Solar Tube - Generic or Brand Name

As I mentioned before our kitchen is dark and dreary with a lack of natural light.   So in addition to the can lighting we decided to put a solar tube in the middle of the kitchen over the island.  We weren't novices to this, in fact, we have a solar tube in my son's bathroom.  However, it is not the solar tube brand, it's a Velux.  Nothing wrong with it, but it does have a cold blue cast.  And as Paul told me there are some differences in materials, construction, etc.

So, this time we decided to go with the Solar Tube brand, but here we go again, which kind of lens?  There is a store in Plano called "Daylight Rangers."  Of course, I have passed by this store taking my daughter to work and thought it was a daycare - get it - Daylight Rangers?  Guess you had to be there.

Normally Paul and I go together on these missions, but for some reason he had some free time and went over there without me.   He did come home with a discount coupon  and if you attended their open house, you could register to win a free solar tube.  Paul showed me some options on their website, but again, visual girl had to go see it.     

Now I never win anything, I play the lottery, I enter the Home Depot opinion surveys to win $5,000, but do you think I win - NOOOOO!   But anyway, off that Saturday we went.  At first we were thinking about this one:

As it would go with the schoolhouse light we have in the breakfast nook.  But, when we went up north to look at lighting  one of the things Ed said stuck in my mind.   I have to preface this with a story.  Originally Paul and I thought we might hang small schoolhouse globes in two of the areas planned for canned lighting over the sink.  However, when we started talking to Ed and showed him our designs, he said "why are you creating an obstruction in this great open space?"   Ah Ha!    So we went with this: 

It's a little modern, but it works with the LED can lighting.

And No, I didn't win the free solar tube.   But it turned out for the best, since we wanted a 14 inch solar tube and the one for the contest was only a 10 inch. 

A sink, a faucet and a pot filler

Have you ever looked at something on a website and wanted it so bad you could taste it?  That's how I felt about a farm sink.  Silly I know.  Here's what I have

It's not a bad sink, it's just scarred and ugly and old.

So I went looking and found my farm sink on VintageTub.com (I am naming names because somebody told me I could). Here it is:

It is so pretty and it will match the bead board.  I know geek!

Then I went looking for the sink faucet and pot filler.  That was harder.   I really didn't have an idea what I wanted other than not having a side sprayer and/or a soap dispenser, but did I want a bridge, center set, single post, a wide spread, a mini spread, oh good grief it was like the cabinet doors all over again. And the finish, since my handles were pewter with copper insets, did I want copper or pewter.   So l looked, and I looked and I looked.   I looked at Irawoods.com and at faucet.com.  I love the name irawoods.com, I picture some little old man sitting behind a desk with a sunshade on, filling my order.  Faucet.com is not so sexy, but I have ordered from both of these folks before without trouble.  I found stuff I liked, but I still wasn't sure.

I still had an issue with the finishes. Although, I would have loved copper, it was out because I saw the prices for the pot fillers in copper that were  $1,300.00 and I really didn't even like that particular pot filler that much, so I darn sure wasn't going to fork over $1,300.00. Remembering the fact that I am a visual girl, Paul suggested we go to Azel Plumbing here in Richardson and look around.  So we did and we talked to Tatiana, a nice Russian woman.  I was able to see the finishes in both pot fillers and faucets, compared them with my door handles and I was a happy camper.  In fact, I found a different pot filler that worked well with the faucet, I eventually picked, that I hadn't seen previously on line. So, she gave me a price quote.

Being the comparison shopper I am, I went home and looked on line. The difference in prices were at least $100.00 to $150.00 in what the store quoted and what the internet prices were.  I printed out the quotes from Ira and Faucet and took them back to Azel to see if they would meet them or at least split the difference.  My opinion is if you don't ask, you don't get.  I explained to them that I would rather buy local, but they could see that the prices were vastly different and would they meet me in the middle.  Nope, they said, they don't meet internet prices.  Okay then.  I said thank you and went home to order.

Now something I also did when I ordered, before I hit the pay button, was that I looked for discount coupons for all of these folks on the internet.  I was lucky and in some cases, saved 20 - 35% more on my purchase.

Moral of the story, look around, ask for discounts, look for coupon codes.   Here are my faucet and pot filler (finishes aren't necessarily what they are).

 

The Great Cabinet Caper

Arch, Square, Slab  - what is your kitchen cabinet door preference?  I knew I didn't want Arch (everybody has Arch), Slab was too plain, so that left me with square. Then you get into:  Mission, Shaker, Flat Panel, Raised Panel, Flat Panel, Recessed Panel, Molding - how much, how little, bead boarding.  It's enough to make your head spin 350 degrees and spit out green goo.

At one time I was a Shaker girl, I loved the simplicity of it and that classic "it's been in my family 100 plus years."  Then I graduated into Shaker with bead board in the recessed panel.  I have bead board in my hallways and breakfast nook and thought what a great match.  When I went and looked at these, it was "do I really want to live with this all over my kitchen, or use it more as an accent piece?"  The accent piece won.
 
The best advice I can give you if you are a three dimensional visual kind of girl like me - GO LOOK - at your local hardware stores, cabinet makers, etc.  Unless you can look, touch, feel and smell, you may make a mistake that you'll be looking at a long time and cabinets aren't cheap - as I found out. 

So V our kd made arrangements to meet us at a local cabinetmaker to look at cabinets and had given us the name of a brand that we would be looking at.   Do you think Paul and I could wait for her?  Of course not, we did a reconnaissance mission the week before. Our rationale was that we would save her time once we met with her.  So we slunk in - and I am surprised Paul didn't make us wear a trench coat and mustaches.

So we looked and looked and compared so we would be intelligent when we met with her (or at least that's what we told ourselves).  We saw a couple of styles that we liked and then we saw the styles we lusted after (or at least I did).  

When we met with V, I tried to keep an open mind about cabinet styles  I was willing to compromise if there was something I liked but didn't love, in terms of cost.  But, the one thing I didn't want was stained cabinets, I wanted painted cabinets that were distressed that looked like they were in your grandmother's house.  So, we looked at the less expensive line of cabinets and we looked at the more expensive line of cabinets.  There is a difference folks in terms of construction, materials, general look and feel.  However, trying to be the conservative one, I was willing to go with the cheaper cabinets, but they were in this god awful cream color bordering on yellow.  And they didn't come unpainted.  So, if we went with them, we'd had to strip them and repaint them.

SO, I decided what the heck do a bid on the more expensive cabinets and see if they would come unfinished. (This company is quite proud of its finishes).  I decided to throw caution to the wind and get a bid on the drawer pulls I have been looking at on the website.  I kept my fingers crossed and thought if it is meant to be it is meant to be.

AND, it was.  The difference between the painted and the unfinished cabinets and pulls ended up being the cost of the fancy schmancy microwave drawer.  See what you get when you don't get the pretty shiny toys, but put your money where it should be?

Here are my cabinet doors and pulls.  I can't wait to see them.

  

To LED or not to LED

My kitchen is dark - there is no natural light in my kitchen other than the attached breakfast nook and the utility room.  I also have this funky recessed light fixture (see below) that I can't wait to put a sledgehammer to.

Now did I really care or know about LED vs. regular lighting?  Not really.  I just wanted more light in the kitchen.  However, when my dear husband Paul informed me of the energy savings down the road - I was all for it.  When it comes to saying money on electric bills, I am ALL for it.   Also, whenever we do a project, we look at what will sell down the road  because many folks can't see past paint and wallpaper. I do plan to die in this house, but I do think about making it easier for my kids to sell it. 

Again, V, our kd directed us to a family owned lighting center up north of us and said to see "Arturo" when we went.  Now this is the guy's real name, you think I could make that one up?   But alas, Arturo wasn't there, so we talked to Ed instead (this one I made up - since I couldn't remember his name).

While Paul and Ed were debating size, number of drivers, etc.  What was I doing?  Walking around looking at all the pretty shinny light fixtures thinking to myself, where could I put this?

Then I wandered back to Paul and Ed and then came the moment of truth.  Paul turns to me and says "what do you think - xyz or zyx?"  Uh . . . . .

So I turn to Ed and say "what are my choices?"  "Warm or cool light?" he says with smile.  "Warm," I say with all the confidence in the world.  Did I need to know about drivers, etc., No.  So we decided on warm LED under counter  and indirect lighting, as well as 4 lovely cans,   Take that you ugly light fixture.

And that's why I leave the technical stuff to the experts.

Lions, and Tigers and Appliances, Oh My

Paul and I are such DIY geeks (or at the very least we don't have a life).  When we go to our local hardware store, oftentimes we meander about looking lustfully at countertops, appliances, tile, cabinets, etc.  I have even been known to on occasion to debate the looks of various ceiling fans and/or light fixtures.  Told you - we don't have a life.   So, when we started drawing up plans, one of the things I was most excited about was new appliances (with the exception of my refrigerator, since I love it).

One of the problems/charms of 1979 house, is that things have not been updated since 1979.  That is good and bad, since I'd feel worse about ripping out an updated kitchen as opposed to what we have now.   I am pretty sure the appliances are original to the house, see below.

One of the things I miss most about my other houses are my gas ovens, in Haltom City, I had a vintage 1940's stove and in Mansfield, we had a great gas oven.  I like cookin' with gas, I don't necessarily need a  fancy cooktop and an oven, just a nice friendly slide in range.  Did you know there was a difference between a free standing oven  and a slide in? I didn't, until we started on this quest.

The other thing we decided not to do was a built in microwave.  I know, it's space efficient, but you can never vent them properly and after having 2 of them blow up on us, we decided on a counter top microwave.  V, our kitchen designer, I am sure thought we were nutsy fagan, but came up with an alternative - a microwave drawer.  Although in theory, it sounded really cool, but I had the feeling it would go the same way as the retractable island, so I didn't get my hopes up. 

Another bone of contention in the kitchen was the vent-a-hood.  After banging his head on the sharp corners numerous times, Paul took his sledge hammer and took the corners out.  I would not recommend trying this at home.  The new plans have a wonderful wooden cover, that Paul gets to build. 
 
Taking our educated selves to the appliance warehouse, V suggested, we met with Mike.  Talk about the wants and appliance envy.  The first thing I saw was this vintage oven.

But at 7k, it was way out of our price range.  Although it would have gone well in our farmhouse kitchen.      The microwave drawer that I would have loved to have was $700 -$900 (good thing I didn't get my hopes up).  Another thing I have learned over the years, know what you can live without if it costs too much, but if you really, really, really want something, then go without something else that is not as important to you. 

Although we didn't buy our appliances from the appliance warehouse, since our local hardware store had a great no interest for 18 months promotion, this is what we ended up with, after Paul getting Consumer Report's blessing.  I didn't get a microwave drawer, but I got a warming drawer in my oven, and dishwasher that is stainless steel on the inside.

Right now it is resting comfortably in my dining room which acts as a storage closet, for insulation, doors, etc.

Next stop - lighting.