Well it's finally finished. Dh is an ale drinker, but he discovered Bud's new platinum brew in blue bottles isn't bad, so he contributed quite a few. Sandi, I bought a couple Ty Nant bottles of water. The labels on the Saratoga Springs were engraved on the bottle. I wanted removable labels. Thanks again to everyone for the help!

I have been working with a carpenter to get my house in shape and he told me his mother sold her house a few years ago. She had him retiling, refinishing floors, refacing cabinets - drove him crazy! The house sold in a month for $540,000. Her neighbor put her house on later that year. Her house was disgusting (his words). Never did a thing to it. Sold in a week for the same amount. He keeps telling me 'just put the dam thing on the market...stop fixing things!' I'm thinking that this is a tough time to sell. There are over 100 houses on the market in my area. Many are newer construction (last 5 years). Huge homes, everything looks new. Then there are the older houses which haven't done much updating. The larger houses are all priced over 1M and are sitting. I have been watching and the houses which are selling are the mid-range houses 5-800,000. Majority are in the 6's. I think staging will help. It seems to me that many of the houses appear staged. They look very cleaned up, neat and sort of generic. All the wood floors are shining and the bathrooms look updated. Some kitchens are older but look clean with updated appliances. Xamsx I like your idea. It would be so helpful to know. Jane

Your lighthouse is darling !!! I love it ... are you going to have it inside / or outside.. I think the colors are devine !!! Thank you so much for sharing ! * * * * *Happy * * * Holidays !! M E R R Y + C H R I S T M A S !!! God Bless You and Your Family! susiesunshine

In PA, we have excellent water (the neighborhood where our house is used to be a luxury hotel resort where people came to take the "water cure" and there are still old natural springs around) but we still use a filter b/c I am paranoid about water quality. In FL, our water is soooo horrible. We're on well water and the previous owners of the house put in an excessively expensive system w/ multiple stage filters and a bunch of various treatment things to make the water not smell like sulphur and not taste terrible. We have a company that comes out monthly to service this stupid system and put the "chemicals" in and then we have another filter that filters out the chemicals those people put in after the water has been purified. It is like a science experiment that is very expensive to maintain... and this is all just to get the water to the point where it is OK to wash clothing and take showers in. We still will not drink it and I have a water delivery service that comes monthly and brings 6 3-gallon jugs of 100% spring water. The company provides us w/ a rental thingy that the water jugs sit in and hot and cold come out, just like businesses have. The company offers two options (purified drinking water and spring water) and we opted for spring water. It is the best tasting water ever.