Leaving home UNattended for 1 year - advice please
Pomona
17 years ago
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talley_sue_nyc
17 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
After 6 1/2 years, we moved into our DIY house.
Comments (37)Ya'll are making me blush! lol!! Seriously, I really do appreciate all your kind words. It makes me smile. Cotehele, my sunroom is not heated either. I did isulate it well though, so I can keep it comfortable with baseboard heaters in the winter and ceiling fans in the summer. The window is a standard exterior window with insulated glass. It is 4' wide and 3' high, a slider. It can be used as a pass-thru to the sunroom. The window has built-in J-channel trim on the outside (like you'd use for vinyl siding and we installed the drywall into that channel. The whole sunroom is drywalled. I can take a picture of how the window looks from the sunroom side this evening, if you'd like more details. If I had it to do again, I'd get a taller window that went all the way down to the granite countertops. I LOVE the way that looks and it would have been easier to pass things through there at a lower height. Cindy...See Moremoving to a house 1/2 the size of current home! need advice
Comments (11)Kaismom asks a good question.....where do you put all that messy media stuff if not in the living room? Thankfully, the TV has given up the throne as the most important electronic device in our homes. I grew up with it firmly ensconced on its living room throne. That meant no real visitation could go on in that space. Then there came the stereo, cassette player, 8-track player, CD and VHS and now DVD and TiVo and BluRay, and thumb drives and the biggest thing of all, which I think has finally knocked the electronics and all those WIRES out of the living room, THE COMPUTER, THE TABLET, THE E-READER, and we have a new need. At our house, we do not have a home office. Instead, we have a STUDY. I mean, we are both retired. We do not work, except on personal projects. And we read. Holy cow, do we ever READ! And since we have no need for a second bed, unless it is a daybed, we turned our #2 bedroom into a STUDY. PERFECT place to put all our electronics. And that included the flat panel TV. The charging cords for the cell phones, the tablet, the GPS even, the DVDs, the CDs, and I figured out how to play my DVDs on the computer screen, which now doubles as a TV. They are even building the monitors these days to moonlight as a TV when the old tower or separate OS is junked. So I'd say, move all that STUFF out of the living room. If it is possible, make the LR into your guest room. We shall do that, if it looks like we might need to have guests stay over, by mounting french doors to close it off. Usually a LR is the most spacious room in the house. And it is frequently not on the traffic pattern one uses in the mornings to get ready for work. I give myself a pat on the back for thinking about it. Talk about UNDER-UTILIZED SPACE, that is the living room if set up as a separate space. Keep it looking pretty. I mean, you could move that "entertainment center" into the former bedroom/guest room, and move a hidden Murphy bed into the living room, yet keep the space sensational for every occasion. I'm married to an Irishman, and heaven knows, they LOVE TO TALK, so having a sitting room area which is quiet enough for meaningful conversation is a big plus. Up in MA, I furnished the real living room, which was fairly small, had a fireplace, with a simple love seat facing the fireplace, and two armed dining chairs on either side of the fireplace. Just enough table surface for us to set down a wine blass or a beer can or a Diet Coke--because this is the place which set the mood for good adult conversation.No TV, no radio. Well, that's my take on where to put it. And that's all I've got to say about that. :)...See MoreFirst year raising Mason Bees...some advice if you please
Comments (2)download this pub how to manage blue orchard bees...See MoreAdvice on renovating a tiny 8'9 x 8'3 kitchen in a 150 year old home!
Comments (41)I am so gracious for all of these comments and feedback. You guys are really helping me to target my objective here. While I could spend more on a total remodel, it really is "unnecessary". I realize that the decent sized formal dining room is a plus. Also, optimally, at some point down the line, I'd like to extend the back of my home by five feet and add a floor (giving me a larger kitchen and enlarging the size of the bedroom above it, which is the same size). At that point, a total remodel would make the most sense. So perhaps for now, the NON PERMIT route might be the best path to take to get some modernity in the home while keeping the expenses low. I've been looking at homes in towns near me which have kitchens with similar square footage, yet sell for $200K+ more than my home. Here is an example. Their kitchen is 12x7. They have their refrigerator in an adjacent pantry (this home is over $200K more than my own!) A NON PERMIT route with "storage tricks" (i.e. slide out spice racks, smaller fridge, ceiling cabinets) sounds like the right path. I get to save on not having to move plumbing/gas/electrical. @mama goose_gw zn6OH and @mnmamax3 I see your point about the off-putting feeling of coming out of the powder room into the dining room/kitchen area. While this might be the cheapest way to get a powder room because of the existing closet door, since I'd need a permit to construct a powder room anyway, perhaps a better entrance would be a new door constructed along the door of the hallway, sealing off the existing closet door, or turning that existing closet into a shallower closet. I believe the wall down the hallway is load bearing. This could be the modified floor plan which puts the entrance to the powder room in the hallway. Would it be a 100% NO to put a 24" refrigerator where my drop leaf table pot rack and radiator are? If I were to put it in that spot, there would be 3" between the fridge and radiator. On the other hand, if I went with the 24" refrigerator in the place of where the 30" one is now, I'd get 18" of counter space between it and the 30" oven instead of the 8" I have now!...See MorePomona
17 years agolast modified: 9 years agocamlan
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17 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
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