Along the lines of Nycefarm’s retirement thread
eld6161
4 years ago
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Unofficial ABB president looking to retire
Comments (150)Breezy I went to Fireclay and Heath Today to finalize my own backsplash. Some info for your consider. Heath tile - several of their glazes have some copper in them. They are all about using traditional natural materials. But this also means that the tile glaze can etch! I tried it with some of the green tiles I had and sure enough I was able to etch a couple of them with lemon juice. I was really disappointed and even considered if I can live with it.. Patina and all that. But I could see the spots in the undercabinet light and DH hated the etches. So reluctantly I have given up the wide hex twist with 3 colors with glossy and matte that I had fallen in love with :( This is not to say that this won't work for you. Not all of their glazes etch. Depending on the colors you want, call Eric their tile manager and see what will work. One more thing - some of their tiles are dark clay body and others are white clay. As the glaze has a lot of dimension, the colors really work better if you select all white clay or all dark clay. Fireclay - Debris series is dark clay body and Vitrail is light clay. Again not advisable to mix tiles between the two. Debris is also a tad thicker tile. Vitrail depending on the color has some crackle in it. It is all organic and not exactly the same. As the tiles have a handmade quality to them, it looked like you can't really get a small tight grout line. Not sure how important this is for you. I finally have decided on backsplash tile from fireclay and have placed my order. They also have this thinner super large format tile that was just awesome. May work in a contemporary kitchen like yours. Lots of zen like colors and you can definitely get small tight grout lines with these. Yolanda who works there is very knowledgeable and helpful. This post was edited by GWlolo on Sun, Mar 24, 13 at 2:55...See Morecoming up with retirement floor plan please check
Comments (35)Please don't kill me on this but why do I need to own the land to know what type of layout I want to have? People buy plans off the rack all the time because they like the layout and then have them built. Yes, people buy "off the rack" plans and have them built -- with varying degrees of success. We're going with a "stock plan" and will make few modifications; after drawing and studying, we've decided that our needs aren't that unique, and we found a number of plans that'll work just fine. We are rearranging the master bath to make it more age-friendly, and we're adding a breezeway between the kitchen and the garage that'll house a pocket office and very large pantry, and with those small changes it's everything we want ... with few compromises and without recreating the wheel. However, we knew we wanted a house with Southern exposure and a few other necessities ... so we chose the lot first, and then agreed upon the plan we liked best from the dozen or so that we'd selected as likely possibilities. Here's an example of why you want to start with the land and let the house evolve from there: When we were first married, we bought a cute little all-brick ranch in a subdivision -- I loved many things about that house and have many happy memories of living in it, but one of its biggest detractors was that the windows weren't well planned for the house's orientation. The back of the house faced West, and we had a big, lovely glass door by the table, which overlooked the back yard. The problem was that every day -- about the time we were ready to sit down to dinner -- the evening sun beat down on that door, and the brick "held the heat". Especially in the summer months, the dining room was an oven. So what could've been a lovely feature -- the door -- had to be covered with a heavy, insulated curtain, which was always closed at dinner, robbing the dining room of what could've been an open feeling and natural sunlight. If the builder had considered the treeless lot and the Western sun, he could've placed the bedrooms towards the back of the house; no one would've been in the bedrooms in the late afternoon /early evening, and the house would've functioned better. Another example: you've designed a house that's essentially square and requires X amount of space to build. Suppose you locate a fantastic lot that happens to be on the small side, but its location is so perfect that you want to buy it -- and the buildable area is 10' too narrow to build this house. Or it's a cul-de-sac lot with a narrow front that can't support this wide a house. Or suppose the neighborhood requires a garage to the back, or it requires that all houses are two-story, or whatever. These aren't uncommon things. With so many variables involved, there's no point in getting down to specifics until you know that the morning sun will strike your house on the left, and traffic will approach your house from the right, and you'll have X amount of width available to you -- and more. I started making the layout over a year ago and this is what it has grown into and I can tell that I'm to attached with the layout as it is because every time I go to move the stairs I think but where it is, is a great place for the stairs. Honestly, the stairs are the worst part of the house. They're directly in front of the bowling alley entryway, meaning that the sight-line upon entering the house is a stairway with a half-wall. It's closed off, dark, and sets a poor tone for the house. The solid wall blocks off natural light to your main living area, and it impedes your view out on to the deck. The stairs in that position are going to give your living room a small, closed-in feeling. I'll try to think of a way to smash from top to bottom. Okay, I put that idea in your head, and now I see that I worded my thoughts poorly. Think instead of how many "rooms deep" your house is. Right now it's a "three-room deep" house: On one side you have garage - bath - master bedroom. In the middle you have family room - living/kitchen - dining /deck. Get the idea? Three-deep houses can work on narrow city lots, but those tend to be narrow houses that provide windows on both sides. Move some rooms around so that you have a two-deep house; at the same time, draw your stairs and closets "inward" -- and you'll see things work better....See MorePlease critique our retirement home floor plan
Comments (30)Being retired, I don't want a lot of floor space and rooms to clean. I agree. I HAVE 40' OF 3' deep closets just for 'stuff'. Kitchen. Towels. Sheets. Cleaning. Vacuums. Sewing. Whatever. !! I LOVE LOVE their M. bedroom closet. Hmmm, this makes me want to measure my proposed closet space. I'm not sold on the idea of 3' deep closets though ... too shallow to be walk-in closets, yet they take up square footage and must be heated/cooled. As I am a homebody, and just fully retired I do not need all the 'good' clothes I have. I'm remembering cleaning out my grandmother's house when she moved out /went to live with my uncle at age 99. She was holding on to SO MANY "good clothes". She loved her job and enjoyed dressing professionally; plus she and my grandfather "went out" often and took fancy vacations, so she had piles of evening gowns ... all so tasteful and so "her". At age 99, those days were past, yet her clothing filled the closets of all three bedrooms in her house ... filled them to the point that it was difficult for her to store the comfortable elastic-waist pants and embroidered sweatshirts that became her standard everyday fare in her elderly years. She was NOT open to getting rid of ANY of those clothes, even though she had lost weight from a size 12-14 to a size 6. She had good memories attached to those clothes, but she was never going to wear them again, and no one else wanted her business suits, though they were very stylish (and expensive) in the 1980s. To make her happy, I purchased plastic bins and carefully put all those things away (wrapped in white tissue paper, boxes labeled diligently according to her requests). We all know that this makes NO SENSE. Sometimes having LOTS of closet space just allows you to build up /save clothing that, in all honesty, you know isn't going to be used again....See MoreAlong the lines of the dental thread by Sooz
Comments (19)I have my teeth cleaned every 6 to 8 months, because that's what my insurance covers. X-rays are once a year, but I push it back to every 1 1/2 years. My first dentist, when I moved here decades ago, retired when he had a health scare and I'm happy for him, but sad for me and his patients. He took his time trying to find the best person to take over his business, and he was successful! Everyone also loved the new dentist--but the new dentist lived an hour away and just had twins and his family decided to not move closer. He didn't last long because of the travel time (longer than an hour when there's traffic, and there always seemed to be traffic), so he sold the practice to this other dentist. And now we get to the other dentist. I have really good insurance...REALLY GOOD insurance, and I got the idea that they saw dollar signs every time I walked in there! Oh, he said, I needed this or that done, and I politely declined. Then he had his office staff try to pull a fast one and someone called me to schedule that procedure we talked about doing. I set them straight and said I had NOT talked about getting this done, and was going to wait on it, as I had said the last time I was there. About two months later, another office staff person called and said she was following up about when I wanted to schedule that procedure! I told her that she was mistaken, and at that point, I decided to get a new dentist. I'm pretty happy with my new dentist--I've had him for about 2 years, and the office staff people and dental hygienists are also very kind!...See MoreZalco/bring back Sophie!
4 years agolast modified: 4 years ago
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