The Dishwasher
We hit the Jackpot on Craigslist again last week. This time in the form of a dishwasher to round out our set of stainless steel kitchen appliances. We picked up a 3 year old top of the line, Bosch 800 series dishwasher for $400.
The Dishwasher, Our Hero.
The woman we purchased it from was remodeling a 3 year old kitchen, and she was getting rid of 2, not one, but 2 identical dishwashers she had installed in her previous kitchen, and we were more than happy to take one of them off her hands.
The installation however, did not go as smoothly as the purchase. I ended up doing just about everything I could possibly do wrong. It took me took me two trips to the local hardware, but I ended up getting it all plumbed up and ready to go one night last week.
However when it came time to wire it all up, I was stumped. It appears as though to save a dime or two the previous owner of this foreclosed hunk of junk decided to wire up my kitchen using an antiquated, out of date, and marginally un-safe electrical wiring method.
Needless to say it confused the crap out of me and my highschool “Residential Wiring 101″ knowledge base. After a good half hour of cussing and swearing off any and all future home improvements, I hopped on google and found my answer. It appears as though this method of wiring a kitchen used to be quite common back in the 50’s and 60’s and goes something like this…
It is called a multiwire branch circuit but for our purposes it would be clearer to call it a two-circuit cable. It involves two hot wires sharing one neutral as their “return” path. The hot wires are 240 volts apart from each other and each is 120 volts from the neutral. This sort of arrangement saves a little wire at installation time by using a cable containing black, red, and white wires between the panel and (usually just) the first outlet or switch box it is run to.
The purpose, other than saving a few bucks is this…
The kitchen/dining area of U.S. homes wired in the 1960s often had two distinct 20-amp “appliance” circuits reaching each normal (duplex) receptacle by way of two-circuit cable. The idea was to distribute heavy loads more easily between the two required circuits.
So after reading about this, and making a series of desperate phone calls, to my trusted advisors, I decided I couldn’t possibly stand to wash one more dish by hand, and that I had to get this dishwasher working at all costs. So I hooked it up, crossed my fingers and Viola! It worked without a hitch, and Thank God, I was just about to throw my Mother Earth Loving priorities out the window and stock pile paper products, just to save me from the 2 hour dishwashing marathons every Sunday morning.
The dishwasher all cozied up to the stove.
Dishes being cleaned without physical labor.
My Life as Real Estate Investor
The following photos perfectly describe my life over the past month as I have been rehabbing my condo.
As you can see it isn’t as glorious as they make it out to be in shows like, Flipping Out, Property Ladder, Flip This House, and Flip That House. There is a whole lot of dirty dishes, dinners on top of the un-installed dishwasher, caulk next to your toothpaste, and crap in your office. But they say the day is darkest before dawn, and we are almost through the worst of the mess.
Kitchen Counter
Complete Guide to Home Maintenance, Pasta.
Sanding Block, Razor, ToothBrush Caulking Gun.
Storage - Extra Bedroom
zzzz…
I’m still here… just been a bit busy, and haven’t had very much time, motivation, energy to post…
In the meantime Grassroots Modern is sponsoring an Affordable Modern Kitchen Design Contenst Go check it out… lots of inspiration… Here are a few gems from my favorite.
Modern Kitchen
Love the wood.
Home Depot Energy Conservation Giveaway
SAVE MONEY! SAVE ENERGY! WIN BIG! Home Depot is sponsoring a video contest via Youtube, asking users to create a short video about how they are saving money by making energy efficient improvements to their house.
The grand prize is a $5000 Home Depot gift certificate, which we could certainly put to good use around here. Lauren and I are working on a brilliant plan for our video, and hope to use our combined 8 years of schooling in video production to work! By the look of it so far this year we don’t have a whole lot of competition, but check out a few videos from the previous contest, it looks like if we want to win we need to learn how to RAP!
Wish us luck!
Rotten Neighbor
I am generally a pretty easy going guy. On the scale of laid back to anal annie, I would rate myself surfer dude. But the last few weeks have turned me into a teeth gritting, knuckle clenching, eye bulging lunatic.
I found this website, Rotten Neighbor the other day and although I don’t think I am passive agressive enough to take it to this extent… I have just about had enough of my neighbors, and may have to add them to the list.
Rotten Neighbor
The first week or two of living camping here we couldn’t get over how amazingly quite this old building was. “The rehab must have been extremely thorough”, we thought out loud. But then it hit us, BAM! like a ton of bricks on a creaking 100 year old floor, literally, every morning at 5am and every night at midnight. We soon came to the realization that the first few weeks so were quite because there was no one around to make any noise.
The people above us must have been out of town, or had not yet moved in, the unit below us was empty, and to this day we have still not heard anything from the unit we share a wall with (I think it is a masonry wall, as it is technically a different building.) But all that has now changed.
Those Who Are Above
The people above us, the early risers have the absolutely most hideously loud creaky floor… and a dog… and an overpowering urge to play with said dog at 5am EVERY MORNING. So every single day for the past 4 weeks or so, I too have been up at 5am, listening to them play with their dog.
- BAM CRREAKAAKA BAM CREAAK BAM…
- RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE….
- SCRA-SCRA-SCRATCH CREEAK SCRA CREEEAK SCRATCH CRE-CREEAAAK
- BOOOOOM POUND CREAK POUND CREAK POUND CREEEAAAAKAKAAK.
That is the dog frantically jumping around waiting for the ball to be thrown across the apartment upstairs then it rolls across the floor, the dog excitedly chasing after it and then slaming into some piece of furniture and the guy then going running across the floor after the dog to pick up the mess.
I am not sure if they really know that they are being loud, maybe noone has told them, but you have to know that when you are living so closely with so many other people, that you need to be at least concious of your own noise AT 5AM. You can’t go stomping around with high heels on a wood floor, or re-arranging furniture, or playing fetch with your dog AT 5AM.
Those Who Are Below
Then there are those who are below, the party animals. These guys are forever having a giant party with smokers congregating out the back door, yelling and screaming over the blaring music, blowing smoke just below our bedroom window. There are 2-3 roommates, and one of them is the most horrible guitar/singer wanna be’s ever heard, no joke, I heard a cat srcreetching right along with their singing one night at 2 am.
So the moral of the story is that we are caught right smack in the middle of these two noise machines providing the perfect buffer for the night owl’s noisy get togethers and the earlier risers morning romp with the dog. Hooray, glad I could be of assistance… Maybe I will collect payment in the form of internet humiliation and revenge… Thanks to Rotten Neighbor.
Louvered Doors
I picked up some pretty nice looking louvered doors for the laundry/furnace room a few weekends ago on craigslist. They were a steal at $50 considering my home away from home, Home Depot sells much lower quality doors for around $100, and with this god-for-saken Illinois taxing scheme, it means I saved well over half the price. I actually went back and bought two more sets of doors from this guy for the bedroom closets, more on that later.
Washer Dryer and Louvered Doors
Louvered Doors
I decided I wanted to get them up there right away because they are the first thing you see when you walk into our place, and I have been wanting to cover the gaping hole in our wall that screams “I AM A WORK IN PROGRESS.” for the past few weeks because I knew it would have a dramatic effect on the feel of our little work and progress and would make me feel like I am getting somewhere. Most of the projects I have been working on recently like caulking the shower and plumbing the sink are necessary but they don’t really do a whole lot for you visually so I was excited to get these up.
For right now we left them au natural if you will. If you look closely enough you can even find the pencil marks from the factory. Eventually we will probably stain them, we are just not sure what color we are going to do the on the floors; light or dark. And if worst comes to worst we paint them white to match the trim. But I hate to cover up such beautiful wood! So for now they get to bask in all their glory as the center piece of our home.
Installation didn’t go off with out a hitch. My biggest concern was that the doors were not going to open wide enough to allow room for our fancy new washer/dryer doors to swing open. Of course my fears were not unfounded; BAM the washer door swings open right into the backside of the louvered door. No biggie after some cursing and a half an hour later I made a few modification to the louvered door’s track, and voila, it makes it through; just barely, this ain’t government work.
Next up: covering up the gaping hole in the ceiling and wiring up the interior light fixture, so I can stuff all those wires back into the electrical box. For now we keep our modern art masterpiece electrical, fire hazard, and switch the pantry light on and off very carefully.
New Appliances
It was a few weeks ago now, but we ended up spending a good 6 hours one Saturday at ABT a local appliance warehouse and picked up an very efficient refrigerator, front loading washer and dryer, as well as a convection gas range/oven.
We spent the first month here with an old refrigerator that was constantly running, had very limited storage space, and was just plain ugly. Not to mention we didn’t even have gas to turn the stoveon, so getting new appliances really started to make this place feel like home, finally we can actually make some food sans George Forman.
I spent a good month and a half scouring craigslist looking for a suitable set of appliances, because recycling is extremely environmentally responsible, but unfortunately couldn’t find anything that fit the bill. I spent the next two weeks researching the most energy efficient appliances on the Energy Star website before finally settling on our new appliances
The Energy Efficient Refrigerator
New Efficient Refrigerator
We had some very strict requirements for our refrigerator. Our first priority was efficiency. However because our building is a 1920’s rehab, we have a pretty tight kitchen and therefore strict dimensional requirements within, meaning we decided to look for a counter depth refrigerator with french doors to conserve space. We also decided we wanted a bottom freezer model as they are the most efficient style. Cold air is more dense then warmer air and therefore wants to sink. So when you put the coldest part of the refrigerator on the floor and open the door the cold doesn’t really have anywhere to go. It also just makes sense; you are going to open the freezer door much less than the refrigerator, so why not put the part you access the most at eye level?
I started by reviewing information about Energy Efficient Refrigerators and then using the Energy Star Refrigerator Comparison Chart I made a list of the most efficient refrigerators I could actually afford and hit the store.
We just happened to stumble across an LG LFC21770SS on clearance. Miraculously it was an incredible deal and fit the budget while meeting every single one of our needs right down to the last detail; counter depth, french door, bottom freezer, stainless steel sans door mounted ice dispenser, and most importantly it was in the upper 25% of the energy star rated refrigerators. SCORE!
Front Loading Washer
Washer and Dryer
Next up was the washer & dryer combo, of which we knew needed to be front loading because once again being in a condo space was an issue and going vertical is where its at. Again I started researching material on the Energy Star website. Using the Washer Comparison Chart reviewed the specs for all the front loading models and ultimately we decided upon a Frigidaire Affinity Series ATF8000FS.
We decided to skip energy hogging features such as the steam cleaning feature and went with a no frills washer we thought would do on job well, and do it efficiently. So far we are very pleased with the new front loaders. They are so incredibly quiet!
Lauren and I sat on the floor in front of the washer in awe as the first load moved through its cycles in absolute silence. And for anyone who has never owned a front loading washer, you will be astonished how little water is used. I thought something was wrong when the water turned off the first time… the clothes were barely wet! But low and behold the clothes came out smelling and looking like new.
Overall I am extremely pumped about the new appliances. I have been researching the real estate market in and around Chicago for the last 15 months. The biggest thing I’ve taken away is that the majority of available real estate in Chicago is provided by developers and developers by nature are cheap. As long as its maple, granite and stainless it doesn’t matter to them. I have seen the same cheapy appliance packaged used in 90k condos, up through million dollar town houses, and I am confident I will have nicer appliances then a vast majority of available real estate in chicago.
The Hero
Installing our front loading Washer/Dryer
Old Appliances Move OUT
The little old fridge, and tiny white stove, are finally out of here! I am so glad that I didn’t pay to have our old appliances taken away when we got the new ones delivered. I knew we would be able to get rid of them somehow.
Old Stove
Old Fridge
Kitchen Stage 1
These are a bit old at this point. These photos are from the week before our second closing, when Lauren and I came up to Lunt to install the “Kitchen”. We don’t have as many good photos of this place before we started working on it, these may be our best shot. Big thanks goes out to my lovely Lauren for the APE ( Awesome Photo Editing ) - onblueundercanvas.com.
-
- Kitchen Plumbing
-
- Bring in the sink!
-
- Measure twice cut once.
-
- And then there was a kitchen.
-
- This is the important part.
-
- The first cabinet goes in.
-
- Maybe it will fit???
-
- High There
-
- How does this work?
Green House Effect Round-up 10-15-2008
Straw bale Construction via www.celebratebig.com
For this week’s, Green House Effect Round-up, I am focusing on Straw Bale construction. I have been infatuated with this alternative constructiion technique after coming across The Staw House Blog a few weeks ago. Below are a few other resources I found interesting and/or helpful.
The Straw Bale House Plans Blog
Straw Bale Construction on Wikipedia
Straw Bale Sourcebook on Greenbuilder.com
Sustainable, local building materials that can be recycled back into the earth, in conjunction with an incredibly efficient building envelope, with the ability to build a variety of naturally appealing visual styles makes for an extremely attractive construction material. What more could you ask for?