Sorry, Tish - I posted before reading your message. My urban kitchen/dining room colours are two of those taupe shades that you see everywhere now. Mine have a pinky tone to them, though, to go with the pinky backsplash tiles all over my kitchen. You can see one of the two wall colours in the photo I posted of the new table. In the kitchen I have an island that I built, painted a very light taupe colour, with two bar stools that are iron, with light taupe upholstery on the seats. So you see, it's all very taupe :) But here's another 60s option... the name of this fabric isn't quite so interesting. Here is a link that might be useful: farrow

If you typically get high amounts of rainfall I personally would let it be. If you got more rainfall than usual this season, I'd prune it. Parvs are know for putting out aggressive growth during high rainfall. We had alot more rainfall this past June than usual so many of my parvs put on excessive growth. Since the rainfall is not typical I pruned them so that they stay balanced. I have a feeling you're in the PNW as that cultivar puts out minimal growth here in the midwest...even if you're patient enough to leave the rootstock on for 5 years. I have a 5 year old and even with this rainfall it grew a whopping 3". My other 4 year old put out a whopping 1".

Cleo, That is very nice and you have every right to be proud. Like stated above you can buy the chain and hooks at most lumber or hardware stores. I did for mine. It is nice looking and very functional. I built mine more what I would call industrial but like him used scrap I had from electrical work. I'm one who admires those who use what they have and use their noggin to design it. Very good workmanship. Will be waiting for a picture with it in use. Jay

Been there, done that...lint is such a HUGE annoyance to my life. We're in a 2nd floor condo where the dryer vent ducting goes to the roof through the attic over 20 feet and several elbows. My husband bought the condo years before we met, and the ducting was clogged after several years. At the time, he decided to disconnect the vent from the duct. The resulting moisture did some damage to the cabinetry (swelling of the particle board, even under layers of oil-based paint). Soon after we married, he decided we needed to fix the problem correctly. He went up into the attic and disassembled the ducting, brought it outside, and blew it out with his air compressor. I pushed some cleaning tool through it as well. We can't be doing this regularly! I mean preferably, never again! So, I had him put a filter -- a gallon paint strainer -- over the dryer vent where it connects to the machine. This clogs every month or so, we pull the machine out, disconnect the vent, clean the strainer, and put it back. This is still an annoying chore, but not the nightmare of dealing with the whole duct run. My husband had a cool idea, that what we need to do is sew a new, longer strainer that tapers to a skinny point, so that even when it clogs at the point, there can still be air flowing past the clogged strainer, and we should be able to go longer between cleanings. We got a new dryer last summer, and pulled the ducting out of the attic to clean it -- but it was already clean as a whistle. So, our secondary filter system has kept the duct run clean for 9 years. I found you can buy secondary lint traps with a door that opens to clean them out, but we don't have room to install the box in our laundry room, and I don't think it would work any better or be easier to clean than our homemade filter. When I redo the floor, I plan to put magic slider thingies under the dryer feet to make it easier to move in and out, plus I won't want to gouge my new floor. I have researched other solutions. People claim that solid metal vent will maintain better airflow than pleated, but I think it will still clog because we need 2 90-degree elbows to get it connected to the duct in the wall. And if it clogs, how do we pull out the machine with a non-stretching vent? If we could move the duct in the wall to match the dryer vent outlet, that would eliminate 2 elbows and would probably help... I also found you can install a secondary fan in the ducting near the exit, increasing the airspeed in long ducts so the lint won't clog. They cost $150-200, but if I never had to clean out the duct run or pull out the dryer to clean my makeshift secondary lint trap ever again, it would be well worth it. I also think that our ducting is leaky somewhere, because rooms on the other side of the wall (our master bath) get crusted with lint all the time. Finding and sealing those leaks would probably improve airspeed some, plus save me tons of work cleaning the lint all the time. I think the additional fan is the way to go. In 2 other areas where we replaced an ineffective low-cfm cheap fan with a high-cfm good one, like the hood over our cooktop, it made an amazing difference, night and day. Here is a link that might be useful: example of dryer duct fan