artoak's Profile

In the U.S., IKEA cabinets are now offered in industry standard sizes (although I agree that if you have a very small space, you will benefit by being able to customize down to the inch--IKEA only offers stock sizes). Back in the day, they used to size everything in metric, but it's been years since that's been the case. The hardware is also standard (they use Blum glides and hinges, and you can drill for whatever pulls or knobs you like--also agree with others that a great way to make your kitchen more original is to get your knobs somewhere else.) Their kitchen cabinet line is also very, very different from some of their furniture lines like PAX--the quality is much better. (FWIW, they do offer a number of solid wood furniture pieces in the U.S. too, and we've been pretty happy with the quality on those for the price--you just have to look around for them.) I would not hesitate to use their cabinets, although if you have enough flex in the budget, it's a great idea to do custom doors from someplace like Scherr's or Semihandmade. I believe they will both pre-drill the doors for IKEA's hinges and pulls, which also makes it a lot easier. They have gotten more expensive in the last couple of years, though, so they aren't quite the bargain they used to be.

"Depending" is the key word here--knob and tube isn't dangerous if it's well-maintained and not been spliced into, and it's pretty common in houses of this era, at least on the West Coast. (It's also not out of code per se; while it's not current code, existing wiring is grandfathered in for most cities unless it's a life safety hazard, which well-maintained k&t isn't.) It can be very expensive to rewire an entire house all at once out here, so a lot of people (our family included) do it piecemeal as we go through projects and rooms.

I should add that the cleaning is actually one of the things I adore about ours, though (but it may vary by brand). While you do have to clean it by hand, the O'Keefe and Merritts have an oven floor with two pieces that lift out and fit into our sink for cleaning. It's very rare that anything gets onto the sides or top of the oven in spills (and I've had some bad ones---pies boiling over everywhere with burnt sugar, etc.!) But for oven floor fiascos, I just let it cool and then grab the oven floor. The smaller of the two our oven has (one forms the actual physical floor and the other sits on top to "protect" it---both are enameled metal) fits into our dishwasher, too. Not sure all vintage stoves had this feature, though (and you do have to scrub with a Brillo pad to get burnt-on food off---I usually just clean it up enough that I can stick it back in and the last bits will burn off over time, and I've learned to wrap the smaller piece with foil for quick cleanup of things that are likely to spill over).

@jbuesch, a beech Sundvik?? I've only seen it in white and black brown in the catalogs and only white on the website---just wanted to be sure I read that right, since that would be our dream crib!

Beautiful room---and I love the blue walls! What is the paint color? (I'm hunting for a good blue too...)

Love our tray--though I have to say that the new Miele version of it (in the photo) is much better than the older one we have. Now, apparently, it has a handle (the one thing that bugs me about the old one) and you can lift out sections of it on some models, either to put things away or to put taller things on the rack below. (KitchenAid and Bosch also offer cutlery trays now too, and I suspect more companies will start offering them now that Miele's exclusive right to the design has expired.)

It does take getting used to if you're coming from a basket---loads and unloads a little differently, though I don't think it takes any more time once you adapt to it. But I love-love-love it! And as a bonus, there's a lot more space on the bottom rack, so that's easier to load too.

@atarichamp, the December 2012 compliance date is for daycares---all of the manufacturers had to be in compliance by June 28th. The law applies to private sellers of cribs too---it's technically illegal to sell a pre-June 28th crib on Craigslist now too (not that it's stopping anyone on our local Craigslist!) We're crib shopping and virtually all of the cribs we're considering (including the Gulliver) are unavailable right now because of the testing. Even high-end cribs like the Oeuf cribs weren't in compliance as designed (though I think they are now---but there were some awesome closeout deals on the old models if you bought at the end of June before the law changed!) The main difference seems to be that some manufacturers still list their cribs but just won't ship them until they have been tested, while others have pulled them from sale all together.

The new standards aren't just about drop sides, but also about what type of wood is used, how far apart the slats are, how high the rails are, and what kind of mattress support is used. There were a lot of variations on these things in the market before, and I suspect many were perfectly safe but simply aren't in line with the new regulations.

Nonetheless, I'm a little surprised IKEA dropped the ball on this one given that they did know the change was coming...I suspect perhaps there was confusion on the testing requirement, and maybe they thought in-house testing or meeting the other requirements without testing was sufficient? The testing seems to be the obstacle for most of the crib manufacturers---it takes time to have it done. (One article I read called it "crib quarantine"---basically, lots of models that are expected to pass with flying colors simply haven't completed testing yet, and therefore can't be sold until they do.)

In general, though, not being in compliance has a lot less to do with overall quality than with how quickly you responded to the changes in the law. I'm betting the little guys had the upper hand on this, since the crib standards were only adopted at the very end of 2010, so manufacturers had seven months to redesign and comply. Easy if you make cribs in-house, but probably more challenging for the bigger companies where it may take longer than that for cribs to go through the design and manufacturing supply chain.

We ate frozen grapes all the time when I was a kid (though I don't think anyone ever thought to make a kebab out of them!) It's a great way to cool off in the summer heat. I wouldn't give them to a small child if you're worried about choking, but I don't think they're any more of a threat for school-aged kids than regular grapes (or anything else that size) are. They're pretty soft when you freeze them because of the water content---a lot like frozen bananas. If you're really worried, though, I bet it would also work well to puree grapes and put them in popsicle molds to end up with a similar result.

Fun! But as a born 'n' bred New Englander, I have to point out that it's not a double awful...it's an awful awful! (I think the name may be trademarked, though, so maybe that's why it's wrong in the chart...)

We just passed our final inspection on a six-month kitchen reno (we're new DIYers who are slow!) and I have to say that the temporary kitchen was nowhere near as terrible as I expected it to be. (In fact, I think part of why we were so slow was that we were eating quite nicely with the temp setup!) Dishes were a pain, but we washed them in our bathroom sink (we only have one bathroom and this really wasn't a big deal, just something we had to stay on top of so they wouldn't pile up). We kept a dishpan in the bathroom with dish soap and sponges, etc. so they wouldn't be mixed up with the bathroom things. We don't have a microwave, but have an electric kettle and a good toaster oven, and friends loaned us an electric burner-hotplate-thing, plus we had our fridge. With these things, we were able to cook most of what we normally cook---just avoiding anything with a lot of sauteeing/frying so we wouldn't coat our dining room with grease. We used our dining room table as a counter surface for prep. We did get a little more takeout than usual (eating out or getting takeout 2x a week instead of our normal 1x a week). We bought lots of frozen Trader Joe's food, which was great (even discovered some things we'll be putting in the permanent rotation for quick dinner nights!) Pasta, soups, chili, etc. all worked well on the single burner. Our toaster oven could fit small casserole pans and pie dishes, so we could bake a lot in there. We bought disposable plates/silverware to have on hand, but didn't end up using them in the end---we didn't have a dishwasher pre-reno, so we were already used to washing dishes by hand, and just had to adjust to using the sink/tub.

Going kitchenless isn't the most fun in the world, but it's definitely not a huge hardship either, provided you have a fridge, a source of water, and some means of cooking food. Personally I think the toaster oven, single burner, and kettle are worthwhile investments (all can be had pretty cheaply, though of course there are higher end versions too!) if you'll be out of your kitchen for more than a month or so.