hyzen's Profile

Love it. So much. If I could redo my kitchen tomorrow, it would look a lot like this. Clean, simple, functional, bright. Well done!

Well, I preferred the before. KIDDING!! This looks awesome--it feels classic and comfortable, and the lovely wood counters and imperfect beadboard ceiling warm it up just enough--an authentic farmhouse feel. And the new faucet makes such a nice difference. Love it!

I don't get all this freaking out over the dog in the sink. I don't have cats, but when I've been to homes that do, it seems to me that the cats regularly jump up on all the furniture, including dining tables and kitchen counters. And then they walk on it. With their feet. The same feet they use for digging around in the litter box, among other things. But people still seem to keep cats in their house and do not die from terminal squicking. So what's the difference between that and putting an average pet dog in the sink?

For the record, I have dogs and babies, and have never bathed either in the kitchen sink--mostly because the dogs are way too big to fit in the sink, and the kitchen sink would've seemed too dirty for my sweet newborn babes for the short amount of time they were sink-sized. After all, I wash my dirty dishes in there! I much preferred our nice, white ceramic bathroom sink for the babies, which is rarely used for anything but hand washing and teeth brushing. But I didn't even register the dog in the sink until I saw the comments about it. If the dog had been out rolling in dung or something, then sure, I would prefer not to use the kitchen sink, but I assume that's not the case. I'm sure they'll give it a good scrubbing down afterwards and everyone will survive.

Wow, people, relax. This is a good idea for some, and may not be helpful for others. Personally, we have some board games we love, and some that are probably taking up more space in the house than they deserve. Those would be good candidates for replacing with a digital version, while we would hang onto the ones that seem better in hard version for whatever reason. And, oh, look at that--if you actually read the post, that's exactly what it suggested. I'm glad to learn that a digital option may exist.

We were considering this for repaving our dilapidated old concrete driveway, but found the permeable paver systems to be pricey. We decided to "green" our driveway the old-fashioned way--we are having the concrete driveway ripped out and replacing it with two concrete ribbon strips for the tire tracks, and the rest will be grass (or you could do pea gravel, etc.--whatever works for you). I know it wouldn't work for everyone, but it is a great solution for us! We live in the city and honestly mostly park on the street anyway. Our driveway will now be a needed addition to our yard space for kids and pets to play, and for us to park in on occasion if we need to.

I love this, and I wish I had the skills and dedication to put something like this together for my kids. I don't see what's creepy about it (if this is creepy, I guess allowing any kid to be in the public eye is creepy, from young tv/movie stars to models to gymnasts to musicians, etc.). It's just the girl's face, no details about her life, etc.--I can't see what the big deal is. It's just amazing to see how a tiny sweet baby turns into a sweet big girl so fast--brings tears to my eyes, too.

My kids are 3 and 1, so they haven't picked too much yet, but I imagine I'll let them make some more choices as they get older and show an interest in it. I would retain veto power (sorry, no dora the explorer or disney princess themed rooms here), but if my daughter wanted to paint her room pink in a year or two (she has mentioned this a few times already--actually, she has suggested painting the entire house pink), I'd definitely consider it, and help her choose a shade that would satisfy her and not offend us too much. And going forward, I will definitely let the kids have some say in their bedding, art, etc. as we add new things to the room--I think the key is to keep the choices acceptable--e.g. we will have better results letting them pick from Ikea or the Land of Nod catalog than Walmart shelves, and young(ish) kids likely will be just as happy either way.

Ditto everything that Mizinformation said. We've had 3 hens in the city for 3 years now, and it has been a great experience. I got day old hatchery stock, since they will guarantee the sex at something like 90% accuracy. If you want to further improve on those odds, you can get sex-link chickens, where males and females look distinctly different when they hatch. I drove to pick mine up from the hatchery, because I was worried about the safety of having my pets (yes, pets) shipped through the US Mail. We built them a spacious and secure enclosed coop and run, and (knock on wood) we have had no problem with either predators or illness. We let them outside in our fenced yard to roam if we are home to supervise, but otherwise they are in their coop/run safe and sound. We have large automatic feeders and waterers that I only have to refill about once a week, or less. Total care for the chickens is less than 5 minutes a day if necessary, although our kids adore them (especially my toddler) and will spend all day playing in the yard with them if given the chance. Their coop stays dry, so it does not smell at all as long as I give it a quick tidy every so often (maybe every other day in the heat/humidity of the summer, and much less often when it's cool). Our neighbors have all loved them, and we never have a problem finding a chicken sitter. We plan to keep the chickens as pets as long as they naturally live, so we built our coop large enough for 5-6 hens. The three we have provide a perfect amount of eggs for our family of 4. When their production slows down, we have room to add a few new young birds to supplement. That should keep us going until the older ones start to go, and then we will repeat the cycle.

And yes, they are WAY less work and trouble than our dogs. And the dogs don't give us breakfast.

There will always be critics either way. Thanks for sharing the budget and details, and I look forward to following your progress along the way. We are planning a middle of the road reno of our kitchen, which is about the same size as yours there, and it sounds like it's going to be hard to keep that, alone, under $20k, using contractors for all the work and buying new, mid-grade stuff (we are keeping our appliances and the basic configuration of the room, but we are getting new cabinets [semi-custom, painted wood], floors [tile], counters [quartz], sink, light fixtures, and removing a bulky radiator and switching to radiant floor heat).

Take it very seriously. Bad neighbors can ruin a home, and I agree that at least one of the people in the building (likely the accused, possibly the accuser) is going to be trouble. Last week a guy entered a psychiatric hospital near here and shot a bunch of people before the police stopped him with a fatal bullet. Upon hearing of the shooting on the news, several of the shooter's neighbors said they immediately thought, "omg, I bet that's my neighbor." He had been acting strange and scaring people in the building for awhile, apparently. Not that every bad neighbor is a psych patient off his meds just waiting to go on a deadly rampage, but I would think it takes a lot for a resident to warn a complete stranger that someone is bad news and that they should look somewhere else.

A few years ago, we passed on buying an amazing property because the next door neighbor also wanted the property, appeared to be emotionally manipulating the seller (an elderly man), and generally seemed to be a rough character. Even if we beat him in a bidding war and got the property, what then? We could easily imagine him poisoning our dogs, or finding some other way to make our lives hell. No thanks. I regret not being able to get the property, but we have never doubted that walking away was the right decision.