Anyone care to share their custom cabinetmaker agreement terms?
senator13
13 years ago
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summerbabies
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agosenator13
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
Anyone willing to share thoughts about trends in the industry?
Comments (2)Will you be posting the finished report here or will we have to buy it? Before I launched my business I read all sorts of market reports and "how-to" guidebooks, I thought I was ready and understood how the market machine worked. Now that I have been at it for one year and my business is only a sideline weekend, home-based business (in other words, microscopically small), I can say that not much of the reading helped. My observations would include that the marketplace is undefined or undefinable, the impact of big box retailers and warehouse/wholesale clubs is HUGE, quality doesn't mean the same thing to all people, trends travel at different speeds in different places. Not everyone cares about organic, or heirloom, or natural, or native. Not every business person is in a position to make playing to these niches profitable. A lot of comments get recycled on list serves such as this one and in books and reports on the green industry that just don't hold water when you're standing in front of potential customers (one person states that they can sell specialty tomatoes at $4/lbs while another only gets $.50) Different markets, different seasons, different weather, different customers, means different results. I worked at a large nursery before and spent a while at a garden center and now I sell at a stall in a large open air market on weekends. I have no way to predict what folks will buy. Anything that's blooming doesn't always hold true. Anything that's unusual isn't always the case either. My solution is to take small amounts of anything and everything and this seems to place me ahead of my competitors. I worry about the vendors that show up with only 12-inch hanging baskets, baskets they have obviously invested a lot of time on, only to dump them at $8 per - and then they only sell a hand full by the end of the day. How will they stay in business? In this area the state has incentives to get tobacco farmers to switch to a different crop, the result is an abundance of bedding plant operations. In the spring even conveniance stores sell blooming annuals. Competition is abundant and plants can be very cheap. On the plus side it makes it easy for me to purchse what I can't grow. What I hear from friends and family members is that money is getting tighter and spending on hard-to-find plants is ending. Most of the newer cultivars are not living up to the hype and gardeners are beginning to not trust the experts or promotional material. True gardeners are not interested in larger plants - they want to start out small and watch it grow, they want to compose their own combo planters not buy them ready made. Around here the mere whisper of disease problems at a certain facility will affect buyers choices, maybe not enough in the overall scheme of things, but something....See Morewhat do you know about long term care insurance
Comments (52)gibby -- There was a reduced-benefit clause in the LTC policies we took, too. I was wrong when I wrote that we took them 15 years ago. It was 20! Also, we had to pay in for TEN years, not TWO, to (possibly) get something back. We'd paid in $11,000 in premiums at the end of ten years. This was a group LTC policy from Hancock, offered to us by my DH's then-employer. After ten years we became eligible for reduced-amount benefits. Each policy will pay $45/day for *skilled nursing care*, to a lifetime max of $82,000. The verbiage on any other type of care is obscure with lots of hoops and mazes. Looking at it now, I think we will have aided tbe taxpayer -- seems to me these benefits would reduce the cost of our care to Medicare. If I'd had any doubts about problems collecting on the policies, they were sustained when it took me six months to get a letter from Hancock stating that each of us had actually qualified for this reduced-benefit coverage. We eventually received single-page letters, undated and without signatures, with a lot of 'may qualify' and 'could be' phrasing. Their legal department could send us packing without breaking a sweat. Our situation is different than yours as to probable need for the policy. I'm glad you'll take that opt-out clause. You might want to see a letter stating exactly what YOUR reduced benefits will be, specific to YOUR policy and YOUR premiums, before you sign up....See Morecabinetmaker in Colorado?
Comments (11)Gunter -- sorry I haven't gotten back to you sooner. Well I'll tell you, I'm pretty sure Mark (at Berkower) said his is a baked-on finish, but not 100%. Let me ask him tomorrow (Monday) and get back to you. I assume Berkower is less expensive than Wedgewood but to tell you the truth, I didn't have Wedgewood bid my kitchen nor did I have Berkower bid the den. Our kitchen is not a large kitchen but it does have a lot of stuff going into it, I think something like 90 doors / drawers, with lots of false drawer fronts (on our fridge and freezer, for example) which require "quirks" (labor-intensive). The door style is also more expensive, as it has a beaded edge (more labor and mitered corners) We're also getting every bell & whistle (like blum glides & hinges, 9' tall cabs, glass fronts with real chicken wire [not the diamond wire], hood, some toe kick drawers, sturdy chrome pantry pull-outs, etc.) -- I should measure the kitchen. I just did, it's ~ 13.5' x 21.5' with an island. Including tax, the price is ~$54K. (Mark also does all his installations, and that's included in the price.) Okay, our den is not only a much smaller space, it has many, many fewer cabinets. One wall (the workspace wall) is 12.25' long by 9' high, but most of this is, like a kitchen, not floor-to-ceiling cabinets because of the desktop. It has one 27" wide floor-to-ceiling cabinet (two rows of file drawers with cupboards w/adjustable pull-out shelves above), then along the whole upper wall are 45" high cabinets (nothing fancy, just the blum hinges) and then under the countertop are two three-drawer units. (The rest of the space is open for knees.) The other wall is 11.25' long, but 6.75' of that is sofa. It's two three-drawer units with open bookshelves on top and an enclosed "shelf" connecting the two bookshelves (so l-r: three-drawer base with bookshelf to ceiling on top of the drawer base, sofa with one row of shelf, connecting the two bookcases, [it'll hold baskets] above it, another three-drawer base with bookshelf on top). I hope this makes some sense. So this, which is something like 24 doors and drawers, is a bit over $13K. They deliver, but they don't install, so I'm paying for that separately. It's not apples to apples, but based on what the Wedgewood designer told me, he's a bit "shocked" over "how little" the den cabinets are costing. When he was over at my house (measuring) and saw our kitchen plans (because we were already working with Berkower) he asked me about it. I told him and he said he didn't think they'd be able to "come even close." I wasn't asking -- he offered that opinion. (but keep in mind, he was also "shocked" at the den's cost) Let me find out about Berkower's finish. But let me also add that Mark was happy to give me a (v. close) estimate before we decided to work with him. I gave him our plans (which have since been greatly tweaked) and that's how he gave me the estimate. Same with Wedgewood (for the den). I would seriously consider faxing your plans (even if they're just roughly drawn out -- they do not have to be fancy!) to both of them to get an idea. I doubt the idea will be too "rough": I seriously believe they'll end up being v. close to what the final tally will be. I also want to reiterate how positive our experience has been with Mark Berkower, a much more personal experience. Wedgewood wasn't bad, but it really felt kinda hurried (on their end). I would have liked a bit more time to go over everything but I kept being rushed. I should have been louder and demanded more time but the truth is I was more focused on the kitchen than the den and I let it go. Okay, I'll respond tomorrow with the Berkower finish info. If you have other questions let me give you my e-ddress (chinabrooke at yahoo dot com) so I don't miss your follow-up post(s)....See MorePrivate Road Agreement Process
Comments (31)Even if the family lots were divvied up informally, when they were sold, buyers look at things like permits, access, etc before plunking down a chunk of money, especially if a mortgage is involved. Again, our experiences differ. In fact, I am not sure I have ever seen a buyer do their due diligence on their plot. In my experience easements and right of ways that are not recorded are not unusual, I would venture to guess that a significant amount of undeveloped and developed rural land in Kentucky has unrecorded easements and right of ways. It is simply the nature of a somewhat depressed rural area with so much running water. It is not unusual to see one private bridge over a creek with half a dozen plots using that bridge and no one have an official right of way recorded. This even occurs when properties have direct access to public right of ways. Everyone uses the bridge because building your own bridge is expensive, so every once in a while one of the houses will get down there and repair or rebuild it and no one worries about it....See Moresummerbabies
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agoweissman
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agoTom
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agosummerbabies
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agobabushka_cat
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agoGardenerDev
10 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
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