Posted by K
Sat, 27 May 2006 04:30:00 GMT
After three calls to IKEA today, leaving three messages, one involving me begging them to please call me back, I was sent through to Dan Zook, IKEA kitchen manager! And he was there, in person, and able to talk to me! I was seriously rendered speechless for a minute and wasn’t sure how to talk to him. Anyway, long story short, he got it all sorted out. And it turns out everything we want is in stock, and now reserved, and it can all be picked up on Tuesday. Dan Zook was very nice and called me back TWICE and let me know exactly what was going on.
So I am happy. I am still annoyed at IKEA since this could have been done days ago and without nearly this much drama, but thank god for Dan Zook, who is awesome. Thank you again!
I also sent an email to Luke Works about concrete countertops and our options and costs and whether it would be a job for him/them. He went to school with a friend and seems to be a good guy. So maybe concrete will be back in the running, we will see.
Posted in Remodeling: Kitchen | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by K
Fri, 26 May 2006 03:11:00 GMT
IKEA informed me today that they suck possibly more than Nash Floors. They didn’t really tell me this in person, because talking to a real person at IKEA is not possible, I have determined. But they told me anyway, in so few words.
Here is the series of unfortunate events:
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Posted in Remodeling: General, Miscellaneous | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by K
Tue, 23 May 2006 05:09:00 GMT
After pining and lusting after it for, lo, seven months now, I finally pulled the trigger and bought The Faucet. For less than that, of course.
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Posted in Remodeling: Kitchen | 2 comments | no trackbacks
Posted by K
Sun, 21 May 2006 21:39:00 GMT
The excitement in these parts lately is packing. Also, buying dishwashers and, as featured on the To Do List, agonizing over countertops.
Earlier this week, when the nice people at Squak told me that shipping the slabs from Washington state to DC would cost me almost a thousand dollars (which, combined with the actual cost of the slabs would have brought the cost of raw materials to over $2500), I realized that Squak was going to be a no go. If we were moving to Seattle, just maybe, but not in this case.
So countertop-wise I guess we are now between:
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Posted in Remodeling: General, Moving cross-country | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by K
Wed, 17 May 2006 03:48:00 GMT
...is my new favorite designer. I’ve seen his lamps, like the garland lamp and the midsummer light (which I am going to get for the office room) but he also makes some awesome curtainy things and even dishes.
Posted in Miscellaneous | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by K
Tue, 16 May 2006 06:17:00 GMT
Squak is my new favorite word, and Squak Mountain Stone can be tabletops or countertops or whatever, take your pick. I wrote to them to see what shipping would be like, and if we do get it we would have to find a fabricator or someone who could install it, but it isn’t stupidly expensive, maybe, especially if we get the seconds. And it is nice looking and kind of industrial and eco-friendly. Basically, it is like Richlite/paperstone and is concrete and some other stuff mixed with paper in a very nice-to-the-earth way.
Plus, you could point at the counters and yell “Sk-wack!” all the time.
Today I ordered the cabinets and it was pretty stress-free, now that I am one with the whole faxing/credit card authorization thing. Some of the pieces have to be backordered and god only knows when they will come in, but they are peripherals so shouldn’t be an issue. Or I think now. My song might change in a few weeks when everything ends up messed up.
Next: make a million dollars to pay for the heat pump we are getting. Find out how much grout we need and make sure that it can be obtained or obtain some and send it out there.
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Posted by K
Sun, 14 May 2006 03:09:00 GMT
This is the thrilling weekend that belongs to the homeowner: a trip to the tile store, an aborted trip to look at soapstone, and a trip to IKEA wherein cabinets were not ordered (as planned) since it seems that an IKEA in California is unable to fax an order for me to an IKEA in Maryland.
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Posted in Remodeling: Bathroom, Remodeling: Kitchen | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Matthew
Sat, 13 May 2006 18:38:00 GMT
My parents let us know that This Old House has a project house in Shaw, DC. So of course we’ve been watching. This Old House is doing the renovations on behalf of a non-profit named Mi Casa that buys houses from the city, restores them, and then sells the house to a low income family (houses go for under $300,000). My parents of course wanted to magically alter our tax bracket and make us eligible. Seeing as how we are severely over our renovation budget I have been considering dropping in on Norm and . . . okay, well, kidnapping him. I know, it’s Norm. We don’t kidnap the master carpenter. But think how nicely he’d restore our banister. Anyway, a boy can dream.
The series just restarted on our PBS station a week ago so if you’re interested you can see it from the start. If Norm fails to appear in the final episodes this post will self-destruct.
Posted in Neighborhood | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Matthew
Sat, 13 May 2006 18:35:00 GMT
UPDATE 07/27/06:
We ended up getting the Nordyne/Gibson JT3BD Heat Pump. We’ve only been in the house a short time but we’ve been through some very hot and humid days and thus far it is working fine.
OLD POST:
We’re now considering installing an Anderson Envirosure 1400 Heat Pump. It uses puron instead of freon and performs the cooling by pulling heat out of your house. It then utilizes an air handler inside the house to distribute the air around the house. It is setup like an air conditioner but flipped around so that the hot coils are on the inside and the cold coils are on the outside.
Heat pumps are generally considered more efficient than air conditioners. Unfortunately, when the temperature drops below freezing the cold coil outside can ice up and it has to switch back to ac mode to heat the coil up and melt the ice. However, we don’t plan on using it in the dead of winter, for that we’ll get a natural gas boiler to send hot water to our radiators. But for cool nights in Fall and Spring it will be fine and should be as simple as flipping a switch to go from cool to hot air.
Posted in Modern amenities | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Matthew
Sat, 13 May 2006 18:05:00 GMT
One of my new responsibilities, one that I am actually excited about as opposed to terrified of, is that of Temperance Hall web master. The site is rising to the top of Google’s search results which is reassuring. I started a flickr tag, temperancehalldc, which someone contributed to and so I followed it to Hook and Ladder Beer which they just so happen to serve at one of K’s favorite places: the
Olney Ale House.
I believe we only made it out there twice, it is not exactly close by, but K and I both have very fond memories of the place. They serve a few vegetarian sandwiches but that memories are of the bread. The fresh molasses bread. Sooo good. And the beer. Mmmmmm. I’d trek out there for the bread and beer alone.
Olney Ale House
Posted in Neighborhood | 1 comment | no trackbacks
