You did a nice job of condensing lots of information into one easy to read page. If I could be so bold as to offer some suggestions:

- Black text on a white background is easiest to read.
- I'm sure you're in the design stage but there are some typos and consistency issues (e.g., use Dallas, TX and Madison, WI not Dallas, Texas and Madison, WI)) along with some font issues.
- You might want to think about separate pages for things like tools so it isn't one really long page and people can find what they're looking for more quickly
- I prefer to see the name of the company as a hyperlink (vs. the full URL) along with a short description of what they sell or make.
- "Beautiful" is subjective, "safe" is not. With all due respect to the contractors you mention, unless you have inspected their work (and are qualified to do so) I'd leave that part out.

Hope this helps...

Mike, I appreciate the feedback. Your right in that this was a quick cut at trying to format some information that I was having trouble "posting" on this forum. I was losing the formatting and hyperlinks if I used "word" to create/format the information and then pasted into this forum. Weedy sent some information on how to do some html coding that ended up taking me more time than I had hoped.

My thought was to use a web site design program that does the conversion to html automatically and then cut and paste that into here when it was done. The link showed that attempt.

I would also like to create a central place where people can post pictures of their completed decks porches, kinds and styles of rails so others can get ideas.

Someone did that on the kitchen forum and it worked well.

Now, if the fog would go away - I could finish staining my deck and quit thinking about them.

Salmon: I think a separate page is a great idea. GW isn't well suited to semi-permanent posts, and you have to type the HTML in manually. I agree with your approach. You can just put a link to that page in your responses to others' questions as they come up.

And bravo to you for your ambition in creating a "finished decks blog" of sorts, like what they do in kitchens. I've toyed with the idea of doing that for bathrooms, which is where I hang out the most, but haven't yet figured out a way to do it without spending too much time on it.

Thanks Weedy. I will give it a try. If people send me a link to their folder on photobucket, google etc and some information (material, stain type and color etc I will try and link them and put them in a category (Ipe, Garapa, Redwood, PT etc. I am using Googles software which is somewhat limited but free!

ANyone - Please feel free to send me a link to your deck or porch and I will try to set it up, probably use slideshow.

Here is a link that might be useful: deck information

My experience is that Word's HTML tends to be a bit verbose and that can cause problems with some browsers. With sites such as Garden Web the administrators severely limit (for obviously reasons) what tags can be used. Word (and most of the other HTML editors don't know this and automatically insert tags that won't work.

For your site, there are any number of HTML editors that will help you speed up the coding, some are free and some are relatively inexpensive.

Several other forums here have Gallery pages, and it's obviously something that this one should have. I'd recommend someone write to administration and request it. Perhaps look up user name gwtamara and write to her directly. I'd do it, but I think someone with a bit more tenure and clout around here might have more luck pushing something through. John, Steve, etc. - you listening?

Some also have FAQ pages, I'm not a big fan of those but it might be considered here.

One suggestion, maybe add a tools section - what type of drill bits to use, saw blades etc that people have had luck with, how many square feet they last before replacement. Specific techniques that some contractors you've highlighted employ - like John Hyatt's tip about the Forstner bit, etc

I Love You Guys!!!!!!!!!!!! J.