I'm sort of a small table radio collector. Or perhaps more accurately an "acquirer" because though I don't have an organized collection, I've owned many radios over the years. I had an original Bose Wave radio for about five years. I listened to it every single day. My impressions: it's a very good radioÂvery good sound for such a small footprint. In my opinion sound quality on my particular specimen was very good, mainly because of its exceptionally wide stereo image and good bass response. FM reception was average. But there are several other much less expensive radios offering much better value and sound. Probably the best kept secret in a small table radio is the Sangean WR-1. J&R sells it for $80. This radio is OUTSTANDING if your priorities are small size and excellent sound quality. It's strictly analog--monophonic--no clock--no bells and whistles. It's admittedly a bit bass heavy. Its very small size and high quality put it at the very top of my best *value* list. ItÂs my favorite and an absolutely fantastic value for $80 (check J&R). But, easily, the best sounding, but large, table radio I've ever heard is the Cambridge Soundworks 88CD, which is probably no longer available. I remember paying about $150 for it a couple of years ago. But it's worth much more. Also a bit heavy on the bass, this larger radio could definitely replace an entire stereo system. I know this won't go over well with the Bose people, but both of the above radios sound better than my Bose Wave. At least to my ears. And I did an actual side by side comparison. But dollar for dollar, and for its size, if you're into good sound performance and don't need the "extras," in my opinion the Sangean WR-1 has no equal. And, no I donÂt work for Sangean or any other electronics or advertising concern.

If I have this right, if you remove the wall a part of the kitchen will be wider than it is now. You're thinking of destroying the wall on the right side of the picture where your daughter is standing. You're also going to destroy the wall (?closet ?basement stairs?) she's leaning on on the left? Ok, well. A run of cabinets plus counter top is about 26" deep, an aisle between then cabinets and island is about 42" to 48", a fat island top is 51"; a skinny top is 39". Chairs or stools must be in minimum 34" aisle, but if you want to walk behind the chairs, think more of 44" or greater. So, you need between (26 + 42 + 39 + 34) 11.75 feet to 14.1 feet. In your proposed plan, the dbl wall ovens, the ref and the full height pantry would need to be on the sink wall. - maybe one of them could occupy the space where the ref is today but oriented in a different direction. Can you fit a pantry and ovens on the sink wall? Is it worth it? Dunno. I can imagine you isolated in the kitchen today. If you did something smaller like opened a doorway to the living room where the ref is and relocated the ref, would that help enough? Conversely, is it ok to have the living room tv become your new best friend?

Buying used cabinets isn't all that complicated if you're planning on changing the look anyway. You might not find the uppers crl_ describe above, but you might find all the lowers, for example, and then buy the uppers new. We currently have four different styles of door/drawer fronts in our kitchen with different finishes. We are reusing all our lower cabinets from our old kitchen, a few moved and re-purposed. The three unmatched cabinets consist of three 4-drawer stacks, one 3-drawer stack, and a 36" sink base and cost us a total of $375. You would be hard-pressed to find just one of these cabinets new at that price. We want a modern look so we will put new slab fronts on. Probably from Barker. We will probably get paint-grade fronts and paint everything but we are also considering finished fronts and then refacing the fronts of the cabinet boxes ourselves. Either way, we are saving thousands by doing this. I did once see at the Habitat Re-Store in Seattle a huge collection of cabinets removed from the same kitchen. Enough to outfit 2-3 more normal sized kitchens. They looked brand new to me. Soft-close drawers and cabinets. I didn't check closely for brand but the drawers seemed to have good quality glides. I suspect it was removed because it was very Tuscan with off-white finish with a glaze. Not to everyone's taste. But could have been stained with GF or painted and would have looked lovely in a more traditional or even transitional kitchen. I've seen other complete kitchens in good condition but this was definitely the largest matching set I've seen. I've also seen many complete bathroom sets in great condition. Quite often we advise people here not to do a new kitchen just to sell because the new owners might just rip it out to put in their own kitchen anyway. I suspect you'll see quality kitchens at Re-Stores or other salvage stores more often near high-end housing where this is probably more typical. The Seattle store gets all the kitchens in King County so that includes areas all the HCOL areas. The Habitat Re-Store in Bellevue sends kitchens to the Seattle location but keeps other items and, wow!, I have seen some amazing things there. A friend got a pristine 36" SS FD fridge/freezer, with ice-maker, water dispenser, and the drawer between freezer/fridge sections for $700 and everything works. There was a teensy crack in one of the door shelves. She put some clear shipping tape on it and it's covered by food so you don't even see it, Time to shop for my finds? Not much. We go to plays in Seattle quite often so, when we did, we took the pick-up and left early enough to stop at the Tacoma and Seattle Re-Stores each time until we found the sizes we needed. It took three trips. So not counting travel time since we were going that way anyway, maybe 4-5 hours total. I realize this isn't for everyone and that's OK but it's really not that difficult. And, if you're going to reface and get new fronts, you could always, for example, purchase those from a place like Barker or other RTA site and then also purchase whatever cabinets you weren't able to find second-hand from them, too. Oh, we recently decided to put storage on the back side of our peninsula instead of an overhang and I want at least part of it to be glass fronts. We're going to Seattle several times in Jan-Feb so we'll be checking out those places for more cabinets. If we can't find anything that will work and that will look the way I want, we'll just order new. We saved enough on everything else so that buying these new isn't something that puts us over budget. Sorry for writing a book but cheapie-me is just really into this type of stuff. :)

SaltiDawg, while heating air does not reduce the absolute humidity, it does decrease the relative humidity. Both parameters are important. For creature comfort, the relative humidity is probably the thing to watch and that does decrease as the air is heated. If a homeowner wants a deeper understanding of humidity issues, absolute humidity and the dew point should be understood. Just to be clear, absolute humidity is not affected by temperature alone. Relative humidity is. Ventilation with intent, rather than by accidental leaks is a good idea in many climates. Understanding how and why moisture moves is important and may play into a decision of how a new, well-sealed home is ventilated, by an HRV or an ERV.