Whatever will I get 'im (Twas wrong to worry so!) I went into an office shop Maybe something for your desk? I talked to the clerk a lot She tried to aid me in my quest. He could use a tax shelter Is what the lady said It seemed a bit off-kelter But there was nothing left instead. So here's your little shelter All painted so very nice The foundation has been mended The roofs' been polished thrice. The flowers are all blooming In the big pot by the door The bumblebees are buzzing And there's no sawdust on the floor. It seems to be the perfect place I do agree she's right It sure beats a plain old case And your tacks! They're finally safe at night!

luckygal..I don't know about writing fiction..although I did write lots of songs for my school for different occasions! (no one offered money for them though) lol Anyway, glad you enjoyed my fun table. I like fun stuff too although the kids like the 'horror stuff'..I'll pass. I'm with you on the spiders! Dom...thank you. He'll go back in the attic soon, but at least he had his '15 minutes' of fame.. LOL Those plates Are cute, and for $3.99 for all, a great price. jane

Forgive my ignorance for not reading this thread (not my read) and seeing previous comments if anyone stated this before, but if you do enjoy candles try soy candles. Regular wax burning candles (Yankee being one of them) leek potential hazardous fumes and chemicals that can be carcinogenic (no sourced article here but there are several sourced medical journals with this study). I would stay from candles all together and use artificial ones for that glow, or mood lights, aromatherapy oils are fine too.  Soy candles if you really want candles. Keep the wick short no matter the brand, dont let it burn for more than a couple hours at most, immediately cover the candle with the topper or a plate after done using it. It exhausts the fire, preventing any stains on walls. And keep it in the middle of the room you're using it in.

Hi, I'm Andrea. And I'm a dimmer-a-holic. I love being able to dim lights. Right now, only our DR light has a dimmer and a light in our bathroom. Both get used all the time. In the kitchen, I'm putting everything that I can afford to on a dimmer. Because I love dimming the light to get just the right amount of light. I'm hoping that in our lighting plan we actually wind up OVERLIGHTING to start. Being in our early 40's, luckily our eyesight is still pretty decent...but, time changes things. And we hope to be in this house for a long time. So, what may be overly light to us now, might not be so much in 5 or 10 years. I'd rather have too much light and turn it down than to have it just-light-enough (without dimmers because we have the light levels the way we want) and then in a few years kick ourselves because we didn't have quite as much light as we should have in fear of it being overly bright. So, my plan for the kitchen is: 1.) Overhead cans - controlled together, dimmer 2.) Island pendants - controlled together, dimmer 3.) UC lights - controlled together, dimmer 4.) Over table - one light fixture, dimmer 5.) Over kitchen sink - one light fixture...possibly not on a dimmer depending on how far over we go in my lighting budget. 6.) Wanted to do low level lighting under the island countertop, dimmable or very low level amount of light given off - lighting for ambiance only, not "functional" lighting) but that might be done at a later time....I think we're going WAY over in our lighting budget.