Home Ownership

I’ve been planning to make one of those over the fridge cabinets for a while now. I just need to get the Dragonlady onboard. Our kitchen is pretty minimal. It was a great idea as far as the looks and design went when I built it, but it means that we keep almost everything on the counters now or we’d have to go to the basement. Just a little bit more storage space would be great. I’m the only one who would be able to reach the cabinets over the fridge, but having extra space for some tins would be great. I’ve even got enough flooring left that I could do something funky for the doors to match.

Cabinets over the fridge prevent the over the fridge clutter too!

When we got the bathroom electrical redone a few years ago, Sparky said that he had to remove the outlet that was inside the medicine cabinet to keep the lines within the building and electrical code. That may just be in Ontario. Check your local guidelines.

Still, I think it’s a great idea.

I can’t imagine how that could be against building codes.

I couldn’t stand having drawers open in my kitchen to access outlets. I’d run into that shit constantly.

Venting and heat generation? And it probably causes cancer in California somehow. :wink:

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Yeah, I can’t see outlets inside drawers being safe long term. Romex in-wall wire is solid core and not meant to bend repeatedly. I don’t know if there is an alternative you could use for a drawer, but it just doesn’t seem like a good idea. The false drawer front idea is interesting, though.

I want to put LED strip lighting everywhere, controlled by smart phone dimmer switches or something. Or something like a nest that controls lighting, I walk in and it senses the ambient light level and adjusts the lighting to

But I live in a 1925 Craftsman home.

But I’m remodeling the attic!!! And, I’m updating the Kitchen to be more Art Deco!

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Welcome to the 20th century.

I left behind my 2007 home to buy this one. Half the square footage, not including the attic or basement, but four times the homeyness. Since no one has updated the woodwork, or even painted it, I feel an obligation not to update it now, and I like the feel of most of the rooms.

However, kitchens in the 20’s were stupid. And so were bathrooms. The original cabinetry is still up in the kitchen, and while we were going to save it, I’m really leaning towards blowing the whole thing up. We’ll use the cabinets in the pantry downstairs and put something totally different up.

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Several things on that list bothered me:

  • Long Hallway Shelves sound great, but in most cases if you’ve got a long hallway it’s either wide enough for shelves or there’s a reason you can chop a shelf into the wall, like another room on the other side.

  • The hidden outlets seem like a potential code issue to me, too. The ones with flip-up covers are one thing, but the ones in drawers might have the issue of outlets not being designed for constant in-out stress perhaps.

  • Make sure your porch chandelier is rated for outside use.

  • House numbers can be something that needs to be cleared with the government in some jurisdictions, I think. basically, they need to be legible from the street in case the fire department needs to get there for your bad electrical work that caught fire.

  • The Kid’s bedroom tunnels seem like a fun idea, but they’re only going to be useful for a short time, then something that has to be explained for years.

  • No one has mentioned the toilet seat tabs? I think there’s more concern about the waste that’s spread by flushing with the lid up than germs transferred by toilet seats.

I do like the stools on armatures under a surface, though. Just make sure they’re strong enough to survive he inevitable horseplay and/or heavy people. And the outlets under the cabinets, assuming that’s code friendly. I would totally do that: Keeps them out of ‘splash’ range, too.

If you are truly going to get rid of them, consider trying to contact Nicole Curtis of Rehab Addict. She is always putting out requests for certain timeperiods of cabinets and such. She might even pay you for them!! :slight_smile:

They are awesome pieces of the house and I won’t just pitch them. I’m just not sure they have a place in the kitchen.

At the worst we’ll just put them all in the pantry, which is just a root cellar off the basement.

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We’ve been having myriad water/plumbing issues in our house, and it’s not even that old in the grand scheme of things. It was built in 1981. Our most recent discovery is that the master bathroom toilet is leaking into the basement bathroom, and apparently has been for quite some time, what with the damage to the ceiling. So this weekend we will be pulling that toilet off, and probably taking out the ceiling downstairs to assess the damage. Plus we’ve had main drain issues, kitchen sink issues, and an ice dam had formed on our roof a few weeks ago so water was coming in to the living room/kitchen through the molding. I’m not looking forward to this weekend at all.

Ouch.

Yeah, one place I lived at, the window suddenly exploded. Turns out that the roof was leaking heat, causing a massive ice pillar to form. The pillar broke, and it crashed through the window.

Scared the crap out of me, since I was sitting about four feet from that window at the time.

This is where renting is awesome. The bathroom toilet was leaking and the leak got down into the subflooring so it all had to be replaced as well. Luckily it was the landlord’s problem to fix. And we got rid of the ugly ass linoleum (that we still have in the kitchen unfortunately) and got some nice ceramic tile as part of the bargain.

Not like I could afford to own a home here anyway.

It’s a hack job (in more ways than one), but the new doorknob and deadbolt are installed on the back door. It will take management a lot of work to get in that way.

Good news!

They finally served me with eviction papers (in California it’s called “unlawful detainer”). So I have to run up to the courthouse this week and file my answer. It should be a lovely day in court when we get around to it.

Should be fun. Once you point out they have no standing as they didn’t own the property in question that should take care of their involvement. But it doesn’t solve the problem of you living someplace you don’t have clear title to. You could be trading a civil problem for a criminal one. (But since you’ve been there over 30 days… I’m not sure what that means. Study up on the legal code involved.)

I do remember that one thing you need to be doing is to pay the property taxes for the land you are on. Basically, you have to act like the property owner if you wish to ever be considered the property owner.

The other key issue is the difference between title to the mobile home and title to the land upon which it sits. Make certain they screwed up both lest you be on the receiving end of a major surprise.

Good luck. You’ll need it.

I pay taxes on the mobile home. I do not pay taxes on the land. I rent the land.