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Ok folks… You are exaggerating a bit now. It is a pain to get out the ladder and clean the filter, which means you are probably not going to do it as often as you should. But…it is not especially dangerous.
A decent ladder is relatively safe. Much safer than a stool, for example. Statistically speaking you are much more likely to be injured walking down stairs in your home than you are getting on a ladder occasionally. Your house likely has light bulbs, smoke detector batteries, and other things that occasionally call for a ladder and no told you to avoid those things.
There is also no substantial liability issue when a handyman or housekeeper falls off a ladder that is in good working order. You have a duty to protect people from unforeseen dangers. Someone, whose job includes climbing in a ladder, being injured while climbing on a ladder, would not be a real liability issue for the homeowner.
@kaseki my intention was not to "lecture you on the superior utility of hoods". I was responding specifically to @bry911's comment, which is why I tagged @bry911 at the start of my comment. I guess I should have copied and pasted their specific sentences from their comment that I was replying to. But if you read @bry911's comment, and then read mine you will see my comment was replying to it.
"Attacking answers to the question is probably an over-reaction once deficiencies have been raised."
Yes, exactly. This admonition applies to yourself as well.
“the issue is that there is no need for a ladder at all if the kitchen has an exhaust hood mounted over the cooktop.”
No, that is not the issue at all. The issue is that making a good point doesn’t give you license to fabricate things. There are plenty of good reasons not to get a ceiling mounted hood but that doesn’t give you the right to fabricate a legal liability for it.
The framing of this question leads me to believe that you are ill suited to oversee the framing of a house.
Completely editing your original post to another topic probably is not the best method to get feedback as it will get overlooked. Start a new thread with developed questions and detailed thought strings if you want the most help.
The foundation plan appears to have been created by someone not qualified to create those, someone who does not understand structure, design, or construction. Whether it is sufficient for permit is known only by that permit office.
To be able to submitt the foundation plan for a permit I suggest adding a well dimensioned wall section showing reinforcing where appropriate, grading at the perimeter and other relevant structural innformation and an engineer's stamp. Remove anything that is not structural like doors.
Structure at the floor above should be shown on the first floor framing plan.
Even if you have cash, it is well worth getting a construction loan so that you have a middleman between your money and the builder. The banks will have their own payment schedule and will have the house inspected at several points during construction to make sure the items are completed before they write out a check to the builder.
I find it sad that people on here have to “brag” that they only run the dishwasher every other day or twice a week. Stop telling people what you can afford and imply that anything over your budget is wasteful. I suggested two dishwashers to my daughter when they were building in 2004. My son-in-law thought it was a waste until the first week they were in their house. My daughter loves, loves to cook and bake and they have a system for using both dishwashers. For the record, I only had room for one dishwasher and sometimes run ours twice a day. My husband loves to find new recipes-and it seems they require every dish, pot, pan in our kitchen! We both wish we had space for a second one. To the OP-sink in the middle of the two dishwashers and the trash to the left of the left one. Enjoy!
"There is no such thing as a bossy, traditionally inspired contractor. There is ONLY a technician who follows the design details provided by the designer, the homeowner or whomever is in charge of the project."
This has got to be one of the most arrogant and misguided posts I've ever seen on Houzz. Contractors are not animatronic zombie drones to be programmed by air-conditioned pocket protected desk jockeys. Drawings and specifications are not carved in stone, but malleable and should be viewed as very strong suggestions as to what we are collectively trying to accomplish.
I've had a 50-year career in construction and have saved many an architect/designer/homeowner from poor and sometimes dangerous designs and themselves. Good contractors are like the goalies in hockey. We're the last line of defense before something really bad happens. Ignore us at your own peril.
Thank you @Decorpatti and @LaLa. She does have an appt at design center and she will have the builder’s designer help her but as her realtor, she just asked what advice based on past sales and experience would I give if asked. She asked me so I asked here and you all just went wild but I get it. I’m not draining anyone’s pocketbook, nor am I keeping any architect, designer or decorator from getting paid. I just merely asked for design advice like so many do here.
I'm wondering if the modern while oak cabinets (rift cut, grain matched) I've been admiring are really laminate over MDF instead of real wood and this is worth the $$$?
Whether or not it is worth the money is a question for you, but... yes. The rift cut grain matched cabinets that you have been admiring are likely laminate over MDF, but technically could be laminate over plywood. The substrate is largely immaterial unless you have special humidity conditions that might make MDF a poor choice.
You are not going to find a grain matched kitchen in solid wood. Even if the species of wood and size of the kitchen allow it, the cost would be massively prohibitive. Walnut is a wood with a lot of variation and character, when you get a really beautiful piece you saw it into veneers so you can take one 12" wide board and make large beautiful pieces from it. Finding a clean piece of Walnut large enough to resaw into the solid wood cabinets you are describing would essentially be like striking gold.
Tell me your house was built in 1977 without telling me it was built in '77...
The door pulls were pretty funky too. But I always appreciated that he matched the grain on every single cabinet.
Most of the rest of the world look at the superior function, with predictable form. They are not hung up on the silly "all wood" anything.
As I have repeatedly noted, this is misleading. European MDF was developed as a substitute for quality Baltic Birch plywood, as Europe lost access to good quality plywood during the Cold War. So the MDF developed in Europe tends to be higher quality MDF and for a time almost exclusively used melamine coated particles. You could quite literally build a decent boat out of the stuff.
The U.S. never had a shortage of plywood and our MDF was developed specifically for its cost advantages. This led to a significantly lower quality in the USA. Arguably, our quality has increased a bit, and European quality has been reduced somewhat, but our MDF is still generally much worse than Europe's.
I am not sure what part of the "rest of the world" you have lived in, but as someone who has spent a good portion of their life as an expat, I can assure you that most of the world is just as "hung up" on the silly all wood everything. There are certainly a few high-end, high-visibility brands that use MDF and are looked at favorably... but there is a reason that American companies have the lion's share of the European market.