Appliance garages? Pros and Cons
13 years ago
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- 13 years ago
- 13 years ago
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pros and cons of side load garage
Comments (10)Our first house had a side load with a curved narrow driveway entry. DW insisted on the SL and I am glad we got it. The curb appeal really help sell it - made the house look bigger and nicer. The curved driveway was an issue. I recommend that you put in at least 8' wide garage doors if you are doing 2 singles (7' is a typical single door standard width and what we had). It was a very tight sqeeze with the 7' door entry and the curved drive made navigating that worse. DW said on day1 that i should expect her to someday crash into the side. She never did. If the driveway is sloped up - also consider getting extra tall garage doors - 8' is typical standard height. Look at 9' high. If you have larger vehicles you may have clearance issues when you drive up the slope - the garage door will drop down a bit when open. The larger size garage doors are more expensive but not that much. I think we paid about 800 dollars total to upgrade 4 garage doors to the large sizes and add a window in each too. I would also make sure that there are no support columns down the center of the garage. My new house has 8' wide by 9' tall garage doors - two sideload garages with a total of 4 bays - one garage on each side of the house. The garages have extra space so that when you pull in there is plenty of room along all sides to store things and get in and out of the cars. What a big difference a few extra feet makes. So if you can, oversize the garage. You know how much stuff you have :) If I had the choice, I would choose SL over FL....See Moreappliance leanings, please comment pros/cons
Comments (7)1) Fridge All refrigerator lines have lemons. Having said that a few years ago E'lux had a quality problem with their refrigerators in general and FD in particular. French door with ice in-door being the worst. Recently it seems to have climbed to average. The best right now of the mainstream brands is Samsung. The best overall is Liebherr. Expensive German luxury brand. Three years ago when they first came out with a French Door model they had a problem with the seal between the french doors and the ice-maker. Resolved quickly and some people who bought the very first of the line got brand new fridges. 2)Elux Wall Oven Best bang for the buck out there in ovens. Made in the USA now. Some old stock is made in Candada. 3)Convection/MW wall oven. No worse than anybody else. Matches standard wall oven. Good to go here. 4) Gas Cooktop BlueStar RBCT304BSS is far superior and made in the USA. It is a few hundred dollars more. Someone posted they were selling one on here a few days ago. Maybe you can get a deal? 5) Miele DW If you have a whole house water softner or get soft water directly from your water company(4 grains per gallon or less) then you should consider the entry level Miele dishwasher,the Classic. If you have hard water you should look at the Crystal or higher. You can check water hardness with a test strip or sometimes on the water company's website. Bonus) Farmhouse Sinks. Many threads on this in Kitchens Forum All have pros and cons. Fireclay. Very traditional looking. Can crack if garbage disposal is not installed correctly. Can crack if you pour boiling water on it on cold morning. And it can chip. Some people are extremely happy with theirs. These people are ok with trading some practicality for beauty. Cast Iron. It can chip or scratch and leave those marks you are talking about. But they will remain functional forever. Well almost :) Mitrani Quartz Farmhouse sink. On paper ideal. Not quartz as in the countertop/mineral way but in some sort of high tech plastic sort of way. Looks great in pictures. In person it looks "plasticky" to me. Some people are ok with the looks,love the functionality and the price. Stainless Steel farmhose sinks. More modern look. They can scratch,show water spots,they can ding, and cheap ones sound funny with even a slight bump from dishes. Functionally they pretty much last forever too. Copper farmhouse sinks. Unique look. Usually rustic. Sinks with hammered interiors can be a PITA to maintain. They collect water in the divets and some manufactures recommend waxing from time to time. Cheap imported ones can have toxic metals because they are made from third world recycled copper. The nicer domestic/European copper sinks can be pretty much maintenance free with no divets and good contruction. If you get a natural finish any scratch will patina over in a few weeks.Acidic foods that sit on copper sinks for a while can remove natural finish but again patinas over.Does not show water spots.A good one is ding resistant but if you do get dings they are hard to spot....See MoreAppliance choices - pros and cons
Comments (10)I appreciate your thoughtful replies. And to be honest I think you guys are right, as much as it pains me (and my quickly expanding budget) to say it. I swear there are so many moving parts to a kitchen reno that I feel like I am running in circles and not making any headway. I really don't want this to drive me into the poorhouse too, but it is hard to have champagne tastes on a beer budget, I have really been trying not to fall into the "oh, I'll just look" trap because these things can so quickly snowball out of control. I have the devil on one shoulder saying that since I am doing this, it only makes sense to do it right and try to get what I ant, but the angel on the other trying to keep the spending in check. But the point that JCWR made is a great one, the kitchen is to cook and produce food. Maybe I need to rethink my priorities and realize that paying double for cabinets that go to the ceiling isn't as important as getting a stove that finally cooks at the appropriate temperature and with burners that all work. Anyway, I apologize for using GW as a journal but sometimes it helps to get the thoughts all out. So, we went and looked at appliances today and think we have hopefully made a couple of decisions (and yes, the cabinet people all wanted our appliance decisions when they are doing the plans). I am hoping that maybe there will be a couple of specials before year end because what we liked is slightly "over budget" but are factoring in functionality and things that we don't want to skimp on (like counter depth and the french door style). They also have a no interest payment plan, so that helps us since the original plan was just to pay for the entire reno in cash, this gives us the wiggle room (can you guys hear the snowballs forming?) Fisher and Paykel dishwasher - DD24DCB6V2 - $1029. I am quite sure that everything that we use will fit and like the fact that we'll most likely only have to use one of the drawers most of the time. Just two people and we handwash our pots and pans. I really liked the configuration and the drawer set up. Samsung Refrigerator - RFG237AARS - $2488.44. They have a platinum finish that I actually prefer to the stainless, I liked everything about the set up of the fridge, hopefully the quality is there. With the LG, they told me that the ice maker was typically an issue with people who like ice (which I do) so the Samsung won out. Loved the induction cooktops. LOVED THEM. Loved the Electrolux. I am splurging, I am going to either get a gas line put in (which I need to price) and get a gas range, or I'm springing for either an induction range or fancy induction cooktop/crappy wall oven. Guess I'll have to see what that does to the cabinet pricing. Lots of variables to this choice. Regardless, I'll be able to bring the water for the ramen noodles up to a boil quite quickly and have a nice stove for the frozen pizzas since that will be all that we can afford once this is all said and done ;)...See MoreSub-Zero Pro 48" - pros and cons
Comments (4)A SubZero, if not horribly abused, should last for decades. Since you've already jumped over the money hurdle, that shouldn't be a biggie, and by having the unit for so long, you'll skip the remodelling expenses of replacing it. You've already also agreed to the space involved You've already decided you like the divisions, or you wouldn't have chosen it. I ended up with Miele and a Marvel u/c drawer fridge. I LOVE the drawers, and I love that the bottom section of the Miele is all drawers, so I think you'll really enjoy those. Be thoughtful how you use them. For instance, if you have kids always opening the fridge, you can put snacks and drinks for them in one drawer and have them only opening one section. Con: having to keep the fridge tidy enough to be on display constantly. I'm often embarrassed to have a cousin or friend opening my fridge because I have bunches of kale sitting on the milk, and stuff like that. Pro: You can see what you're looking for before you open the door of the main cooler, keeping the cold in more. Smeary hands on the stainless and glass? That's true no matter what the materials are, so it depends on your tolerance for things looking anything but out of the carton pristine. Pro: If something unexpected comes up and you have to move, you can take it with you because it's freestanding. Con: Stuff can roll underneath because it's freestanding. Really, though, it's a SubZero. What's not to love?...See More- 13 years ago
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