Sorry i didnt not get this earlier Jamie. They were ok but you have to stay on them or stuff wont get done. Their contractors drink beer on the job site. Make sure the contractors are using your specs cause they originally put my shower in the wrong way which would have messed up my bathtub and tile set up. Contarctors spilled a whole bottle of some red sauce they had for lunch on the sub floor and was going to leave it there. i brought to the attention of schumacher and they barely wiped it up, so i went in and cleaned it myself so I would not have ants down the road because their spill on my sub floor (when i say spilled the entire bottle, they left the spilled bottle ontop of the spill, that bottle was full the prior day when i was at the site). I will just say this stay ontop of your builder/project manager like you are monitoring a toddler. i didnt want to micro manage them but if you do not things will get missed even though its on your contract. Example: Shower plumber put in wrong direction, Missing lighting, missed painted spots on the exterior, cleaning is not the greatest prior to you recieving the house so be prepared to go in a do a deep clean once you officially get keys, door swing. These were just the things i did not catch during the build and pointed out after, there were plenty of little things during the build i had to point out to the builder during construction that were add in Precon that they were not doing per my contract. Overall house is good, but i did not like that i had to micro manage them to get what i paid for or i would be missing alot of my paid for items and upgrades.

Old uncle had two freezers and I defrosted and cleaned them when I came to spend a couple of months with him seven years ago after the death of his wife. His major pains caused us to worry that, going out to care for his cattle in his mid 80s, he might fall in a snowbank and be unable to get up: with no one in the house to call help after a short while, he could well freeze, so I stayed with him for a couple of months till his cattle went out to pasture. On his death, five years ago, his nephew got the newer chest-type one and the older chest-type one remained in the basement, so when I rented the house from the new owner I've been using it. Most freezers keep goods near zero Fahrenheit and most of the ones in a frig keep things just a few degrees below freezing, so folks with separate freezers say that it keeps ice cream better - meat and a number of other things, also, for that matter. I'm pretty sure that the old freezer hasn't been defrosted since I did it several years ago - I know that it hasn't in the last five that I've lived here. It does need it, fairly soon. As I live 8 miles from a village, where the small store is somewhat more expensive, and 13 miles from the city, I like to have various items available without making special trips, and like to buy a quantity of goods on sale. While I store some produce from my fairly large garden (just tripled in size, at least) in the basement, a major portion of it is best stored in frozen state ... and I do that for not only my needs, but my son's, a friend's and a couple of agencies that feed the poor, the homeless and some addicted persons in rehab, as well. Frost-free freezers as it freezes for a while ... then heats up for a short time ... then re-cools the stuff that began to thaw a bit while the heating was going on ... uses more energy, that's not only costly to produce, but adds to both climate heating and pollutants. It seems to me that the cycling will mean that frozen goods should be used sooner and will deteriorate more rapidly. Same story for frost-free frigs, for that matter. Also, it will of necessity add to your electric bill. Freezers with doors cost more to operate, also, for, as someone said, the cold spills out to the floor and your ankles the minute you open the door, then must be replaced when you close it. Chest freezers may have a little heated air enter the box when the lid is opened, but only minimally so, so there is little extra cooling required after the lid comes down. Freezers with doors add more to your electric bill, as well. To simplify finding things in a chest freezer, make a map on a fairly large sheet of paper, in pencil to allow for editing, or on a white board, of the goods in the box. Use five large boxes numbered 1 - 5 for locations back to front, with small boxes in each of four lines in each of the five boxes, the small boxes labelled A - K for left to right and each large box has four lines labelled a - d showing depth. 1 Aa Ba Ca Da Ea Fa Ga for stuff at back, on top Ab Bb Cb Db Eb Fb Gb for stuff at back, just below Ac Bc Cc Dc Ec Fc Gc for stuff at back, near bottom Ad Bd Cd Dd Ed Fd Gd for stuff at back, at bottom 2 Same routine, for stuff next to back, on top, just below, near bottom and at bottom 3 Same system, for stuff in middle of back to front, on top, just below, etc. 4 Same again, for stuff next to front, on top, just below, etc. 5 Same again, for stuff at front, on top, just below, etc. Use different number of lines or boxes as it appears to suit your need. Chief problem - when moving goods to get at stuff behind or below it, to replace it in the same place. Leave large margins for notes. Write small in the boxes, so when something far down is used and the item above it drops down ... best to erase, but works to cross out the the item gone, use an arrow to show that the item above has dfropped down. You noted that one respondent spoke of her freezer as being 40 years old. They don't make them to last that long, now: we're lucky if modern frigs last for much more than ten years. Don't tell me that modern engineers are stupider - they want them to wear out early, so that we need to buy new. Let's demand that they make them to last for 50 years ... at least. We'd be money ahead if I bought one for my house, then in ten years continued to use my old one but paid for one to be "given" to someone in a Third World country who can now afford one, with him paying the price into one of the development banks that make small loans to other Third World people to help them get started in business. The ones built in 20, 30 and 40 years could be shipped to the third world to meet their growing demands. In 50 years, the one that I bought now will need replacing ... but it'll be by my kids, as I'll have long since departed this mortal coil (mine would have been sold at a yard sale when they cleared out my house). Oh - that'd not work for me: I live in a rented house, with frig. provided. In any case - this house'll still need a frig (if it's still standing). I hope that you're having a great summer week. ole joyful

As for security... There are generally three types of home burglars. Impulse burglaries (opportunists) - These are generally people who decide to burglarize upon seeing a target rather than looking for a target. This are the bad neighbor burglaries when kids are walking down the street and upon seeing an open window decide to crawl through it. Convenient burglaries (scouts) - These are people who scout areas looking for easy to burglarize targets. Their intention is to burglarize someone and they look around for a target that meets their specific needs. Cased or planned burglaries (prowlers) - These are choose the target based on the likely reward and risk of getting caught and familiarize themselves with the property or family to maximize the reward and minimize the risk. The first two types account for most burglaries and are generally easier to discourage with things like thicker doors and good lighting. However, thicker doors and good lighting do nothing to discourage the third kind. It only takes a few seconds and a pipe wrench for a knowledgeable person to enter a home, if they don't just walk to the side and break a window. Only things that reduce their time in the house or increase their chances of being prosecuted are real deterrents. Since they make up a much smaller percentage of burglaries they are under-represented in studies about "the most effective" deterrent. However, they also represent the greatest losses. Also these claims have a lot of confirmation bias... most burglaries occur when thieves enter the front or rear door, and most houses have inadequate doors, therefore bigger doors would help stop them. However, there is little evidence that those thieves wouldn't have broken a window if the door was thicker. We know that alarms and cameras deter all types of burglaries. It is the only system that does deter all types, it doesn't mean you are burglary proof but that is how statistics work.

You're giving an awful lot of exterior wall over to closets, both upstairs and downstairs. Closets should go on interior walls, so bedrooms, bathrooms and living spaces can have windows. Is the size of your lot dictating the weird garage arrangement? One 3-car garage would allow much more natural light into the living areas of the home. A big fat NO to the cooktop on the island. Put the cooktop on an outside wall where it can be properly vented, eliminate the second island, and gain yourself a lot of space in the living/dining rooms. One does not need to seat the whole family at the island when there is a dining table 2 steps away.