Can we talk about stone veneer?
ILoveRed
9 years ago
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allison0704
9 years agocaben15
9 years agoRelated Discussions
Newbie Here: Can We Talk About Raised Bed Planters?
Comments (5)Hi Lynn, love your adobe look walls in the front and your view in the back is wonderful. I'm glad you plan on preserving your view in the back and think it's great that you're thinking of water conservation. Since you're close to Santa Fe I hope you've been to High Country Gardens/Santa Fe greenhouse. I've been buying plants mail order from them for fifteen years and I understand they have some great waterwise landscaping at thier store in Santa Fe. In this month(Sept.) issue of Sunset magazine there is a Santa Fe landscape with adobe walls and a planter against the wall like what you are talking about. It does have a lot of plants in the ground also but it is a great backyard landscape by Wilder Landscaping. Your idea of all raised planters sounds very attractive and ambitious. I know you where conscerned about the heat situation with all that masonry. All your walls would act as a heat sink collecting the warmth during the day and then radiating it out at night. You would have cooler temperatures in the mornings from the walls and warmer temperatures at night. About the planters using less water I can't get around this idea. Planters because they are exposed to the hot summer air on the sides as well as from overhead actually heat up the soil more than in ground plantings. This makes them use more water not less. Of course you are talking about other issues too such as ease of planting and not having to deal with your rocky soil. Mulch is a great way to help keep soil cooler and use less water, rock mulch for more deserty type plants and organic mulch for others. And your shade trees will really cool things off for you too. If you use plants well adapted to your area you could really keep your water use down and not have to feel like you need all the planters....See MoreCan we please talk about groundcover?
Comments (42)Although a lot of the plants mentioned come under the heading of groundcover (covers the ground), to me the definition of groundcover means plant it and let it go with no maintenance. Plants like geraniums, dianthus, bleeding heart, and other similar ones mentioned require some maintenance. After the first blooms of geraniums if the foliage is ratty, I cut it down to generate fresh growth. I think of that type of plant as "front of the border" or "edger". If I had a large swath of "groundcover" on a bank for example, I would not want the huge job of deadheading it, let alone, cutting it back. Full fledged "groundcover" should not require deadheading. Well, on 2nd thought, I do deadhead my ajuga, only because it is in a small well contained patch between the patio and garage door and is very visible. I have a hill covered with wintercreeper amongs trees and shrubs. It is pretty large. zero maintenance is the only realistic possibility (unless one can hire gardeners to do huge tasks!! LOL). I guess the type of groundcover to use is affected by the amount of ground it needs to cover. I thought of another "groundcover" that is actually a shrub. Russian Cypress. Microbiota decussata. A nice alternative to junipers, the classic groundcover, but unlike junipers, RC can take some shade. not green in winter... bronze/grey. I have a few scattered about and they add nice texture to mixed beds. Not really appropriate for exclusively perennial beds. I think they can get as wide as 8' or so. Mine are about 4' wide after 3 years....See MoreCan we talk about dog beds in your decorating scheme?
Comments (76)uxorial, I have a "teeth-showing" dog too - it's normal for his breed, the Keeshond, to display a submissive grin. The breed is nicknamed the "Smiling Dutchman" because of this habit. Believe it or not some people think the dog is snarling at them because s/he is showing teeth! Sometimes when he is very happy playing with DH he'll roll over and peel his lips back so far he's showing both sets of gums, and if he's VERY excited he bares almost every tooth and "clacks" then together. :-) He's also another one who would happily sleep in a snowbank if we let him. If it's snowing we have to rattle the treat box to get him into the house! In our last house we had one of those beige fake-sheepskin bolster-beds in the corner of the living room for Goku-pup, and a crate in the bedroom (he took well to crate training). He responds to placement cues too, so "go crate" or "go bed" gets the appropriate response. The fleece thing looks so terrible in this house that I haven't put it out, although the crate fits nicely in the mudroom. The "giant pillow" kind of beds just don't do it for me at all. I've been thinking about one of the types that looks like a miniature couch but not sure if I can justify the price; Target has some kids' couches that might actually fit the bill, for much cheaper. Random-kitty preferred cardboard boxes for sleeping in, although shortly before she left us for the Bridge I finally convinced her to sleep in a cat bed. She was also welcome to sleep on whatever furniture she wanted to - she was family, after all....See MoreHey Aliris - can we talk about countertop depth?
Comments (6)Hey Roseio - sorry to be asleep at the switch. That would be because the kid decided to swim at 5 in the morning ... wha???? Countertop depths. I don't really even have too much more to add to the excellent comments above. If I could have I would have put 30" deep counters everywhere. People I spoke with seemed to think I was crazy to want the depth; I can't begin to understand why. I know I'm messy and stuff just winds up on the countertops. But -- well, I know it's not true; I was just about to say "isn't everyone" but definitely they aren't. I know someone with an absolutely huge kitchen, massive, with not an anything in sight. Kinda eery, actually. And she is a rather gourmet cook so it's not as if the place isn't used. Ahem, off-topic. I think I mentioned that the countertop to the right of my fridge is 30" deep and low, about 31.5"h I think. I use is as my "baking counter" but it winds up being the food-unpacking counter, and food wrapping counter, and mixing, etc. My cabinets are all-custom, though in a factory (as opposed to "Joe's" shop). So the additional cost of making extra deep drawers is due mostly to the hardware as opposed to materials or labor. I really like the deep drawers aesthetically as well as from a utilitarian perspective. I know you can pull 24" drawer boxes out to 27" and put your counter on top of that and have a "deep" counter. It feels silly to me; all that wasted space in the back. That's just me. And some of my drawers ended up with a lot of space in the back that I realize now I could have and should have extended. Grump. Hadn't thought about it. So the thing is, I wanted a 36" super susan corner cabinet but if I made that deep then a bay window adjacent to the cabinet would have forced the counter expanse to have been really massive; cleaning problems and window-opening problems, etc. So I kept that stretch of the countertop at 24"; then later down the L close to the range it goes back to 27"d. You asked: "How deep are your countertops anyway? Why did you decide to do this? What advantages have you discovered to it? Any disadvantages? Does it cost a lot more for deeper countertops? Is it harder to reach into your uppers?" I decided to do this because I had the space to and I can see no reason why you wouldn't want more rather than less countertop, frankly. I also asked for the overhang to be 1.5". This caused major conniptions among many even though I'd asked for this all along and had gotten bids, I thought, including it. It was ridiculous -- I just don't get why you'd go to all the trouble of making gorgeous cabinets and not extend the countertop adequately across the top of them to protect the cabinets beneath. For some reason the standard this person, who works with the cab makers, uses is more like 7/8"-1"; I think it looks silly and is even more so functionally. What I would up with is 1 3/8". Again, it's a win-win - more protection, more workspace (if you can squeeze it out of your floor plan). They actually ended up threatening to charge me more for the extra 1/2" because it wound up adding for square footage, sort of. They haven't yet. I didn't ask for a deduction for the square footage I lost due to their error though at this I was tempted to! Anyway, I'm digressing again.... So advantages are: (a) more acreage on the countertop; that could be seen as a disadvantage if you don't need or use it - it does cost a little bit more. (b) better protection for cabinets beneath. (c) More real estate for sticking deeper drawers into if that's of use to you or appeals. That will cost more too, not lots more but some. And everything adds up. Note that the deep counters can be had without additional deep drawer expense (just pull drawers forward and leave space at the back). (d) Some activities, like rolling out pastry, really benefit functionally for having a deep work area. (e) If you have a monstrous fridge it actually helps hide the size (hadn't thought about this in advance; just happened); that depth is sort of defined already by the fridge and sort of lost when you don't stick the countertop up to it. Indeed I think the 24" relatively short countertop depth may serve to emphasize the deepness of the fridge. Disadvantages: (i) extra cost (can be mitigated in various ways mentioned already). (ii) lose aisle room or whatever; it can be a tradeoff of where you want to use your kitchen layout, in counterspace or aisle space - depends on how much space you have of course. (iii) as mentioned, if you're shorter you may have more trouble reaching to the back of the counter and also up to overhanging cabinets. (iv) Also, if you're older these may be more of a concern. (v) And I bet if you have 27" counters coming in to a corner, that edge could get a long way away (like, 38", which really is a long way away). I do have 15" uppers over my deep counter. They are 17" above a 37"h countertop, and are set at the same height on the wall above my low countertop, whatever that comes out to. There is absolutely no problem reaching the uppers for me or my kids (shortest is, I dunno, 4'9" maybe?) but ... I also have a corner below that upper where the counter goes back to 24" so you can access the upper cabinet from closer, if you follow. My uppers are very tall and there's no way I can get into them at the top or even middle back without a step stool. I'm using that all the time and plan on keeping it *very* handy in a nearby coat closet. This doesn't bother me at all as I'm fairly healthy, middle aged. If I were a tad less hale it could perhaps be a problem. (When I say "all the time" I mean at the moment while still moving in. I'm not storing things I need ready access to that require a step stool!) One thing about my countertops being 1.5" -- and that measurement is from the cabinet *door edge*, not cabinet box. Note very well this distinction -- the makers of these things seem stuck on this erudite measurement from the box which is completely impractical. As an "end user" I don't care what the measurement is from the box, I care what the "take-home" measurement is, what I see and use, the measurement from the *door front*. Be careful to clarify with your workmen this distinction so that you're both communicating about the same measurement! Anyway, insisting on having 1.5" from the drawer front countertops resulted in there being a gap between the bottom of my countertop edging and the roughtop they set on the cabinets to support the stone. Probably this doesn't have to happen, but it's what my guy, who doesn't often make countertops this deep, did. I thought I wouldn't mind, but it is actually kinda cheezy. In retrospect, he should have *listened* to me saying I wanted 1.5" overhang (and I should have clarified I meant from the drawer front, not box), and he should have had the guys cut roughtop not to the box edge but a little bit larger, I think. Alternatively he could have made his edging deeper. I don't know what's standard but this could be an issue you might want to look into. HTH! BTW, I think TopSolutions may be usually right, but I've seen several different ways of pricing things. YMMV for sure....See MoreAnnie Deighnaugh
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8 years agoSaracino Industries Inc. Stone Sales
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