quote:

I'm not sure what the single stalk plant was but it looked like a weed and I dug it out.

Maybe it was a mullein? We used to get them on our Door County property.



https://www.weedalert.com/weed/common-mullein/

https://identifythatplant.com/...n-verbascum-thapsus/

By the way, Mik. The great room paint is “Agreeable Gray”, selected in part on your recommendation. It doesn’t read gray, really, more of a taupe.

The color changes quite a bit with the lighting as well.

Looks great Steve, y'all work fast!!

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Miller:
We're looking for something to use as nightstands - the box is not permanent.

I recommend upgrading to those sturdy plastic milk crates. We furnished an entire apartment with those when I was in college.

Random house thoughts:

The basement would be a lot more convenient if it wasn’t downstairs.

Hot and cold are reversed at the kitchen faucet. We’re the third owners in four years and no one ever fixed it. Strange.

The shower arrangement was not well considered when the house was built. The faucet handle is on one end and the door is at the other end, meaning you can’t just reach in and let the water warm up before you step in. This will not be cheap to fix but it might be worth doing.

Recent rains have filled up the pond and it looks much better now.

The range that came with the place is a higher end deal with two enormous front burners. I’ve burned a few things but it boils water remarkably quickly.

The water here is very soft and tastes better than any bottled water I’ve tried. Dishes come out nicely without rinse agent - a first for us.

The main rooms are lit with what look like downlights but are actually little LED hockey puck fixtures. I’ll put dimmers on them but I still don’t like them (too harsh) and plan to convert them to adjustable spots to shine on pictures, etc. It won’t be cheap - there are a lot of them.

quote:

The basement would be a lot more convenient if it wasn’t downstairs.

Imagine

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Miller:
By the way, Mik. The great room paint is “Agreeable Gray”, selected in part on your recommendation. It doesn’t read gray, really, more of a taupe.

The color changes quite a bit with the lighting as well.

Glad you like it. I think it's a very warm gray without having any yellow in it. Looks fantastic with white.

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Miller:

The water here is very soft and tastes better than any bottled water I’ve tried. Dishes come out nicely without rinse agent - a first for us.

Welcome to the Great Lakes. Best water anywhere.

quote:

The basement would be a lot more convenient if it wasn’t downstairs.

quote:

Hot and cold are reversed at the kitchen faucet. We’re the third owners in four years and no one ever fixed it. Strange.

That is odd. You have to wonder if people thought it would be too expensive to fix. Or, if it was "on the list" but they adjusted to it quickly and just forgot about it. It's funny how quickly you can adjust to things that you use every day.

quote:

The shower arrangement was not well considered when the house was built. The faucet handle is on one end and the door is at the other end, meaning you can’t just reach in and let the water warm up before you step in. This will not be cheap to fix but it might be worth doing.

Ugh, this would bug me! Can you rig up a tension rod with a shower curtain on the water handle side as an almost-free temporary fix?

By the way, Steve, how long did you live in your last house?

32 years.

We never really planned to stay there that long - it just sort of happened.

Wow! That's quite a change then!

More thoughts:

This hardwood floor is a huge PITA. Sharon sweeps it every day and Swiffers it (yeah, it’s a verb) every time the dog goes out. It’s hard and cold and noisy and I can’t wait until carpet gets popular again. A dirt floor would be less work.

I’ve installed 8 dimmers, two motion sensor switches, one motion sensor light fixture (closet) and two wall switch timers. I had forgotten just how convenient they are. Sweet!

The mailboxes are a “cluster” deal for the whole tract. Half a mile away. Send me a email.

Houses are cheap here, as is gas. Everything else is staggeringly expensive. Oil changes, dump fees, city taxes, yard maintenance, property tax, home repair contractors, liquor, beef. Power is cheap but you use a lot of it.

I’ve just about has enough of nice new things that don’t work. The sweet lady who takes Amazon returns at Kohl’s greets me by name.

The switches in this house are white, the receptacles are almond. I’ve never seen that before.

The pond froze over last night but by noon the ice had melted.

The local grocery store has probably 20 feet of aisle given over to nothing but flat egg noodles. They must be popular. Paprikash? Kugel? Or lots of soup?

quote:

This hardwood floor is a huge PITA. Sharon sweeps it every day and Swiffers it (yeah, it’s a verb) every time the dog goes out. It’s hard and cold and noisy and I can’t wait until carpet gets popular again

What kind of flooring did you have in your old place? All carpeting?

I suppose having a dog is the complicating factor here. I love hardwood floors, and the only place we have carpeting is under the piano, which doesn't count bc we don't walk under there. har.

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Miller:
More thoughts:

This hardwood floor is a huge PITA. Sharon sweeps it every day and Swiffers it (yeah, it’s a verb) every time the dog goes out. It’s hard and cold and noisy and I can’t wait until carpet gets popular again. A dirt floor would be less work.

We wind up with lots of rolling balls of dog hair. German shepherd hair, I am convinced, has barbs on it. Getting the dog groomed periodically dramatically reduces the stray dog hair around the house.