Gerry, Thanks for taking the time to post this! Herbert

Rant: Once the yuppies get ahold of an idea to sell for big bucks... once packaged, the grassroots are instantly fried when it comes to those who's lives could truly benefit from its concept--the poor. The assumption now rules of, "if someone can make money off implementing these ideas, so am I". Well, not everyone is out to become a wealthy organic permie farmer! Mollison and Holmgren brought the narrow growth of permaculture upon themselves from the get-go by continually being paid big bucks to hoick permaculture to the non-poor, (who, more often than not--and much to everyone's chagrin, have freebooted permaculture's basic ideals and actually make them work--without any "experts" fancy-schmancy financial input!) Permaculture founders could have burst on the scene for free for the greater good of all Mankind, like Alexander Graham Bell's (who's freely given inventions are still with us). But, nooooo..... There goes a profoundly worthwhile ideal before it ever got off the global ground and changed the world. Nowadays you cannot get within an official "permaculture course" outside of a few thousand bucks. Greed rules, even there. Nothing changed, Bill and Dave. Just the scenery inside your heads. And don't ever believe that they don't make money off permaculture. Their conference speaking fees rival former president Clinton's. But, thank God for the internet, where anyone can search out permaculture basics and take it from there, without expensive "permie teachers" droning on. IF they have access to a computer, that is. Few poor do.

Wow! I'm in good company! I'm probably most like TimberFrame4us. In our new kitchen, I've devoted TWO deep 33" drawers to the plastic containers AND the glass ones are in two 30" drawers in the baking area (along w/mixing bowls, casserole dishes, & soup tureens...by shape) as I can bake in them as well as use them for storage. The glass ones are all Pyrex; but in the plastic, I have a selection of Tupperware, Rubbermaid, and those disposable ones (Ziploc, Glad, etc.) in all sorts of shapes & sizes...rectangular, square, round and little condiment sizes, kiddie snack size, all the way to those big rectangular (great for Christmas cookies). Like Zelmar, I did get rid of all those "misc containers" when I packed up the kitchen for the remodel (a year ago...wow!) I use the disposable ones when I go places so I don't have to worry about getting my containers back. I have noticed that probably 75% of the others have not been used since we moved back into the kitchen...hmmmm...I guess that's telling me something! Time to get ruthless and get rid of (or maybe pack away for awhile) all those I don't use....I bet I can free up one drawer... As to the lids, I took one of the long rectangular Rubbermaid containers and stored all the small-to-medium sized lids. The larger lids that didn't fit sit underneath or stand next to their "mates".

I knew of one guy who had done work before for me. He was not interested in the job. I did not know anyone who had used a GC before, so I started looking at cabinets at cab shops (have their own crews), big box stores, and hardware/lumberyard stores. I was at a lumberyard that sold Merillat Cabinets and they really were cheaply made cabs with those drawers with short little sides on them. I have a problem with blatant honesty. Can't help but say what comes to mind. So I said something about why do real estate ads put "Merillat Cabinets" as a bragging point? The salesman explained about the different grades of their cabinetry and we got into a conversation. I asked him if he had anybody he could recommend for installing cabinets and remodeling and he showed me pictures of a beautiful deck he had made by one carpenter. He said the guy did general carpentry and remodeling. When I met with him, Jim showed me his book of photos and gave me some phone numbers of customers to call. He also had his GC license displayed in the book, along with insurance certificates. Best of all, he was INTERESTED in my job. He asked questions, got out his measuring tape and checked to see if what I was thinking was possible to do. He made suggestions to do it better or easier than I had been thinking of. We meshed and it was clear we would make a good working team. Guy #2 I got in a similar way, he was someone who one of the cabinet sellers sometimes used to install. He came out to look, showed little interest, and never gave a bid on the work. Guy #3 was from another recommendation from a lumber yard. He came out and listened to my ideas without getting very engaged, gave me a bid on doing the work and talked about how to cut back to save money. He did not understand from my conversation with him that I was after a good-looking area first, within a reasonable cost, but that I was willing to pay what was needed to get what I wanted. It was a complicated job. The kitchen was like a 16 ft long galley kitchen. A room off of the back half of the kitchen used to be a porch and was now sort of a sun room. There were only three steps for the 31" drop down from the kitchen, and that was what got us needing the remodel. But adding more steps took away floorspace in the 10 x 10 room, making it unusable as a dining room. (Because of stupid remodeling done to the other end of the kitchen before I bought the house, this stairway was the only entrance to the kitchen and basement for any large items like new fridges and furnaces, so the staircase could not be less than about three and a half feet to four feet wide.) The back door being smack dab in the center of the wall opposite the kitchen did not help. Because of the shed-style roof and the placement of the other back door, we could not move that back door left or right along that wall, either! We had dogs going in and out of that room, so a dining set was an impediment to herd movement! On top of that, our small back yard had a black walnut tree. Tree + 3 dogs + squirrels taunting dogs = mud. We needed a paw-washing station at the back door. We had tried damp towels, buckets of water, a coiled hose that attached to the kitchen sink and stretched to the back door and we could use to spray muddy feet in a basin. Nothing worked. You should have seen what happened when you lost your grip on that coiled hose when the spray was on and it slammed its way back against the kitchen cabinets! Jim was the only one who was enthusiastic about my assertion that the plumbing in the basement was not that far away and could possibly be used. He was willing to figure out if we had enough slope for a return plumbing run for waste water. He was willing to go into the auxiliary basement under the back half of the kitchen and insulate it properly, then do the plumbing to get the water and waste pipes to the old back porch. He was a real joy to work with. Jim took the drawings the cabinet guy and I had made and planned out the kitchen remodel. He faced each new challenge with a few choice words, a swipe at his brow, and a, "Nancy, can you come here, I need to show you something," followed by options for remediation and cost estimates (no support post on the right side of the "header" a previous owner had made going between kitchen and old back porch, three live electrical wires found with wirenuts on them left hanging in the walls, moldy drywall and rotted out rafters in that shed roof...) Pretty soon, Jim was checking EVERYTHING before closing up a wall, given that doodlehead's idiocy. I am sure Jim saved us a lot of trouble and heartache, if not our lives. He has done every job on both of my houses ever since, too.