Over the years I have had many different insecticides. The vast majority of them have been tossed; while I have used just a tiny tiny fraction of the material treating plants. So, I am cautious and careful. To get rid of the backlog of dangerous and outdated items I filled two black plastic trashbags and hauled them up to the hazardous waste facility. I had to make an appointment and everything; but the disposal was free (thank you, current state law and San Mateo County). I felt really good after I had gotten rid of all those old toxic items; but, still needed something for each of my potential pests. My theory is that I need an appropriate treatment for each of the bugs that I am likely to get. Nothing works on everything anymore--the good old days of mega-powerful, mega-toxic treatments is long gone. So, for all those typical sucking insects I have Marathon. For insidious mites I have Avid. The hole in this theory then would be........(everyone, come on, in unison:)......thrips! I have heard great things about Conserve. But, before I heard about that one, I bought Knox-out, which was being discontinued. I had floral thrips on my outdoor growing streps last summer, and cleaned them up after two sprayings. Another reason for getting the Knox-out was that I have a couple of scale like infestations on some of my greenhouse plants and outdoors on my cacti. The inside pest is a dry white scale that gets onto orchids and bromeliads. Outside, the pest is a cactus spine scale (or mealie), that overwinters by making an unsightly white thingie on the spines. This spray, because it has residual action works to rid this pest. Since orchids are growing in bark, it would be difficult to get the Marathon into them. With the cactus the scale is on the spines, so I'm not sure how well Marathon would work on them though I am guessing that they have a more active phase when they are on the plant body, but I can't see them. I just remembered a fourth class of pests--catapillers and cabbage moth larvae, which eat holes in foliage and eat out the insides of flower buds before they open. For them, I use the bacillis spray (formerly sold as Di-pel). I guess I really don't deal with many fungal problems though--but I use Lysol on mildew. I think that covers just about everything.

You are (too) kind Voila, and I welcome all ideas! Here is my thinking on the sink skirt. While I do want to repeat turquoise somewhere, there are other, competing goals for the room. I want the kitchen to look old, and I want it to look somewhat utilitarian (since it is unfitted, first and foremost). To me that suggests a simple linen fabric with some texture, in colorways that suggest primitive dying. Handily, i do want to nod to the navy in the chair anyway, and navy is a color that fits the fabric i'm imagining. Hence I am looking for a navy and off white fabric. I did originally think that there was some elusive fabric, whereby people who know what they're doing had already found a good palette for turquoise that I could steal. But all of that fabric feels wrong to me as a sink skirt. The closest i have gotten is this Robshaw print (below), but I still don't think it is the best choice. All of this may beg the question, why buy a turq fridge then? Mostly because I want one, but I can create a logic to it, too. And this is a concept I credit to Palimpsest's postings. I used to think one had two choices for decorating a room. Today, or the original room. It never occurred to me that you could time travel. That you could have a room that says "wow, they haven't touched this kitchen since the 30s. Except when they had to buy a new fridge sometime in the 50s". That is my kitchen's story line.

Your post is a bit confusing. If all or part of the pump body was made from magnesium, then I would suspect that high concentrations of chlorine was the cause. Magnesium is a man-made metal derived from chemistry. In other words, it is not like copper, gold, silver or iron that can be mined. If you were pouring bottles of bleach down your well as a sanitizer on a regular basis, then the chlorine attacked and weakened the magnesium casing. After 12 years, the deterioration reached the point of total failure. I am not a chemist nor a metalurgist but from what I have read about magnesium, I would go with the chlorine as being the culprit. Hopefully, your new pump does not use magnesium.

Taking Erinsean's idea about adding drywall to the front of the hearth, here are a couple more ideas. I have kept your existing wall decor, but there are certainly other options there as the wall becomes more of a normal backdrop. Here's how it might look if you drywall over the stones and the face of the hearth and then grey was the hearth and put some slate around the opening with a white mantel surround and our Carolina Window Pane Fireplace Door. To achieve this look you would need to float the fireplace opening out with bricks before installing the slate. Here's the same concept without the slate and mantel just using our Legend Fireplace Door with Custom Tuscan Leaf Surround. You cannot use drywall right up to the fireplace opening because it is combustible, so you would need to float the fireplace opening out with bricks and then plaster over the bricks to finish flush with the drywall. Bit of a challenge, but doable. Hansen Wholesale specializes in Custom Fireplace Doors.