clur's Profile

Cool spaces, all of them. My goal was to submit this year, but I'm so far from being ready it's not funny. Next year though ...

I have one of these urban gardens. It's a really ugly space because I'm in a corner so have all the cables from Verizon etc on the walls, plus my neighbor built a monstrosity of a pergola. I get almost no sun.

I started working with a garden designer last week to help me put it together as nothing I've done has stuck. Fingers crossed.

I'm a seat and lid down person. It looks much neater.

I don't have a trash can in the bathroom because I have a tiny space and it's just extra clutter. I only have on trash can in the apartment, I really don't see the need to have trash cans in every room. We really don't generate that much trash and the can gets emptied every day.

I would LOVE a window in my bathroom.

The first one is amazing, I love it! The 4th one is clever too.

I make the non-soup version of this at least once a week http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/cashew-curry-recipe.html

This will be the last competition I bother with too :( The results are not fair on the those who entered within the spirit of the competition. The same with Small Cool :( Regular people just don't stand a chance against the powerhouse of major bloggers or people who submit entire homes for a "best room" comp.

Victoria, I am a HUGE fan of your blog, it's such an inspiration!

There are companies in the US that do RTA (Ready To Assemble) cabinets as well.

I am currently planning a gut renovation of my kitchen. I'm on a budget and have looked at a lot of options. I started with IKEA as I kept hearing that their kitchen cabinets are great, but I'm consistently disappointed with IKEA's quality. Their stuff just does not stand up to wear and tear. It's also no longer a cheap option and I feel it's very expensive for the quality they offer. I decided not to install it in my kitchen. I have a very small apartment so technically everything gets used every day, especially the kitchen cabinets.

I found a company called Barker that does good quality items. I ordered a few of their drawers for a fraction of what I paid for the crappy, feels like they're made of pressed paper IKEA drawers for my PAX. I'm ordering a sample kitchen cabinet from them as well and will probably go with them.

Aside from the quality one of the biggest draw backs with IKEA is that all their stuff is standard to their company, so once you use it you're locked in. For example all their cabinets are non-standard sizes so if you ever want to change out your doors you either have to go 100% custom or stick with IKEA and hope they never change their specs, same with the hardware, once you've drilled those holes you're committed to IKEA for ever.

You also can't customize the sizes of their cabinets, which for a small kitchen is really essential. Barker is 100% customizable and came in a little less than IKEA even with various upgrades. I'm sure there are other companies out there too, it's just a lot of work to track them down as many of these people don't have decent websites, or you have to call for pricing. So I guess that's one big advantage IKEA has.

Also, this is purely my personal observation but when I lived in Europe IKEA had much better quality "stuff". I remember buying a lot of pine. Here it's all those pressed chipboards that totally fall apart if you make any mistakes with the screws.

This is one of the main reasons I bought a place that needed some updating - I didn't want to pay to rip out a perfectly good new kitchen that, technically, I'd paid to install in my purchase price already.

I currently don't have a vent hood. It's ok most of the time, but a nightmare when we cook meat (rarely) and in the Summer. The most expensive part of my kitchen renovation will be venting, but fortunately I can properly vent outside, which is a big selling point here.