I had every receptacle and switch changed out this fall in the older home we bought. The electrician quoted me a price of $10/each. They look so nice and bright. He fixed some shoddy DIY work too, which is why I had him in the first place.
Well, the boiler guy showed up today, and the verdict is in. It is not worth paying half the price of a new boiler to bring this old piece of rust back to perfect working condition for just a couple of years. So⊠this is what we will be improving soon. 
And the showroom is finally open on a day when we both are off work! Going to look for master bathroom mirror options.
And our water tank change in kiddie condo triggered a chain reaction - the HOA sent an email reminding the owners that the original water tanks are going to go kaput soon⊠hope the folks in the unit above us change theirs! Insurance or not, water leaks are a PITA.
I finally committed to someone today for my master bath vanity area upgrade. I think I stress over this kind of thing more than a reasonable person. Finally I sort of gave up on price and went with someone I felt good about. She has ideas I like and didnât try to convince me to redo my bath to a tower shower (which would have more than doubled the cost). She agreed it didnât need to be done. She did suggest I get a new mirror, which I was leaning towards (we have a BIG mirror that extends all the way across the vanity area, and I think it kind of âdatesâ it. We are going with a smaller beveled mirror. (I kind of like the mirrors with wood frames, but my husband doesnât). Iâm not excited to be parting with the money, but I am happy to be moving on from our late 70s fake marble vanity. (Iâve hated it since we moved in well over 10 years ago).
I am not âgoodâ with home improvement decisions. I did (finally) decide we really needed to get a new front door, improve that vanity area, get new carpet in the master bedroom, and repaint most of the house. I hope to get all of those things done by the end of this year. Door is done.
^^ My late 70s home has those fake marble vanities with the built-in âshellâ sinks in a gold color. I hate them, but I hate the matching bathtub even more!
Ordered 2 Electric Mirrors - one is a Mirror TV so Mr. can stare at Cramerâs ugly mug while shaving. Lol. Mine is just a beautiful edge lit mirror. We will have to peel off the giant wall to wall mirror to hang these beauties. I am not looking forward to more drywall work⊠seriously thinking about outsourcing that part of the project.
LOL! It looks like a high end bird bath ; )
Update on our dead thingâŠThe smell is already going away and the ratsorb is definitely helping. Hoping that means whatever died was very small.
Now weâre working on trying to better insulate the house. Now that itâs getting very cold, weâre finding a ton of drafts. Our latest discovery was a hairline crack in an exterior side door. We have two doors to replace now and we need to better insulate the basement.
Fingers crossed. Probably a small thing then. Kiddo had a dead raccoon in the wall emergency in their rental - that stench was absolutely nasty and lingered forever even after the owner cut some drywall and⊠I willl spare you the rest.
Is there a difference in an under the cabinet range hood and one of the big chimney type hoods or is it just for looks? Right now we have a cooktop with a downdraft exhaust but will be replacing it when we redo the kitchen. One of the contractors did not mention it and the other asked what I wanted to replace it with (we are still in the getting estimates stage.) Either one will be a bit of a pain because he will have to reroute some duct work.
How well it will suck will be determined by the cfm rating. The under cabinet ones may have different methods for collecting the grease and the ease of changing filters or baffles may vary. Be aware that if you have 400 cfm or more many building codes now require you to provide make up air.
The chimney is usually just a fancy metal casing that surrounds the real ductwork connecting the hood with the blower and the outside vent. The ductwork can be either hidden inside a fake cabinet or encased in such metal âchimney.â
Itâs not really about the design - it is about how much air can it move - and how much air do you need it to move.
You need to start with what type of stove do you have. The BTU rating of the stove determines the required hood rating in CFM. Here is a link to a pretty good discussion of this topic:
https://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/11110/how-many-cfm-for-a-range-hood-do-i-really-need
Agree with @scualum. The amount of CFM you need is depends on the BTU of your stove top. Some areas have very strict codes about that and others do not. In our last house, codes were that the CFM had to meet the minimum recommended by the stove manufacturer. This new house, the town doesnât care and people put 400 CFM blowers over commercial stoves. I had a fight with my kitchen designer when I would not sign off on a low CFM hood (my stove is a commercial stove and requires 1200 cfm). Maybe we could have gotten away with 900, but definitely not 400.
Thank you so much! I read up a little bit on the pros and cons of one of those pop up exhausts (general consensus was that they do not work very well) but hadnât read any of this other stuff yet!
Yes, vented overhead hoods are so much more efficient than similarly rated vented downdrafts. Make sure the overhead hood is installed at the recommended height above the cooktop. We went with an over the island hood that the maker matched to the cooktop, had to tinker with the ductwork, and then adjust the height (used the telescopic metal casing âchimneyâ that came with the hood).
Oh bummer⊠they had to drop the asking price:
"âI donât think anybodyâs ready to spend $250 million on a house,â Makowsky said. âAt $150 million, it gets opened up to a much wider audience.ââ
Laughing my rear off!!
^someone just bought a 24,000 sq ft condo overlooking Central Park in NYC for $228 million.
I wonder what the condo fee will be?
But⊠the market for $228M NYC condos is completely different from the market for $250M spec homes! 