Ok, let me expand on tr65 said First let me preface it with the fact that I own and operate a store that sells BM Aura and has a web presence, I know many of my customers on line have found us through this web site. So while my post here will certainly favor BM Aura, I will try to give a unbiased explanation of everything. First of all, The Affinity Colors are special in 2 small ways. 1 They are designed(or selected) to harmonize with one another. You can pick any 3 colors and they blend together, its kind of like a "color selection for dummies system". Secondly, none of them require the use of the Aura Foundation Coat. The Foundation coat is a specialty product for use primarily with certain reds and yellows mainly from the Color Preview Collection. If you choose a color that requires it, use it! Otherwise you will not get two coat coverage. The foundation coat acts as a first coat, with the actual Aura providing the second coat, giving you the two coat coverage(You shouldn't need a coat of the foundation coat then 2 coats of finish paint). Secondly, Aura can be mixed in ANY Benjamin Moore color, and almost any competitive color. One thing you will hear, that was even mentioned in another post is that some colors do not match well. Depending on how you look at things this can be seen as true. Aura gives you a greater depth of color. It is not a full spectrum paint like EK, but it does behave more like one that traditionally mixed paints. This is why some colors do not seem to match particularly well. When you move into the world of full spectrum paints, and paints that behave more like them(such as aura) you have an issue with color metamorism, colors changing in different lighting conditions. Since I ship Aura, I always check the mixes against a color swatch just to be sure. I have had one particular instance where a color did not seem to match particularly well(and I am pretty anal about this). I wasnt going to ship the gallon. I then took it under another light source, and it was a dead on match to the chip. So did it match or not? In one light I thought it was an "ok" match, it could have been a little better, but then under another light source it was perfect. I think this is why major paint companies have stayed out of the full spectrum ring, it is very difficult to depict these lively colors on a color chip which gets produced by a printing process. Next...the colorants. If you get a gallon of Aura (or any other of Benjamin Moores new Waterborne Products, such as WB Eco-Spec, WB Ceiling Paint, or the forthcoming Natura) it will be mixed with the Aura Colorants(these are reffered to as the Genex Colorants). It doesn't matter if the color is an Affinity Color, another BM color, or a competitive color. Aura gets the "aura" colorants, not the universal(glycol) based ones. Also on this note, there was another post about people getting the Aura Colorants put into Regal Paint. I do not recommend this for a few reasons. First of all, there are no formulas to mix Regal Paints with 'Aura' colorants, so you would have to guess. While the colorants do tint in similar ways to each other, they do not tint exactly the same, so replacing the universal colorants with the aura ones is bound to cause some matching problems. Also, the universal colorant system is a 12 colorant system, aura is 13(though one of the yellows is only for the exterior line), not to mention there is no brown colorant in the aura system, where there is one in the universal system. Also note that Aura is really a 2 part deal. Both the paint and the colorants are special. If you use the Aura colorants in the Regal Paint, you don't get the benefits of what BM Calls Color Lock(that's part of Aura, not the colorants). In my opinion, Aura has a lot of good marketing points(better leveling, better coverage, very low VOC, etc) but the ColorLock is the most important and impressive. The color just does not rub off! Now, as for Afinity colors in Regal Paint. BM provides formulas for some of the Afinity colors to be mixed in Regal but not all. My experience in doing this has not been good. I tried to mix Wenge in Regal. First I scanned the chip with our color computer and mixed the formula it gave me. It came out AWEFUL; not even close. I then called BM and had them scan it for me and mixed that formula(paint companies have better equipment than you will find in any retail store for computerized color matching). It was equally bad. I also tried to mix Dinner Party in Moorglo exterior. I had the same results. After about 10 attempts to try to get that can right (including having to scoop some paint out of the can to make room for more tint), I got it close. Retailers who do not have Aura will tell you its ok, out of both lack of experience, and not wanting to miss a sale. If you do decide to try this, please.....try a quart first!!!! Personally I wont do it without explaining to the customer the results I am expecting, and saying outright, that if i do it, the can of paint is theirs, I am not promising accuracy. And frankly, it has nothing to do with preferring they buy Aura, or making a few extra dollars on a sale. We are a family owned business operating under one family for 55 years, "upselling" someone on a gallon or two of paint isn't a good long term idea for customer relations. As for a 125 year old house...One thing that I will recommend is BM's new Waterborne ceiling paint. It is in the 25-30 dollar per gallon range. I recommend it because it is a DEAD FLAT, and because of this, it hides surface imperfections like nothing else. I just used it myself and was very impressed, and its cheaper than Regal Flat (and it uses the Aura colorants, so its a Low VOC paint that stays Low VOC, even when tinted). Hope I didn't put you to sleep and gave you some good information for making your decision.

I love cool Sunny Days, Windows Up and heater on. We do it all the time in the Hard Top Vet. Actually the gas mileage on the Vet isn't that bad. But, we usually just take drives no more than 60 miles from home for a day drive in the countryside. It's funny, when people see Balding Gray Haired Main Man and little ole' lady me, travelers give us a thumbs up or a "V" sign, which of course, means they love "Vets". Cool! We usually see several Harley's out when we do back roads. Main Man had a Older MGB several years ago. Finally sold it in 1999. I don't remember what year it was, but it was old. Gayle

I'm overhwlemed with your wonderful compliments. Thank you so much. The build went so fast it was scary to pick and make final decisions so quickly. We built in 3 months and 2 weeks but I can tell you there was some one here every single day even on Saturdays except maybe 3 days. Doggonegardener - (love your name) the glass in the cabinet is seeded glass. I wanted something light to keep the open feel since my kitchen is so small I felt it needed all the help it could get. It has glass shelves and we added a light on the top so it lights all the way down. Vampiressrn and Yakkinyetti - Yes it's a walk in and I LOVE it. When designing the house I believe it was rhome (pardon me if not and I give credit to who it was) told me I should do a step in pantry to allow for more counter space and she was correct but with the pressure of DH and the builder to get things moving I gave in. The pantry is MAHHRRVVELOUS! I'll post a few pics at the end of this post. My builder did custom shelving which we like but he left a dead space in the back. If we had it do over I would have the custom shelves but leave the back open for more space. My DH has a small wine fridge on order which will go on one corner and we allowed venting for it. I love having everything easily reachable. I'd never had a pantry before and was concerned about the walking back and forth but find instead it's so convenient. My previous kitchen was larger as far as walking space but this one functions so much better. Pickle 2 - THANK YOU for your kind word about the piano nook. I'll share it with you anytime. My story about the piano is from when I was a little girl my mom bought this piano which is now 81 years old It was being rebuilt and was still unfinished and it nearly caused a divorce between my parents. My dad said NO and my mom pouted for weeks until he finally said OK.. then it was already sold to someone else. You can imagine my mom then! A month later the rebuilder called and said their financing didn't go through and we could have it. It's a Mason and Hamlin and is made of cast iron insides and weighs close to 900 pounds. YES.. 900 lbs! I've played since I was 5 and still play to this day. I've played for Sweet Adelines, for numerous churches and theatre productions and now mostly because I love it. When my family comes at holidays we stand around and sing old hymns, new songs and fun stuff. It's been such a big part of our lives that I can't imagine not having it. Sorry for the long story but.. there's one more small part. During the build I found a small old glass chandelier at a junk place but I'm not really a chandelier girl so I kept passing it up. Several visits later I saw it was marked down half price to $125.00 so I took it. They told me it was from the 1940's and needed re-wiring. I took it to a man here who rewires and would clean it up for $85. He said only once before in his life had he seen beter glass and it's from the early 1900's. Right now I have a LIGHT BULB there but soon will have this glass chandi hanging over the paino. I still have to get window treatments and will probaly just do swagged shears and nothing heavy. Any suggestions for window treatments? Jim's Discount Hardware has a booth at Canton Trades Day in Canton, TX. He's a very nice guy and I got all of my knobs from him which saved my shipping costs. I even got my glass knobs for the bathroom from him. THANK YOU AGAIN!!! Sunny

One of my friends owns an apple orchard, and due to the reduction in the bee population in recent years, has to rent bees every spring. The beekeeper can pretty safely market the honey that is produced as "apple blossom honey." However, at the slightest hint that all is not well with the bees, the beekeeper packs up his hives and hightails it out of there, leaving my friend's orchard virtually bee-less. I used to buy honey at a farmers market in southern California. The honey was all different colors and had very different tastes. I asked about it, and the "honey lady" said that indeed the hives were simply placed in fields of whatever crop was named on the label. Not 100%, but close enough. I told her that gave me an image of a rural paradise teeming with flowers and bees, and she said I wasn't too far off in her case, but that is not always true. She said that quite good honey is produced in suburban areas, but you can't be sure of where or what the bees feed on. I surely miss that honey, I've never found as good here in Massachusetts.