Last week I saw a list of top 10 careers that have the most sociopaths/psychopaths and lawyer was high on the list. The litigator relative sounds like he fits in well with this group. You cannot change sociopathy or shame these people into better behavior. Look up narcissist personality disorder, for instance. Many entertainers/celebrities and politicians, etc. fall into this disorder. They can be charming personalities, but are toxic and selfish to no end. Avoid these people. Unfortunately, not many people have guts enough to get evil relatives out of their family get-togethers. There are many reasons for behaviors and choices people make: negative/dangerous personality disorders, or autism-spectrum disorders which cause people to not understand "polite" social rules, abuse and neglect from childhood, damage from past bullying, maintaining a bad attitude/complaining or choosing an attitude of optimism/gratitude, lack of education, a reaction to loss, or just a mental disorder not of their own choosing. It's a matter of what family/environment/gene pool people are born into, with what abilities and attitudes and choices they make as life goes on. I use my judgment about other people's behaviors and words to gauge who I want in my life. People who work to be positive or move ahead regardless of what happens to them are at the top of my "welcome" list. Attitude is life and death to well-being, so I don't accept manipulations/negativity/gossip. My BFF and I help each other through our bad days and try to laugh through our difficulties when possible, but we also deal with our problems. Watch an episode of Hoarders and see how the hoarders live in a state of denial in the face of mountains of trash and stinky filth. Their mental health, maturity and choices as life has happened are reflected in their living conditions. Fascinating to see their thinking, but has to be hellish to live with.

Hi, this is my first time posting, and if it is too long, I apologize. This is about our odyssey in creating our kitchen on very limited funds. We wanted top quality while having little extra cash to put away. We ended up purchasing one piece at a time, while looking at Craigslist/Boston Globe online/etc. I researched which were the high quality cabinet brands (here, thank you all!), and bought a set someone was removing. We found it online in the Boston Globe. Very high quality, lots of pullouts, and if you are at all creative, this can give you a good opportunity to think outside the box. Our Quakermaid cabinets have lots and lots of features (pull outs, 4 drawer stack, dividers, lazy susans, etc.), we made sure that the set we purchased had more than we could use of lots of different sizes, (which has been very helpful in fitting as well as in creating a recycle center elsewhere in our home.) We paid $2,500 for 19 of them, with extra fillers included. We have installed a plate rack, created a baking center (by cutting down a cabinet which had strange side cut outs - we leveled the top and have a lower surface to roll out dough,) and are creating a kick drawer under one of the cabinets, per instructions on Ikea Hacker. I check CraigsList every morning and evening for about 20 minutes. I was the second caller on some gorgeous Oceanside Glass Tile (Veil blend with white, iridescent white, iridescent clear and frosted tiles.) It was left over from a job, and the first person to see it didn't know what she was looking at due to the tile's clear tiles appearing brown on the backing paper) and I paid the outrageous price of $5 a square foot. I still cannot believe that. It was a good thing I checked that morning, as the seller said that he had many, many others call about the tile. Last Saturday I drove 3 hours to pick up just the sink I wanted. I paid $500 for a 60" long Kohler Pro TaskCenter (with cutting board, rack, strainer included - it acts as its own countertop, and has a built in stainless drainboard.) It retails for over $3000. It is about 2 years old, and stunning. It was advertised (I check multiple CraigsList locations) including the faucets, which I did not really want. I was planning on removing them. However, when I had a chance to really look at them back at our home, I fell in love with them. They are very high quality - Vinnata Faucet, matching Wellspring filtered water faucet, and matching soap pump, all in Vibrant Stainless. The faucet may not work well - I don't know. Based on what I was told, however, it works fine - they had bought and gutted the home, and were totally renovating. I at first thought that the styling was too traditional for our kitchen, but believe that the Vibrant Stainless finish will work well with our knobs/pulls and really pull things together. A new Vinnata in Vibrant Stainless costs more than I spent on it all. We ended up looking for this type of sink because we could not afford the soapstone we really, really wanted. We purchased butcherblock from Ikea - gorgeous and affordable. We finished the baking area with beeswax/mineral oil, and will be treating the counter on both sides of the sink. We may use the Ikea product, or wait for good weather and use Waterlox. We installed a stainless hood I found half off on ebay, which was through a local retailer, which saved on shipping. I purchased cabinet knobs a while ago when a local store was closing - I purchased a few more than I needed, just in case our plans changed a bit - we still saved quite a bit. We installed the cabinets ourselves. Two years ago our local big box store had an insane sale on overstocked appliances, and we picked up our Frigidaire Professional with Convection Range for $299 (true story) and our Maytag french door for the same. The unexpected sale ended in three hours, so we lucked out. While I keep checking Craigslist, the only things we anticipate paying full price for will be the flooring (we want Forbo Click Tiles) and the electric installation. I have tiled our entryway, and will practice before installing our glass tile backsplash, but feel confident that I will be able to master a good tile install. I did an estimate the other day, and believe that when all is said and done, we will have spent under $6,000 and our kitchen will have an added value of close to $50,000. Finding the time to work on it is challenging, but we continue to make progress. From dark, gloomy early 70's to light and bright modern, we can see it coming together. This type of doing the work only works if you don't move your main supply lines, are willing to spend the time moving around your floorplan (google sketchup is helpful, but I finally made a 3D scale plan to help me visualize the space). Lots of time, but believe it or not, my DH and I are closer because of working on this common goal together. I think having strangers traipsing through the house for months would be much more stressful. Doing it this way takes patience, luck, flexibility and knowing what you are willing to settle for. I will post photos when we are done, but just wanted to say you can pay for it in cash and have a kitchen that you are truly happy with.

I'm glad this thread was revived, I often wonder how people do it :-) My DH and I bought our home ourselves with our savings and also through a program called NACA (Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America). IDK if the program is the same, now, as it was 14 years ago when we went through it. We both have science degrees. We both started working when we were 16 (DH I think worked even younger delivering papers), and we worked through college as well. I'm proud we did it all ourselves, but I do feel like what we've achieved isn't "good enough". That said, as much as we need a bigger home, now that we have kids etc, it's not happening. We STILL have to save a down payment, and the value of our home, right now, is about what it was 14 years ago. Our equity would not move us to a bigger home in a nicer neighborhood, it would be a cruddy home at the same size in a nicer place, or a bigger home here but if we're going to stay here then I would just stay in the house we already have. Over the years so many things have had to be re-done -- kitchen, both bathrooms, and we're looking at needing a roof in a few years plus HVAC. This is the modest product of people who paid their own way w/o help. It gets you a modest lifestyle. Most of my friends are in similar situations. The only friend who is in a pretty nice, more expensive home in a more exclusive neighborhood has family in real estate (and her DH is a realtor). They have had more opportunities to score great homes at great prices. I think the people who afford the really nice places...either they are taking on more than they should, or they have assistance from family, or they got really lucky/successful with business or investments. A friend of mine told me that when she bought her home, her real estate agent was shocked that she had saved her down payment herself; the agent said most young people are using "gift" money from relatives.

Thanks gwaenea. That's exactly what I wanted to know. I already knew my usage was high and that the house needs insulation, I just wanted to know how badly. Although central OH is a bit colder than north central MD, I'm on a ridge and it's a very windy microclimate here anyhow. So I doubt our "effective heating degree days" whatever that would be, are so different. Only missing piece is where you keep your thermostat.