What are you doing to make your house enrich your life?
cpartist
8 years ago
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things to make your life easier - what do you think
Comments (12)bldsgal - good point about our mothers. Mine was slim and trim and up until I was in 7th grade she used a wringer washing machine and had no dryer!! And of course she never has a dishwasher and she worked like crazy in a very large garden. Flyleft - you are surely right that many labor saving devices help people remain independent as they become older. But do you think that is really a significant reason companies make these products? I think it's because human nature is to find an easier way to do things and they're intended for the masses of "young" able bodied people flocking to purchase these things as our country generally becomes more and more sedentary. For example BIL has a lake cabin next door to ours. We don't have big yards. He bought a whoppin' big yard tractor to mow "our" lawns. He's not old and he's physically able to walk around and mow a small yard. We declined having the rider mow ours - easy enough to walk it (and easier to get around the trees). Meanwhile he laments being overweight and out of shape.........See MoreHow do you keep your TV from sucking the life out of your decor?
Comments (38)A few years ago, DH asked for a giant flat screen tv for Father's Day ~ so sweetly and pitifully, that I couldn't say no . . . although I wanted to! The problem was that our family room has only one (semi)unbroken wall to it and anything on that wall competes with our hand-painted kiva fireplace in the corner right next to it. AND, to complicate matters even more, that wall (pretty much the entire house, actually) is made of real adobe bricks, which look awesome but are a bear to try and hang anything even kind of heavy on. Too heavy or put a nail in at the wrong angle and you can end up with a 3" wide and deep hole, where adobe dirt and hay fell out of the brick . . . and you can forget ever hanging anything on that brick again, even once it's patched! I really wanted an EC like Goldie's that had a wood back to hang the tv on, but it would have totally overwhelmed the room :~( A great credenza, like Haley's or Bepeace's, would have been nice but I was afraid to hang the tv on the adobe wall and I couldn't find one to hold ~AND HIDE~ all of our DVDs, tapes, and components. I wasn't so concerned with hiding the tv, but thought that the components and DVDs would clutter up the area too much. And then we found a tv lift console that solved all our problems- it hides lots of stuff inside of it and the tv sits down in it, as well, when we aren't watching it. When it's down, it doesn't compete with our fireplace, which is a huge bonus in our small family room! I do have to tell you, though, that it was a huge PIA to actually get that tv hung on the console's hanging bars! But now that it's done, we love it. The motor is quiet and smooth and the remote easy to use. Another downside, for anyone contemplating buying one, is that you can't put anything on the top of the console, decoration-wise, as the back two-thirds of the top section opens up as the tv slides up. We bought a narrow tower to sit next to it and I have a lamp on that. We also have a set of three framed Indian artifacts that we've hung over the console. They were a huge PIA to center, but they work with the kiva instead of competing with it. So, that's one more solution to consider, not so much to hide your tv, as ours seems to be up more than it's down like most people, I guess, but it is a tv hanging/storage place. I do want to make it VERY clear that I'm not criticizing leaving a tv out on display all the time. I think it's a perfectly ok thing to do. I just wanted to show you another option for any flat screen tv and explain why we went with this option. Lynn Our flat screen up, before we hung our art over it: And with the tv down:...See MoreVirgil's Threads on Buying Land, Designing and Building A Custom Home
Comments (37)Let's try these: [What's A Well-Designed House?[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/whats-a-well-designed-house-dsvw-vd~5370217) Tips for Buying Land, Designing and Building A Custom Home Part 1 of 3 Tips for Buying Land Designing & Building Custom Home Part 1 Continued [Tips for Buying Land, Designing and Building A Custom Home, Part 2[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/tips-for-buying-land-designing-and-building-a-custom-home-part-2-dsvw-vd~5079485) [Tips for Buying Land, Designing and Building A Custom Home, Part 2 continued[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/tips-for-buying-land-designing-and-building-a-custom-home-reposted-dsvw-vd~5213136) [Tips for Buying Land, Designing and Building A Custom Home, Part 3[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/buying-land-designing-and-building-a-custom-home-part-3-dsvw-vd~5213150) and also What are you doing to make your house enrich your life? Let know please whether they, or which ones, work or don't work, and I can see if there's any more rejiggering to be done....See MoreDesign-builder v. purchase home plans
Comments (62)As with any profession there is a wide range of ability in those that practice that profession. Because someone graduated from architectural school doesn't mean that they come out at the other end as a great, or even good, architect. We have seen plenty of really bad plans here that were designed by actual architects. We worked with one that would be a great person to have a beer with, but turned out not to be so great to design our house. Had a bias against us building a large house. Did not listen to our repeated requests to do, and show us, intermediate design steps, before spending hours/days doing a complete redesign that affected the whole floorplan, and then blamed us when we didn't like the results. After a few weeks he threw his hands up in the air, blamed us and walked away, keeping the money we had paid without delivering the agreed upon product. We wrote it off as wasted time, money and a lesson learned, and then interviewed a couple of local architects. Found one that we enjoyed working with in person, designed a plan we are happy with, and it was a positive experience for all parties involved. As with most things in life, the solutions aren't always black or white, there is a lot of gray area in between....See MoreUser
8 years agomushcreek
8 years agocpartist
8 years agoAm E
8 years agotcufrog
8 years agocpartist
8 years ago
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