April 13, 2011
April 11, 2011
Kitchen Project: Attention To Detail
Firstly, I want to thank everyone who took time to answer my kitchen questions (I'm Curious About Your Kitchens - and it's not too late to tell me about yours!) All of your comments were very helpful. I learned that kitchen preferences are as varied as personalities. It was fun to learn what you like and why. Lifestyle is key here, and it was encouraging how happy most of you were with the design choices you made. I even got a peek into some of your kitchens and picked up some good ideas along the way. If you haven't already seen it, photos of what my kitchen originally looked like are here, and what we did to make it more livable, here.
Functionally, my kitchen will be relatively simple. It is my food workshop, and needs to be set it up as such. My challenge is to make my tools and workspace logically organized and accessible.
Functionally, my kitchen will be relatively simple. It is my food workshop, and needs to be set it up as such. My challenge is to make my tools and workspace logically organized and accessible.
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Because of doors, windows, and the L-shape of the room, the area I have to accomplish a working area is relatively small, one corner less than 9 x 8 feet (pink area). As you can see, that doesn't include the fridge and wood cookstove's required safety clearances (that, in blue). Neither am I including traffic areas in front of doors, nor the breakfast nook (green) which I'm figuring can double as a work area if needed and seating for the rare visitor. On the plus side, I have a huge pantry, not only for food storage, but also things like my canning equipment, grain mill, empty jars, etc.
Aesthetically, well, we're artists. We're going to spend a lot of time in this room, so we want to create a beautiful room as well as a functional one. Beauty is subjective though, and Dan and I have very different tastes when it comes to interior design. He leans more toward the formal and ornate, I toward the simple and rustic. It's been fun though, working out ways to blend our different ideas in a cohesive manner. (And I have to say that after giving his honest opinion about any detail, he always adds, "but it's your kitchen," giving me the last say-so.)
My color scheme was chosen about a year and a half ago, when we purchased these two small Amish built cabinets (click either for a closer look). They aren't true kitchen cabinets, but we bought them with the kitchen in mind. The pictures in the insets are earthy greens and browns. I have always had a blue kitchen, because of my Blue Willow, so this is quite a change for me. I fell in love with the cabinets though, so it must be time for that change. (My Blue Willow happily resides in my dining room, which has picked up the blue in it's color scheme.)
I love green too though. Which is one of the reasons I fell in love with this 2nd hand bargain...
... which I hope to work into my peninsula. I wasn't trying to match colors, but it did anyway. Perfectly...
Now I'm working on collecting paint swatches to carry around for when I need them.
On one of his trips to Pennsylvania, Dan bought another, larger Amish built cabinet. It had three plain doors, which he woodburned for me...
This will be built in to my "wall of shelves."
I'm also thinking about flooring material under the wood cookstove.
The faux brick floor protector came with the stove. We debated on whether or not to use it. I like the brick look, but don't like the rough texture, knowing it would be hard to keep clean. Also it is made to sit on top of an existing floor, which raises the walk-by area in front of the stove to an easy to trip over height. Since we're replacing the entire kitchen floor anyway, we're thinking ceramic floor tile under the stove. This would be installed over cement board, to comply with code. I've been buying single tiles as samples and of course these have to color coordinate with the small Amish cabinet doors. The other place I'm considering using tile is my backsplash.
Just the other day I found spot lighting for the sink, peninsula, and breakfast table...
These are mini-pendants, mini I guess because the glass shade is small (6.25 inches). A series of them would be needed for a longer peninsula or island, but singles will work well for my compact areas. I was happy that they were among the least expensive offerings, plus that the motif echos the hanging light in our dining room. Still under consideration are under-cabinet lights for the work area next to the sink, lighting for cooking (found a pot rack with lights), and ceiling fixture (fan with or without a light?).
This was our splurge...
A tin ceiling. Not for the entire kitchen, but for the entrance / dining nook, which is separated from the rest of the kitchen by a visible load-bearing beam (the one supported by The Post, photo here.) I admit I'm not too crazy about tin ceilings, but Dan loves them. My inner lightbulb went off when we considered giving the dining nook a different but coordinating look. It's a small ceiling (about 40 square feet), so it didn't bust our budget.
There are still a lot of things to figure out. We've decided that the electrical upgrades need to be done first, and then we'll get back to the kitchen and pick up where we left off! My challenge in the mean time, is to pull it all together. It's no small task, but I don't deny that I love this part of the process.
Aesthetically, well, we're artists. We're going to spend a lot of time in this room, so we want to create a beautiful room as well as a functional one. Beauty is subjective though, and Dan and I have very different tastes when it comes to interior design. He leans more toward the formal and ornate, I toward the simple and rustic. It's been fun though, working out ways to blend our different ideas in a cohesive manner. (And I have to say that after giving his honest opinion about any detail, he always adds, "but it's your kitchen," giving me the last say-so.)
My color scheme was chosen about a year and a half ago, when we purchased these two small Amish built cabinets (click either for a closer look). They aren't true kitchen cabinets, but we bought them with the kitchen in mind. The pictures in the insets are earthy greens and browns. I have always had a blue kitchen, because of my Blue Willow, so this is quite a change for me. I fell in love with the cabinets though, so it must be time for that change. (My Blue Willow happily resides in my dining room, which has picked up the blue in it's color scheme.)I love green too though. Which is one of the reasons I fell in love with this 2nd hand bargain...
... which I hope to work into my peninsula. I wasn't trying to match colors, but it did anyway. Perfectly...
Now I'm working on collecting paint swatches to carry around for when I need them.
On one of his trips to Pennsylvania, Dan bought another, larger Amish built cabinet. It had three plain doors, which he woodburned for me...
This will be built in to my "wall of shelves."
I'm also thinking about flooring material under the wood cookstove.
The faux brick floor protector came with the stove. We debated on whether or not to use it. I like the brick look, but don't like the rough texture, knowing it would be hard to keep clean. Also it is made to sit on top of an existing floor, which raises the walk-by area in front of the stove to an easy to trip over height. Since we're replacing the entire kitchen floor anyway, we're thinking ceramic floor tile under the stove. This would be installed over cement board, to comply with code. I've been buying single tiles as samples and of course these have to color coordinate with the small Amish cabinet doors. The other place I'm considering using tile is my backsplash.
Just the other day I found spot lighting for the sink, peninsula, and breakfast table...
These are mini-pendants, mini I guess because the glass shade is small (6.25 inches). A series of them would be needed for a longer peninsula or island, but singles will work well for my compact areas. I was happy that they were among the least expensive offerings, plus that the motif echos the hanging light in our dining room. Still under consideration are under-cabinet lights for the work area next to the sink, lighting for cooking (found a pot rack with lights), and ceiling fixture (fan with or without a light?).
This was our splurge...
A tin ceiling. Not for the entire kitchen, but for the entrance / dining nook, which is separated from the rest of the kitchen by a visible load-bearing beam (the one supported by The Post, photo here.) I admit I'm not too crazy about tin ceilings, but Dan loves them. My inner lightbulb went off when we considered giving the dining nook a different but coordinating look. It's a small ceiling (about 40 square feet), so it didn't bust our budget.
There are still a lot of things to figure out. We've decided that the electrical upgrades need to be done first, and then we'll get back to the kitchen and pick up where we left off! My challenge in the mean time, is to pull it all together. It's no small task, but I don't deny that I love this part of the process.
April 9, 2011
Of Mortgage Debt
I'm curious, how many of you have your place paid off? Show of hands. How many are working on it? How many of you never even consider it?
About 15 years ago, my mother was in the market for a house. She could well afford it, so Dan and I encouraged her to buy it outright. The realtor talked her out of it. The reasoning was that without a mortgage, she wouldn't get a write off on her income taxes.
Anyone who's ever looked at an amortization schedule, knows that with a 30 year mortgage, one ends up paying approximately triple the purchase price of the home. For a $250,000 home, one pays back not only the $250,000 borrowed, but also an additional $500,000 in interest. That's assuming it takes the full 30 years to pay it off. It can be considerably less if the principal is paid off early. Our question about my mother's situation was, would she get $500,000 worth of write offs on her taxes? The answer to that was no. Yet neither my mother nor the realtor got it, and my mother did indeed get a mortgage she didn't need.
I think about it on a more personal level. If it were you, what would you rather do with $500,000? Give it to the mortgage company for the privilege of a pennies on the dollar tax write off? Or use it for something else?
There's an odd logic out there about debt. Debt is considered normal. Debt is considered desirable. But who does it really benefit? When considering whether or not to buy something on credit, my first husband would only look at whether or not we could afford the increase in the monthly credit card payment. I tended to look at the true cash outlay for the item, including interest, and how long it would take to pay it off. When I realized that the monthly minimum payment was less than the interest owed, I also realized that even if we never purchased another item on credit, that minimum payment would guarantee a lifetime of increasingly deeper dept.
Our mortgage is the first debt Dan and I have had together. This is because were willing to make sacrifices and do without things many folks take for granted, not because we could afford to pay cash for everything. And no, we have nowhere near a $250,000 home. We don't have that kind of income, which is why we bought an old fixer-upper. Of course, this means that any extra monies have to be put into repairing and upgrading the house, rather than making significant payments on the mortgage principal. On the other hand, if we'd bought a home that didn't need repair, our mortgage and monthly payments would be a heck of a lot higher.
Our number one goal is to get our mortgage paid off. We do pay extra on the principal each month, but I wish very badly that we could just be done with it. I confess that debt is a source of insecurity for me. Debt gives other folks rights over our money and over our lives. Not only does our home not truly belong to us, neither, in a sense, does our income. In the end, they have the right to take it from us, without regard to our circumstances nor the situation it might leave us in.
From time to time we talk about a money making blitz to pay it off. Right now Dan's job gives him days off at a time. The trade-off is less pay, but more time to get things done around here. It's why we can make the progress we do. If he has 3 or 4 or 5 days before going out again, we can get a lot done. There's a trade-off with my time as well. I don't bring in a monetary income, but the garden, animals, and general running of the household fall to me. Little if any of that would get done if I worked full time.
This has been on our minds more and more lately, as the outlook for this nation's economy gets gloomier and gloomier. I know we all wish it were just a matter of electing the right people to get things back on track, but I believe that's a vain hope. The problem, I believe, is the modern consumer/profit mindset, which was always doomed to fail because human nature is never satisfied.
So, where exactly is this post going? Nowhere I reckon. I just think that mortgage debt is the biggest obstacle there is to making an honest go at family farming or homesteading. It takes the better part of most folks' income to keep the piggy bank fed. All we can do is to chip away at it, a little at a time.
About 15 years ago, my mother was in the market for a house. She could well afford it, so Dan and I encouraged her to buy it outright. The realtor talked her out of it. The reasoning was that without a mortgage, she wouldn't get a write off on her income taxes.
Anyone who's ever looked at an amortization schedule, knows that with a 30 year mortgage, one ends up paying approximately triple the purchase price of the home. For a $250,000 home, one pays back not only the $250,000 borrowed, but also an additional $500,000 in interest. That's assuming it takes the full 30 years to pay it off. It can be considerably less if the principal is paid off early. Our question about my mother's situation was, would she get $500,000 worth of write offs on her taxes? The answer to that was no. Yet neither my mother nor the realtor got it, and my mother did indeed get a mortgage she didn't need.
I think about it on a more personal level. If it were you, what would you rather do with $500,000? Give it to the mortgage company for the privilege of a pennies on the dollar tax write off? Or use it for something else?
There's an odd logic out there about debt. Debt is considered normal. Debt is considered desirable. But who does it really benefit? When considering whether or not to buy something on credit, my first husband would only look at whether or not we could afford the increase in the monthly credit card payment. I tended to look at the true cash outlay for the item, including interest, and how long it would take to pay it off. When I realized that the monthly minimum payment was less than the interest owed, I also realized that even if we never purchased another item on credit, that minimum payment would guarantee a lifetime of increasingly deeper dept.
Our mortgage is the first debt Dan and I have had together. This is because were willing to make sacrifices and do without things many folks take for granted, not because we could afford to pay cash for everything. And no, we have nowhere near a $250,000 home. We don't have that kind of income, which is why we bought an old fixer-upper. Of course, this means that any extra monies have to be put into repairing and upgrading the house, rather than making significant payments on the mortgage principal. On the other hand, if we'd bought a home that didn't need repair, our mortgage and monthly payments would be a heck of a lot higher.
Our number one goal is to get our mortgage paid off. We do pay extra on the principal each month, but I wish very badly that we could just be done with it. I confess that debt is a source of insecurity for me. Debt gives other folks rights over our money and over our lives. Not only does our home not truly belong to us, neither, in a sense, does our income. In the end, they have the right to take it from us, without regard to our circumstances nor the situation it might leave us in.
From time to time we talk about a money making blitz to pay it off. Right now Dan's job gives him days off at a time. The trade-off is less pay, but more time to get things done around here. It's why we can make the progress we do. If he has 3 or 4 or 5 days before going out again, we can get a lot done. There's a trade-off with my time as well. I don't bring in a monetary income, but the garden, animals, and general running of the household fall to me. Little if any of that would get done if I worked full time.
This has been on our minds more and more lately, as the outlook for this nation's economy gets gloomier and gloomier. I know we all wish it were just a matter of electing the right people to get things back on track, but I believe that's a vain hope. The problem, I believe, is the modern consumer/profit mindset, which was always doomed to fail because human nature is never satisfied.
So, where exactly is this post going? Nowhere I reckon. I just think that mortgage debt is the biggest obstacle there is to making an honest go at family farming or homesteading. It takes the better part of most folks' income to keep the piggy bank fed. All we can do is to chip away at it, a little at a time.
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