<p>PM- we live in the boonies in a neighborhood of mostly second homes, 20 minutes to the nearest grocery store, though there is a tiny corner store for emergencies about 10 minutes away. It is also 40 minutes to "town"with a state university and decent mall and 1+ hour to one big city, 2.5 hours to the other big city (like with real airports)</p>
<p>Mainly we just plan well, only go to town if we need multiple items, etc. At $3/gallon for gas, I have to really need it to make the trek. I like where I am and don’t need to go to town for entertainment and since restaurant options are so meagre and mediocre as compared to a big city, we just really got into cooking and are happier to spend the $$ on quality ingredients for a meal we make ourselves.</p>
<p>We did leave the bigger town life over 20 years ago and so are accustomed to the small town life. We just like living small and doing our own thing. I do find we are much less materialistic than my friends in our old town…but then if you’ve watched RHOC, you understand that OC is pretty materialistic. When I visit there I get such a case of the wants going shopping, luckily I spend all my money on education and clearly don’t need and OC type of wardrobe and in my small town, no one cares, so I can live less expensively and not have it rubbed in my face everyday.</p>
<p>I find people coming to second homes are often content to do their own thing and not network, but are also happy to connect with neighbors and have a support system, some one to keep an eye on the house when they are gone, etc. So, you can find an entirely new group of friends with all sorts of interesting life experiences.</p>
<p>It’s different, it’s more mellow, but it’s quite nice.</p>
<p>When I was in grade school we got an avocado green refrigerator. I remember coming in from playing and mom and her coffee ladies had all the kitchen chairs turned in the direction of the fridge so they could ooh and aah over it! Of course then we had to install kitchen carpet (dumbest fad ever) to match the new appliance.</p>
<p>I would love a second home. Just the other day I said to H. “if we tell the kids they cannot go to a high priced school then we could buy a weekend house” (or two)</p>
<p>somemom,sounds like we might lead very similiar lives on opposite sides of the country!
The university town near us is “the big city” in that part of the state,lol. It has enough shopping,restaurants to keep me satisfied plus a very large hospital/medical complex that serves the whole eastern part of the state. The university has a Med. sch. and Dental sch. Having good healthcare fairly close by was one of my priorities when choosing our location. As we age, good healthcare becomes more important than good shopping! </p>
<p>Just got a call from the people who installed our kitchen cabinets in the new house.
Apparantly the hardware I picked out for the cabinets has come in and is smaller than the installer thinks I would like. I had to choose it from a website so never saw it IRL.
I’ll see it when we go down there this weekend…may have to make a another choice. There are so many little details you never think of.
Building a house long distance def. has it’s pitfalls.</p>
<p>We ordered the European pulls from [Knobs</a> and Pulls - Door Hardware, Cabinet Knobs, Decorative Hardware and Bath Hardware @ Knobs4less.com](<a href=“http://www.knobs4less.com%5DKnobs”>http://www.knobs4less.com) and are very happy with the quality (and price). They are quick to send a sample.</p>
<p>I love this thread! The one thing we constantly said during our renovations was that we wanted light fixtures that had easy to buy/easy to install bulbs. Did anyone listen? Of course not!!! Most of our lights are Italian and I need to order the bulbs on line by the case. Twice a year, just before Thanksgiving and July 4 my husband changes all the bulbs in the house (whether they need it or not). If they blow before that we live in a darker room. What a pain!</p>
<p>We also put in this gorgeous blue marble or granite (I can never remember which) for countertops but they stain and chip. I would never do that again.</p>
<p>We’re building a home in the US Virgin Islands (ready when second daughter leaves for college) and the one “easy” part about that is there are only a limited number of materials you can use because of the weather (salty, humid, and potential hurricanes). I’m looking forward to having less choices and knowing they’ll survive and be easy maintenance.</p>
<p>We lived on St John for a year back in the late 70’s. It was wonderful. Like everywhere else there are always a few trade-offs. Back then communication was a big issue. But it was a perfect place to spend the first year of marriage. Or the first year the kids are all off to college. :)</p>
<p>I am hooked on House Hunters International and I love it when they do a tropical location. It is so fun to see the different houses in the beach communities.</p>
<p>Getting back to the reason for this thread…I have noticed a lot of square or rectangular shaped chandeliers with more of a modern twist. Many of them seem to have the post or thing the light hangs from and then the power cord is also hanging down separately to the top of the light. I don’t like that extra hanging cord.</p>
<p>They look amazing and add a touch of color to our oak floor/maple cabinets/granite counters kitchen, as does the faux marble painted ceiling. (She sent color samples and some designs, we chose what we liked, and she made them.)</p>
<p>The cost was not much more than “regular” pulls and no one else will ever have the same pulls.</p>
<p>As for a trash compactor–we had one at a previous house, and my reaction was YECH! I like to take the kitchen garbage out every day–it’s part of my evening routine–because otherwise it smells! A week’s worth of garbage is heavy to lift, smells bad…</p>
<p>Those are gorgeous drawer pulls! But I disagree that they are “not much more” than regular pulls. Even with the discount, they are $17 each. I have 56 knobs in my kitchen. (The $1.19 kind, in 1997 shiny brass.) I’d love to replace them, it’s just not worth even a hundred bucks to me. Since everything else in my house is also shiny brass, it’s much easier to pretend I like it that way.</p>
<p>56 knobs! Good heavens. I have 28, I think. The European-style pulls that my husband liked cost $15 each, so the incremental cost for us was only a few dollars… I guess it’s a YMMV situation!</p>
<p>(Everything in this house is brushed nickel. I’m not sure you can get inexpensive pulls in brushed nickel… when we bought the house, the previous owner had died halfway through the remodel, leaving “just” the kitchen… He had exquisite taste (single gay man) but he wasn’t frugal.)</p>
<p>dmd…love those pulls…may order them for my bathroom since it wouldn’t cost that much. </p>
<p>When we udpated our kitchen, we used a nice travertine tile on the backsplash. I didn’t like how the plain outlet covers looked so I ordered matching tile covers…at $35…yikes. Small investment overall though…cause they really look nice. You can’t really see them and that was my goal…</p>
<p>I have read a lot of this thread, but not every post. As far as what’s “in” when building or remodeling, I encourage people to look into Universal Design. This is how it’s defined: “The design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.”</p>
<p>According to some reports, something like 90% of the population will be at least temporarily “disabled” at some time in their lives, including things like a broken bone, pregnancy, sore back… What Universal Design means is designing spaces and products that will work for people with disabilities (or different abilities) up front, and not having to remodel.</p>
<p>Some easy things are:
Use lever doorknobs instead of round doorknobs. Levers can be used by anyone, so if you have a broken arm/hand, you can still get the door open.
When you have a transition in floor type (carpet to tile, tile to wood) make the different floors in different colors, so someone with poor vision will have a better chance of seeing the difference, and avoid tripping.
Place electrical outlets a little higher than typical, so it’s easy for someone with a sore back to reach them.
Installing a “comfort height” toilet.
Make sure all doorways are wide enough for a wheelchair to fit through, even if you think nobody in your family will ever need a wheelchair. (We have a friend who live in a SENIOR development and the door to her bathroom isn’t wide enough for her walker. What in the world were those builders thinking???)
If you have a walkway that leads up to one or two steps to your front door, consider making the whole thing a gentle slope instead, so it’s barrier-free.</p>
<p>Lighting -lighting-lighting. Enough said. It’s the jewelry in any room. There is classic jewelry…and there is tacky jewelry! How old is your dining room fixture??? You can change the chandelier in your room without changing anything else and your rooms decor will become current!!
If you have “bound glass” anywhere in your home…time to get out of the 80’s and go shopping!</p>
<p>I like Tech Lighting and Tiella with murano glass pendants. Modern yet stylish and timeless. When I finish paying DD’s tuition, I will get those glass knobs for my kitchen. And I will get rid of the brass in my bathroom (I still like the ceramic tiles, the tub and everything else).</p>
<p>Comfort height toilets - yup, get them if you don’t have any little ones in your house.</p>
<p>Are dining room hutches in or out now? I sure have not seen any shown on the TV shows, but they are still in stores…we are trying to find a home for my parent’s hutch as downsizing happens, and wondered if people these days buy hutches or if architects plan for them any more?</p>
<p>we have a dining room hutch and I just told my husband that we would store it when we sold the house. Our dining room is a bit cramped and we need to make it look bigger.
And then maybe I would sell it depending on where we moved. It does seem a bit “stodgy” to me.</p>