Hi Chefwong, I want to reiterate a previous posters comments about white paint in dark space; white won't make your room look brighter lighter. White needs alot of light to come alive. If you look at white rooms in magazines you'll notice they have a tone of daylight and they light the room professionaly. In dark rooms it's really better to go mid tone colors. What colors do you respond to? Blue, green, yellow? You might get a paint deck from Sherwin Williams or Benjamin Moore and browse the deck and see what you respond to. Also, the site below might be useful to help visualize colors in room. But note too that most of these rooms have alot of light when they are photographed. Here is a link that might be useful: Favorite paint colors blog

Hi, X Glad you are back. I played with your new graph a bit and still can't make it work for me with the DR at the top. Disadvantages: 1. Go through kitchen to reach dead end DR. 2. Not enough clearance around table. 3. I would find the room, even with the windows, enclosed feeling. I do still like Lavender Lass's sketch. But it seems to me that you would not often use the keeping room. Again, you have to walk through the kitchen to reach a dead end space. But it is charming. So I went back to my first plan and played a bit. Yes, I KNOW you don't want a prep sink. I just can't design this iteration of the kitchen without it. So convenient to the DR table and Fireplace sitting area for drinks. So nice for prepping on the island. But that's OK. Go ahead. Ignore me. No prep sink. See if I care. ;o( Considerations: 1. The island is wide--3 feet. Not needed for space, but it seemed to me to ''want'' to be that wide. I wish mine were! 2. I didn't put seating at the island because you have seating so handy at the corner window seat, DR table and the Fireplace seating. 3. This assumes you will eat all meals at the DR table. Not sure if that is your plan. 4. Not sure of your DR table size. This shows 4 x 6 feet, which is a bit tight in the area around it. Suggestion: Have the fireplace chairs on wheels so they can be slid around easily as needed. Anyway, a slightly different arrangement to add to your growing pile of considerations. Hope you are having fun! Sandra

Sorry to say this, but there is a difference in looking timeworn, rustic and beat up, and well, a slap dash quality paint job. You needed to prime the cabinet before doing a top coat. Then sand that. Maybe even a second coat of primer. Then a top coat with Floetrol in it to help it settle out better. Then a second top coat. All using a better quality brush. Don't go back over an area after you've painted it once if it's starting to dry a bit. That's when you get those brush marks that drag up a little orange peel with them. Sand this coat of paint smooth and assess how well it's sticking to the wood base. Without primer, it may not have very good adhesion. If it's coming off fairly easily in "chunks" when you sand, then you'll need to strip the whole thing and start over. If it lets you sand it to a fairly smooth level without having any peel off, then you can do a second coat of paint. If you prefer the whole thing to be a different shade of blue, then it'll be easier to just get a different paint that is more the shade you want it to be. The Floetrol will help it to go on smoothly. Wait for that layer to cure, and then you can glaze, if that's a look you like with a grey/blue glaze. At this point, if you want the aged and distressed look, you can then carefully sand through some of the layers on wear points and/or knock it about a bit with a small chain. Then you can clear coat the whole thing with polycrylic to protect it.

glib said, "Organic matter mitigates all that, I would mulch and spray, and wait for the mulch to trickle down." I used to think that, too, until I read more. The microbes cannot thrive in a toxic environment. If the soil chemistry is toxic to the microbes due to an imbalance of salts, for example, simple balancing the salt structure can bring the soil back to life. The microbes might be able to do that over the next 50 years, or you can do that in the next 20 minutes once you know what chemicals are needed. Where is the result for sodium in the soil? Here in Texas about 20 years ago the state was looking for someone able to reclaim plots of land ruined by brine water used in oil drilling. Most of the companies resorted to replacing the soil, but one company used a holistic (for lack of a better word) approach. They did the soil test, determined what the contaminants were, and put together a salt balance regimen followed by a few tons of compost. The process worked so well that plants grew up much taller than the surrounding area.