Home buying thread

Kalaar kururuc

Kalaar kururuc

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Well, with my 9-year old we mostly just have to worry about food spillage, and no issues there. My 6-year old though, he uses the breakfast bar for crafting, and so far we've had to wipe off glue, pen, crayon, marker, as well as food. The worst thing is Ribena, I can't remember if you have that in the States, but it's blackcurrant squash. It's all come off fine, even if we didn't get to it right away, and with granite, you have to worry about staining with things like Ribena.
 
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Kalaar kururuc

Kalaar kururuc

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Intrinsic said:
The floors look good too.
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Therein lies a tale. Our house is a typical 1930's UK house, i.e., none of the walls are true or square, and the floors are not exactly flat. We have suspended wood floors, consisting of joists with tongue-and-groove planks, which is fairly typical. They're now almost 100 years old, and although they don't look terrible, there is a definite lack of flatness. Not much of an issue if you're doing a single room, but we did the entire ground floor. We bought a load of engineered oak herringbone at a great sale price, but then when we went to get installation costs, I almost stroked out. The install cost was about 4x what it would have been for plank, due to all the additional preparation work needed. Basically, due to the vastly increased number of joints compared to long plank flooring, the sub-floor needs to be much flatter, and you can't 'bodge' it as you can with plank, as any issue gets multiplied across a big run, again due to the number of joints, but live and learn, and we love it now it's down.

Long story short, if you want a herringbone floor, get quotes for installation before buying the actual flooring! Probably not such an issue with a new build though.
 
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Lanx

Lanx

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Kalaar kururuc said:
Well, with my 9-year old we mostly just have to worry about food spillage, and no issues there. My 6-year old though, he uses the breakfast bar for crafting, and so far we've had to wipe off glue, pen, crayon, marker, as well as food. The worst thing is Ribena, I can't remember if you have that in the States, but it's blackcurrant squash. It's all come off fine, even if we didn't get to it right away, and with granite, you have to worry about staining with things like Ribena.
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oh man i grew up drinking that stuff, always the concentrate, you only make the mistake of not diluting it once
 
Intrinsic

Intrinsic

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I had to look it up because even consuming a ton of British TV, Movies, and Pop Culture it isn’t even a familiar vocabulary word. ChatGPT said maybe Welch’s Grape Juice or a concentrate, but that didn’t really seem correct.
 
Lanx

Lanx

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Intrinsic said:
I had to look it up because even consuming a ton of British TV, Movies, and Pop Culture it isn’t even a familiar vocabulary word. ChatGPT said maybe Welch’s Grape Juice or a concentrate, but that didn’t really seem correct.
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it seemed any place that got colonized had it exported, in my case my mother and hong kong, and since chinatown always imports hong kong stuff, always had a supply, i remember the glass bottle being heavy (when empty), or maybe thats my weakass 8yr old self.
 
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Intrinsic

Intrinsic

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Had a long meeting with drafter yesterday to finalize any tweaks to our plan. One of my main concerns was the front elevation and roof line. Originally it was a 10:12 pitch and I thought everything looked too big and tall, and wanted more horizontal emphasis since it is already a large house. So, I asked him to mockup a couple of options for us. Disregard the colors and couple other items.

Single Gable all 8:12 pitch.
1776801701848.png


Three Gable 8:12 on tallest and 6:12 on the sides, front and back (this one actually has the columns and brick correct with how I'd like them).
1776801812574.png


Single Gable with 8:12 main and 6:12 sides
1776801910388.png
 
Lanx

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Intrinsic said:
Had a long meeting with drafter yesterday to finalize any tweaks to our plan. One of my main concerns was the front elevation and roof line. Originally it was a 10:12 pitch and I thought everything looked too big and tall, and wanted more horizontal emphasis since it is already a large house. So, I asked him to mockup a couple of options for us. Disregard the colors and couple other items.

Single Gable all 8:12 pitch.
View attachment 625802

Three Gable 8:12 on tallest and 6:12 on the sides, front and back (this one actually has the columns and brick correct with how I'd like them).
View attachment 625803

Single Gable with 8:12 main and 6:12 sides
View attachment 625804
Click to expand...
 
Intrinsic

Intrinsic

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Lanx said:
Click to expand...


In bed on my phone after waking up I had no freaking idea what that was.

Mother-in-law is in town this week to work on her build. So, I'll be carting her off to window, floor, tile meetings.

We're still waiting for an official close date, should be sometime around May 18th and clearing to start that week. Also, still discussing roof soffits and overhang. We didn't notice until the wall elevation came back from the drafter that he had 2'-6" which seems a little excessive. We may ask to change that to 24" because I don't want the whole house to look like it is wearing a sombrero. Maybe ideally, we'd do varying overhangs depending on the location but sticking with 24" everywhere seems easiest to communicate.

1777296808334.png


It does look pretty large in this ChatGPT rendering based on the plans. Can't really get it to tweak it correctly for different depths.

1777297143191.png
 
Lanx

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this is like all the time ppl peel back linolium floors or shag carpet and find hardwood, except they threw it away

 
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Gravel

Gravel

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My guess is they're at a point where money doesn't matter anymore and this is purely an aesthetic choice.

As far as granite though, while we've had them in the last two houses, I don't really love it. I mean, it looks decent, but it's still kind of a pain in the ass to baby it. I've all but given up on sealing ours because I just don't fucking care anymore.

Butcherblock is absolutely more easy to damage, but it's also dirt cheap in comparison.
 
Cad

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Gravel said:
My guess is they're at a point where money doesn't matter anymore and this is purely an aesthetic choice.

As far as granite though, while we've had them in the last two houses, I don't really love it. I mean, it looks decent, but it's still kind of a pain in the ass to baby it. I've all but given up on sealing ours because I just don't fucking care anymore.

Butcherblock is absolutely more easy to damage, but it's also dirt cheap in comparison.
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Do I just not cook or what are you referring to about babying granite?
 
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Lanx

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Gravel said:
My guess is they're at a point where money doesn't matter anymore and this is purely an aesthetic choice.

As far as granite though, while we've had them in the last two houses, I don't really love it. I mean, it looks decent, but it's still kind of a pain in the ass to baby it. I've all but given up on sealing ours because I just don't fucking care anymore.

Butcherblock is absolutely more easy to damage, but it's also dirt cheap in comparison.
Click to expand...
i haven't sealed any granite, ever

rock is rock
 
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Intrinsic

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Yeah every house I’ve had has been granite and never have we babied it or damaged it, my mom seals hers but we never have.

As I mentioned earlier, butcher block may not be as dirt cheap as you think. At least not nicer quality. You can get an 8’ soft rubber wood counter from Lowe’s for $20 sqft, but it’ll absolutely require way more babying than granite. Any decent white oak, maple, walnut butcher block is going to be like $80 sqft based on what we’ve seen since we were wanting butcher block for our pantry and mudroom. We’re $8,000 below our allowance on counter tops though.
 
Haus

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Cad said:
Do I just not cook or what are you referring to about babying granite?
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IN THEORY you're supposed to clear and re-seal granite once I year I believe. In practice I think I've done this to our granite countertops twice in the dozen years since I had them put in during the kitchen remodel. As Lanx Lanx noted, it's also very possible to just never seal it. Only risk is certain stains can in fact soak into granite.
 
Cad

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Haus said:
IN THEORY you're supposed to clear and re-seal granite once I year I believe. In practice I think I've done this to our granite countertops twice in the dozen years since I had them put in during the kitchen remodel. As Lanx Lanx noted, it's also very possible to just never seal it. Only risk is certain stains can in fact soak into granite.
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Okay, yea, never done anything to my granite and it seems fine. Never even heard about sealing it. Interesting, as always, learn something new every day.
 
Siliconemelons

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My parents have granite and I know they never have done anything to it... Their house is the "family dinner" house for all celebrations and holidays etc. there is not a stain or chip after about 10 or more years - and lots of us kids and over half dz grand kids gone thought there...

My cheap solid ikea (now they dont have solid anymore) butcher block is 10-11 years old, I polyurethane it 1 coat. Only in about the last year have there been some "mold" spots in a little chip by the sink area that's on a seam.

New kitchen we have chevron acacia solid wood butcherblock, we are still pondering what to stain it with and coating... I may do Tung Oil, used it on a recent project it is nice and can be touched up in small places while matching surround w/o a sand and blend... wife also was thinking dark stain but now that we have them, she likes how they look natural... but you cannot keep them untreated even if you just oil it.
 
fris

fris

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I have a small island in my kitchen that's linoleum that I've considered changing to butcherblock. Seems like an easy weekend project. My fear is the current top is glued down, so removing might damage the cabinet base.
 
Intrinsic

Intrinsic

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Closing on construction loan on Friday so should be kicked off here full stream by end of month. Now I get to have real anxiety.
 
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Gravel

Gravel

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fris said:
I have a small island in my kitchen that's linoleum that I've considered changing to butcherblock. Seems like an easy weekend project. My fear is the current top is glued down, so removing might damage the cabinet base.
Click to expand...
Unless it's super old and they did something weird, chances are it's just a piece of crappy plywood that sits on top of the cabinets, which the countertop is then attached to. Not sure what they did 50+ years ago, but hopefully your kitchen isn't that old.
 
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