We were so, so, so, so lucky with all this. Our broker was a friend who has a day job and moonlights as a broker just because she doesn't have enough to do. She didn't do quite as much as a regular realtor would have (she didn't really focus on trying to find places for us to look at, for instance), but the things that she did were vastly improved by her not being part of the sinkhole of collusion that is the world of regular brokers. So, for instance, she was genuinely interested in getting us the lowest price possible, to the point of deploying every trick she could think of (expiring offers, massaging of contingencies, prebooking an inspector, writing a letter about how we were a young family who would really love to live in whatever place and then signing it from us) to accomplish that. And then, she felt bad about taking the whole fee, since she's a friend doing this on the side, so she bought us a sweet grill with some of it.
I feel like we dodged a bullet and ran smack into a pillow full of roses and candy.
Now, the contractors we've dealt with, on the other hand...
Had your new downstairs neighbor not actually visited the place prior to buying it? Had she not looked out of her "top floor" window and noticed another floor above her?
To be fair to her, though, from your description it sounds as if the architect of your building was M.C. Escher.
Had she not looked out of her "top floor" window and noticed another floor above her?
Also, does she have eyestalks?
She's really quite elderly. Do the elderly have eyestalks?
but had forged our signatures on the standard contract and given that one to the counterparty.
In that case I don't see how her husband being a lawyer helps her at all. On the simple facts she should go to jail for fraud, even if she's screwing all nine justices. How would she fight the case?
We spent a while working (including making our first offer) with a real estate agent who was known to us socially but found them fairly useless - ignoring our expressed preferences, mostly. We found we could do a better job ourselves of the finding and filtering places on the market, and really only needed help with the mechanics of making the offer, etc.
We ended up using Redfin, which was a very good fit for that - you do the research, they have cheap non-agent flunkies to show you into locations you want to see, and an actual agent only gets invoked when things get serious. In return, they kick back to you about half of the agent fee, so a bit over 1% of the purchase price.
Wow, (1) is very bad. I have not had good experiences with realtors. Our most recent very actively worked against us in our attempted price negotiation, which really pissed me off.
Our realtor was fine, except that she directed us to a scummy subprime mortgage broker who ripped us off. This was 10 years ago, and our credit was quite good - there was no reason we should have been dealing with a shady dude who appeared on local daytime TV hawking his book, entitled "Yes, you can get a mortgage."
Also, autocorrect says I need to capitalize the word "realtor", but I refuse.
6 is correct. The real key is that the only other person who'd seen the contracts was the other realtor, who worked in the same office with her, and he would have lied too.
Holy hell, the creatures you are describing are not reptiles. They're slime molds.
When we bought our first house, we weren't under any time pressure - we were moving within the same metro area, and spent close to a year looking. We didn't use a realtor; my wife was skeptical about our ability to do it without professional assistance. My brother, who is a very do-it-yourself kind of guy, was appalled and issued grave warnings.
We were shopping in the very tight DC metro market of 2000. We walked into an open house, realized we wanted to buy it, told the seller's realtor we would offer asking price and no more, and he immediately shut down the open house. (He essentially doubled his commission by doing business with us.)
Last year, we moved from one metro area to another, and so had more time pressure and used a realtor. I unwisely used a home inspector recommended by him, whose report on the quality of the house was somewhat rosy (but not terribly so) but overall we're very happy with the result. But having done it without a realtor the first time, we had made ourselves knowledgeable about the process. And we did get some good advice from our realtor about using an escalator clause to make sure we absolutely froze out competition for our house - but I have to admit that doing so probably unnecessarily cost us a few thousand dollars.
Our building is a little unusual in that all the entrances are on the top (third) floor, but in some units you enter and take stairs down, and in some you enter and take stairs up
This is making my head hurt. How can you enter an entrance on the top floor and then take stairs up?
We had the good luck that one of Eve's best friends is a realtor, who gave us a lot of good advice, got us into a good place, and then alerted us to the fact that it was a really really good time to refinance. (Despite the refi organization being named the equivalent of "flybynight scummy lenders 'r us dot com", that's also gone really well.)
13: each floor (in terms of structure and access) will be double-height and the flats are scissor-stacked. Like so: http://singleaspect.org.uk/?p=14818
My wife suspects that the message we got from our realtor when we were dawdling over this house that we needed to get a good offer in right away because there were two others coming was fabrication by one or the other agent, or maybe collusion. We'll never know.
Buying and selling in DC we chose realtors based on frequent flyer miles. Which worked out fine.
I like and am still pretty good friends with my realtor -- he wasn't particularly useful as a price bargainer (I did most of that) but he was and is generally a super-useful home finder and is an incredible neighborhood resource. That's because he's an enthusiast who focuses pretty exclusively on old homes in bad neighborhoods and finding vintage things; house hunting with him involved things like barging through a literal crack house so that he could point out some amazing wainscoting hidden behind mattresses propped up against a wall, etc.
15: I'm looking at that, and I don't understand at all where the entrances are. Also, do you end up walking through the bathroom to get from the bedroom to the living room? Because that seems less than ideal.
15: makes sense. So it's the top floor in the sense that there's no floor directly on top of it, though there are still floors higher than it.
CA's parents had a whole insane Sue Their Realtor thing happen when they sold their big house in ogged town and bought a newly remodeled (newly remodeled by the realtor and her husband!) condo in Wildkit Town. Basically there were multiple instances of forgery and theft. (They tried to forge documents that made out common elements or things that had been specifically sold as attached to CA's parents' unit to be private things they owned -- namely small apartment on the first floor, a parking space out back, and a roof deck.)
My wife suspects that the message we got from our realtor when we were dawdling over this house that we needed to get a good offer in right away because there were two others coming was fabrication by one or the other agent, or maybe collusion. We'll never know.
I'm pretty sure this happened to me.
15 is about right, although our place technically has four levels: enter and there's the entryway/laundry and one bathroom. Go forward, take stairs up, there's the main living area and kitchen. Turn back, take stairs up, and there are the bedrooms and another bathroom. Turn around (going "forward" again), take stairs up, and there's a terrace. So the terrace is above the main living area, and the bedrooms are above the entryway.
God, in just the last 24 hours, our realtor has twice contacted our mortgage officer to request an change to our loan terms. Without telling us first. The second time, this was after we emailed explicitly to tell him that do not want him to contact them without our approval.
Also general problems with him pushing us to overpay, and telling a law firm that we wanted them to represent us before mentioning anything to us about it. As my husband said last night, "But at closing, we get to kill our realtor, to sign the final contract in his blood, right? That's the only thing keeping me going through this."
These all "half-levels" up and down?
I like the ogged just went and counted how many steps it was. That's service!
Do you have a railing in any room instead of a wall, so that you can look out over another room? I love those.
Which is to say, I loved them as a kid, but in the fullness of adulthood I have realized that they inevitably make the room without a real wall nigh-useless, as it has no soundproofing from the main living area.
I knew how many steps, because I'm OCD that way.
Last year at this conference my whole lab goes to we stayed in a rental house where one of the bedrooms had a half wall and was open to the living room. It was definitely a bedroom (had its own bath and everything). Stupidest fucking idea.
31: okay, that was the other option. We have sixteen from 1st to 2nd floor but I dunno about the others.
Boy, am I feeling cheerful about not having used a realtor. We already lived in the same neighborhood, and saw a flyer stuck to a lamppost. I went and looked at the place, called Buck to get him over, and we made an offer probably within an hour. At the time we thought we'd overpaid, but we really liked it, and in retrospect it turned out to have been a good deal. (The firm I worked for at the time, Schmebevoise, had junior real estate associates handle closings for lawyers in the firm. I think it was a combination of a perk and a training opportunity, but either way it was great.)
I still think catwalks are rad, I should make clear.
34 is us, we were walking the dog at the big park near where we live now, saw a FSBO, bought without any realtor on either side, just a lawyer for the closing. The thing where one realtor grabs all 6% because the other side doesn't want a broker is bullshit.
Residential realotrs are the worst. The entire point of being licensed is to weed out the malefactors, but in reality they are empowered. Law of unintended consequences.
Technology is helping, i.e. Redfin etc and will continue to do so, but the experience gap can't be fixed by a program.
I don't know about Oggedtown; I live very close to Wildkit Town in the big bad city itself. I'm sure things have gotten desperate in the years since, but when we bought 24 years ago everyone involved was mammalian, in fact Menschen.
Now I had done dozens of closings, as we call settlements here, in the same neighborhood, but would never consider myself an insider.
Realtor stories; we all have them.
Your homeowner privilege is showing.
CA's parents had a whole insane Sue Their Realtor thing happen when they sold their big house in ogged town and bought a newly remodeled (newly remodeled by the realtor and her husband!) condo in Wildkit Town. Basically there were multiple instances of forgery and theft. (They tried to forge documents that made out common elements or things that had been specifically sold as attached to CA's parents' unit to be private things they owned -- namely small apartment on the first floor, a parking space out back, and a roof deck.
And you people were surprised that UK real estate transactions always involve lawyers last time we had an estate agent conversation. I can't envisage this happening in a solicitor-conveyanced system unless the solicitor were in on the fraud too. Which does happen, though it's usually at the expense of lenders rather than property owners.
I haven't read the whole thread, but I just wanted to say that anyone looking to buy or sell in Upper or Midtown Manhattan who might be reading this should absolutely use my broker, whose name I will happily give you. Even before I met him, I could tell by how he communicated to me in email that he was honest and straightforward, so when I did meet him I asked him to represent me. He did some looking for places in the beginning, but unless there's a secret market that I never learned about, basically everything in Manhattan is on StreetEasy, and it was simplest, most efficient, and quickest (and you have to really be early for the good stuff; I was the first one to see the apartment I'm buying) for me to subscribe to alerts and tell him what I wanted to see. But he came with me to apartments whenever he was free and he explained to me the entire apartment-buying process, which I was totally ignorant about. When he advised me he always focused on my long-term interests, including talking me out of apartments he thought I was irrationally attracted to, but that weren't good decisions. He took what I said about what I wanted seriously, even when it changed. He knew all the emotions and the developmental process that buyers and sellers go through and he was patient about that. He kicked me in the pants when he thought I was being slow with paperwork I needed to do, but not in an offensive way. He replies to all communication via phone or email very promptly, and consistently thanks everyone in the process for their work. He likes and cares about me. I once saw on a forwarded email chain about a previous apartment I bid on that he had written "Tia is a good person and she deserves this apartment." I laughed at that and thought, R., I don't know that that's going to sway anyone but it was sweet of you to make that case for me. Overall, he is not just a great broker -- he's an inspiration to me in how doing a job, no matter how unromantic a job, with professionalism and care for people can have a real positive impact. (In fact, I feel like a hypocrite for writing this damn blog comment right now.) When you see someone do the work the way he does, you realize brokers have a very important job: they put people in homes! My broker knows that and treats it like it's meaningful work.
When I close I want to get him a nice gift to thank him. I guess I should contact a colleague of his and ask them whether he drinks and what kind of alcohol he likes if so. Someone else also suggested writing a letter to his boss as another nice thing I could do for him.
39: I actually have some really egregious rental agent stories, at that.
I'm friends with the guy we bought our house from. At one point he applied for a job at Heebie U but did not get it, unfortunately. Gay Jews in smalltown Texas gotta stick together is what I'd say if I were gay and more Jewish.
He took his mezuzah, and there's a revealed unpainted mezuzah-shaped patch of bare wood on the doorframe, which I choose to believe represents something very fundamental about me.
We're probably going to be buying a house in the next year or so. I'm not looking forward to it.
19: no, the bathroom is on the opposite side of the building from the internal staircase. I used to live in something similar in Vienna, which was quite cool.
Living under two toddlers is seriously un-fun. Do not miss. I would try to guess what the fuck they were doing up there.
Redfin is good; use it if they cover your area. We weren't even looking to buy. It was more passing the time on a visit to my mom--hey, I lived here and remember these condos going up, let's check them out. This is nice, nevermind moving to Colorado (where we'd done our real house-hunting), maybe we should just buy this and live near your (ogged's) mom. This is how my wife makes decisions. And here we are!
Anything with "agent" in it is dodgy. Estate agent: smiler with knife beneath the cloak. Letting agent: signal-faking komodo dragon. Travel agent: someone charging you money to sit between you and a computer. Literary (or whatever) agent: namedropping prat. Footballer's agent: six different kinds of fraud dipped in cocaine. Intelligence agent....
I can't envisage this happening in a solicitor-conveyanced system unless the solicitor were in on the fraud too
I think that's part of the OP. How does this differ from what most US jurisdictions do?
Our realtor lives a block away from us. I know I've mentioned this before, but it turns out she has a racist lawn jockey statue in her back yard (and a biracial grandchild!) and when she was on the garden tour a few years back, the volunteer in her yard tried to stand in front of the statue so people wouldn't see it, which was sort of awesome.
Ogged, your mother got incredibly lucky.
Ogged, your mother got incredibly lucky.
Our house is kinda shitty and squat-like, but the realtor (a term invented here in MPLS, specifically to get away from the negative associations of "agent") was super nice. I'm still not sure about how we wound up getting offered money off our closing costs without asking -- I think the seller's agent was somewhat less ethical, and was essentially working for the bank, as it was a short sale. But overall, a pretty painless experience. Good idea to take a first-time home-buyers' course beforehand though.
48: agent-based dynamical systems model: highly obfuscated simple model that somehow gets into Nature.
A good friend of mine in DC is a realtor and by all accounts is a really good one -- super honest, helps her clients figure out their long-term needs and real goals, talks people out of making mistaken purchases. She's always been a bit embarrassed when people introduce her as a realtor, I guess because the general view is that realtors are reptiles. I was not aware this was such a thing -- I thought realtors were more viewed just as mildly sleazy like any other salesperson.
Did Megan sleep with Ogged's mom? Twice?
56: she should be so lucky, according to 51-52
I think that's part of the OP. How does this differ from what most US jurisdictions do?
Don't ask me, it's just that last time this came up, numerous posters said that (in their states, I guess) it was unusual to hire a lawyer for a straightforward property purchase. Also, although I was thinking of the situation in 21 rather than OP, neither seem to mention lawyer fraud as opposed to realtor fraud.
in the fullness of adulthood I have realized that they inevitably make the room without a real wall nigh-useless, as it has no soundproofing from the main living area.
QFT. Unfortunately basically all new construction in this area is built this way. Fuck that! If I'm living in a space with another person I want walls and doors that close.
How are you guys living in such noisy circumstances? Can't you go read in your bedroom or something? Half walls make great-looking areas. Everyone asks when we're going to make our kitchen counter into an island instead of having a half-wall galley ktichen. Never!
Varies state by state. California=no lawyers for residential RE transactions, New York=lawyers. I'm not sure it makes much of a practical difference, it has a lot to do with differences in how title is recorded in different states (the main thing you need a lawyer for is to make sure you really do have title to the property). This is all half-remembered from the bar, not something I really know about.
Weirdly, my sister is also still good friends with her realtor -- he kind of became her best friend. Maybe we just like reptiles.
the main thing you need a lawyer for is to make sure you really do have title to the property
Indeed, which was precisely the situation in 21, no?
There's a discussion, more in the nature of an interior monologue, of the transition to "Realtor" in one of the early chapters of Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt
Can't you go read in your bedroom or something?
Most bedrooms in new construction here don't have doors. The worst example was one three-story live/"work" loft that had no noise isolation at all throughout the entire unit. Any noise you made anywhere could be heard everywhere else. (As it turns out, it's literally around the corner from my apartment, and while I love our neighborhood and would theoretically be interested in buying it, living there would drive me insane.
the main thing you need a lawyer for is to make sure you really do have title to the property
And has it not occurred to anyone that the vast bulk of properties aren't ancient mansions with strange recording histories? If the process is so goddamn tenuous that you need lawyers to check if the title is clear and valid on properties that have changed hands 3 times in 35 years--each of those times requiring other lawyers or title companies (another ripoff)--then your process is broken.
In all likelihood, that's because those freaking parasites are all up in there feasting on the blood and livelihood of want-to-be homeowners.
61: I want to ATM about kitchen islands someday because I am skeptical, but they're clearly what everyone assumes you'll have.
Lee wanted to know if we should knock out a wall between the kitchen and dining room, but I'd really rather have a door to the kitchen that I can shut if we're going to be making changes!
67: Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him
68: We've decided that we're not doing a kitchen island/knocking out a wall. I like having the kitchen separate (cleanliness, safety.) I also think the island is going to look extremely dated in the near future.
the island is going to look extremely dated in the near future.
yes.
Also why I am saying no granite/faux granite countertops.
What about a kitchen island on a kitchen lake?
Granite countertops are going to look dated in negative ten years.
Not when paired with twelve shades of beige. That will always be fresh.
A well designed kitchen island is extremely useful. It increases the usable cooking surface within easy reach.
I've always kind of wanted I think soapstone? Whatever the dark stone is they use in chem labs.
We're thinking about doing renovations to give the kids separate bedrooms, splitting the relatively small two bedrooms they now share into four really tiny bedrooms- like so tiny they're just barely legal rooms (feel free to pick this fruit)- but where they'll have their own space, except in one case it looks like you'll have to walk through one to get to the other. Where's our resident architect, maybe I can show him what our friend/architect came up with.
"Travel agent: someone charging you money to sit between you and a computer."
I hate this at work, you have to use a travel agent to book anything even though I could easily do it myself and get more miles and credit card rebates. Usually what I do is look up what I want online, call them, say book me on flight ### this day and flight ### this day and they say ok and charge my company $25 on top of the same ticket price I found on the website. The only time it was useful was when my grandfather died and I had to change a simple round trip into a three leg flight via a minor city and they took care of it all for me.
I'd like a kitchen island on a lake on an island on a lake on an island. I think it involves a large sink and a lot of dolls.
And has it not occurred to anyone that the vast bulk of properties aren't ancient mansions with strange recording histories? If the process is so goddamn tenuous that you need lawyers to check if the title is clear and valid on properties that have changed hands 3 times in 35 years--each of those times requiring other lawyers or title companies (another ripoff)--then your process is broken.
Or you have really arcane shit going on like chancel repair liability.
I'm not exactly against the kitchen island concept - I generally like open floor plans that you misanthropes seem to find so unpleasantly human. I just think they will be emblematic of this era of house decor.
Anyway, half wall is where it's at. So dated it's new again.
80: like I said--the process is broken.
We are redo-ing our kitchen right now. Maybe that deserves its own post, because the kitchen of the future will be so very awesome.
I generally like open floor plans that you misanthropes seem to find so unpleasantly human.
Get back to us once the kids hit puberty.
You mean once these soothing quiet years are over?
If you have enough teenagers masturbating at once their grunting and fapping sounds just like a river running over rocks.
Closed kitchens should really have gone the way of servants quarters.
87: That was Frank Lloyd Wright's back-up plan in case the site of Fallingwater was not available.
I'm not arguing for one of your whack-a-doodle San Franciscan open bedrooms. They can spank in privacy there or in the bathroom. (Just kidding, youngest two Geebies. You'll be sharing a room until Hawaii goes to college. Sorry about that, but here's JRoth's email if you want to complain.)
those freaking parasites are all up in there feasting on the blood and livelihood of want-to-be homeowners
You say that like it's a bad thing.
IME the extremely rare deals with fucked up titles more than make up for the vast majority of easy transfers.
Title insurance and easy credit make the world go 'round
There's already been an honest-to-goodness #slatepitch story on the superiority of the closed kitchen.
Well, I actually used title insurance because title was messed up, and not because my house is 100 years old, but because of the typical robosigning/let's reassign a mortgage 50 times because we'll be able to skim each transfer/oops forgot to sign transfer number 36.3.b.
Nice way for an industry to make business for itself, generate a needlessly complex system to enable skimming then offer insurance to protect the average Joe when someone fucks up because the system is needlessly complex.
What is with the subway tile? White, horizontal? It seems to be in every Apartment Therapy remodel, but it holds no appeal for me. Use the time you have leftover after rejecting granite countertops to reject subway tile.
94 meet 97 Nice way for an industry to make business for itself, generate a needlessly complex system to enable skimming then offer insurance to protect the average Joe when someone fucks up because the system is needlessly complex.
91: Oh, right, I also want to reopen the back stairs when we finally do redo the kitchen. Thanks for the reminder!
cont'd: if you berks can't be bothered to do the job well, that should redound to your ENORMOUS DISCREDIT. Sick of it.
And our process was smooth. Just how pissed I'd be if there had been a hiccup.
I predict that those who favor closed kitchens don't cook very often. Certainly not close to daily.
The system is not "needlessly" complex. It is fairly straightforward, but time consuming. Technology is helping here, too.
102 is a dumb but laudably falsifiable prediction.
My kitchen is ridiculously large, though. Like maybe 15 by 15 feet or maybe more, with 8 or 10-foot ceilings. But there are five doorways, two giant windows with radiators beneath them, and another window that will make designing something that works better difficult. It's big enough that we have a table that can seat the whole family there already, but we finally started using the dining room because Lee bought the kind of fancy reclaimed-farm-wood table she's long wanted.
I'M FROM THE PRIVATE SECTOR AND I'M HERE TO HELP.
I cook all the time, and I would like at least a closeable kitchen to keep people from getting all up in my grill, so to speak, while I'm doing it. There's a doorway where a swinging door used to hang, and another with a function door that never gets used because there's a big trunk in front of it. Bedrooms should be fully private, because they're only for two things, both of which are best without people milling about or listening in.
I've had a case over an honest to God forged deed in the title chain.
And other where the bank loaned money to the remainderman from a life estate, apparently not understanding the concept. Remainderman went bankrupt. Life tenant stopped paying taxes, and someone unrelated bought the tax lien.
Had another, I may have mentioned before, where a guy bought land based on a Spanish land grant that the seller's seller had supposedly inherited.
Stranger than fiction.
I don't cook as often as I used to, but still reasonably often, and I can't stand open kitchens. Galley kitchen is my ideal: counters front and back, plenty of cabinet/pantry space, everything within easy reach, noise and mess isolatable, relatively small footprint.
Doesn't title insurance as a norm significantly predate robosigning and all that 2000's stuff? Or is it a result of earlier generations' comparable shenanigans?
...or are misanthropes. Hit the post button too early.
You want to be able to close the kitchen because it's not fit to be on display immediately after you've been cooking dinner. Ours is a galley kitchen with no door, and I miss the door. (I am generally all about small kitchens, but ours is too small -- if the refrigerator door is open, it blocks entry and egress, and generally there's not room to have two adults in the kitchen unless they're actually making out.)
107. The small counties and parishes that have filed lawsuits against MERS may be the only justice we see from the late unpleasantness.
Oh, a real estate thread, chiefly about buying rather than selling, I gather. But:
At what point in the seeming rebounding of the real estate market should I decide to sell my mom's house up in NH? How do I decide this? I'm bombarded weekly by glossy mailers from real estate agencies in that area who want to convince me that now, now is the time to consider selling, because prices are up from, say, 2009. And yet they're only up by ... well, I can't find the particular mailer that mapped the changes, but it's not a hell of a lot. And it's not a fancy house.
Anyway, what sort of person or agency gives actually sound advice on this sort of thing? Who would I engage for advice on whether to wait another couple of years, whether to take out a loan to upgrade the property before attempting to sell, and so on? I am truly ignorant on this topic.
dated .... era of home decor
I hate this idea of house-as-clothing with a passion. Bad enough to throw away garments before they're worn, now it's "normal" to fill a dumpster with hundreds of pounds of installed furnishing because somebody is bored with it. Also, paying attention to the surfaces means more buyers of shitty cabinetry, because it's all just temporary, right?
Also, granite is fabulous-- heat absorbing, stainproof, with a nice natural pattern that reminds the cheerful cook of fractional crystallization and shear in the earth's mantle.
Oh man, title. Our deal was chugging along when I decided to go online and check all the public docs on the property. Hey, isn't it odd that the name of the person who lives there and is signing all the documents doesn't appear anywhere in relation to this property? Let's ask them about that. Oh, she's not the owner? Who is? Oh, you can't tell us? (I swear I'm not making this up.) She'll provide appropriate documentation at closing? You canNOT be serious. The seller's attorney tried to play hardball with our attorney, but even the title company said, no, sister, this deal doesn't happen unless everything gets re-signed by the person who FUCKING OWNS THE PROPERTY. That person turned out to be the resident's sister, who had changed her name (like, completely) since the time of the previous sale, and lived in Switzerland. It was bizarre how insistent they were that they couldn't, for reasons of "confidentiality" reveal the actual owner's identity. And then they did. I should call my local mob boss and ask if he's looking for anyone.
Who would I engage for advice on whether to wait another couple of years, whether to take out a loan to upgrade the property before attempting to sell, and so on?
What are your carrying costs.i.e. how much for taxes, maintenance etc. Is it leased out to someone who pays rent on time, does the minor repairs, etc?
Don't try to time the market, it's a mug's game.
You want to be able to close the kitchen because it's not fit to be on display immediately after you've been cooking dinner.
A raised bar behind the counter on the open side is enough to block the view of messy counters when you're sitting at the table and provides a nice place to lean on and talk to the cook(s) without being underfoot. Ours is a galley with that setup and I love it. Also, cleaning as you go turns out to be a surprisingly good and easy thing to do.
At least we can all agree that closed kitchens turn cooking into an antisocial activity.
102: Funny, I would have said the opposite. Open kitchens are for people who like to eat takeout at the counter on the island because if they were doing any serious cooking they'd want to keep people from being underfoot.
Our kitchen is a large square, with a pass-through to the dining room, and no door (just a baby gate.)
121.1 is certainly the impression I have: that open kitchens are storage for snacks rather than a place people cook much.
118. Not yet overvalued. Wait a year or two if it will be primary residence for buyer. If it's a second home, the price will be more volatile. Are there gaudy rebuilds and fancy cars nearby?
We are purchasing a house right now (closing next week.)
I am irritated at all the players in the process who are congratulating me for purchasing a home, when they are really celebrating the slice of money that they are getting from this transaction.
123: I thought that was Manhattan kitchens generally.
125: Hey, us too! Just had the inspection today. Will say more about it after work.
At least we can all agree that closed kitchens turn cooking into an antisocial activity.
Seriously, people, get the fuck out of my kitchen unless you're cleaning or doing prep. That goes for you too, my precious children.
116: It's because I think that the house isn't like clothing that I want it to be relatively trend-proof. When we were house-hunting, we saw basically two types of houses: a) older homes with dated kitchens (turquoise ovens/tile, e.g.) and b) older homes with redone kitchens that featured.. pretty nearly the same islands/granite/cabinets. I imagine the househunters of thirty years from now jetting around in their space sneakers wondering why we all wanted the same granite. Nothing bad about it, exactly, but after 15 of them it was a little overwhelming.
Anyway, we're redoing some of the kitchen because our ancient 1959s oven/range with the built-in stockpot decided last week that 700 degrees was the only good temperature, regardless of the position of the off switch.
Partygoers seem to love kitchens in a way disproportionate to the location of food/alcohol. I am put in mind of the large dog I used to live with who loved to stick his head into the gap between my leg and the couch arm, apparently because of its narrowness.
118: What are your carrying costs.i.e. how much for taxes, maintenance etc. Is it leased out to someone who pays rent on time, does the minor repairs, etc?
Don't try to time the market, it's a mug's game.
Carrying costs are about $7000/year, and we take in a timely rent that pretty much exactly covers that, and they do minor repairs. We (or I) shelled out $5k to replace the septic system a couple of years ago, but that's about it, though there's no telling whether some other major thing (furnace replacement or chimney repair or something) might need to be done in future. We're not actively losing money.
I'm not sure it's stupid to time the market. Had we sold the place in 2009 when my mom died, we'd have lost $100k or so in sales price: it would have been dumb to do that, it seemed to me. I don't expect the real estate market to inflate to its former state, but I also don't think it's wise to sell at a painfully low price just because.
To the OP, I think I may have mentioned that I met my realtor while playing pool with him in a bar. He was aggressive enough to look for houses slightly out of my price range and drive a hard bargain, so I canned the other guy I'd been working with, and he was only sleazy in my favor (e.g., he added a clause that the first $500 in repairs would be paid by the cellar, and his contractor roommate turned in a $495 bid, mirabile dictu). So after I bought my house, I introduced him to a former girlfriend who was looking for a place, and after he slept with her he wouldn't show her any houses in neighborhoods he considered too dodgy. So yeah, reptile.
129: When are you not hungry? OUT.
If you make the kinds of meal that require you to be in or frequently go to the kitchen after people have started eating, an open kitchen is very nice for not breaking the flow of conversation, and letting everyone hang out together. Our living/dining/kitchen is one big space, which is fantastic for us, because it lets us keep an eye on the kids while we cook, but it would be difficult to roofie a date's drink, which I assume is why Jesus doesn't like it.
I agree that granite and stainless steel will be the avocado/harvest orange of this generation. It was so great when we bought our house that the kitchen was outdated (linoleum with burns on the floor, etc.) and so we weren't paying for a kitchen renovation we didn't want. And then I convinced Lee that we should live in it for a year before renovating so we could see how we actually use it, and then we had four more kids at various times and she didn't work for a year and so now it will probably be a while before we get around to redoing things.
I have recently fallen in love with one specific Hoosier cabinet and haven't bought it yet but really just need to. I may measure tonight to check if it would go in the place where there's a massive shelf unit the previous owners left in between the two radiators, because I've been talking myself out of it on the grounds that I shouldn't buy myself something if I don't have a place to put it.
Had we sold the place in 2009 when my mom died, we'd have lost $100k or so in sales price
In general real property will keep pace with inflation, so your question becomes what would you do with the proceeds? Would another investment do as well or better after paying the transaction costs?
If you just need some extra scratch for hookers and blow, then now is as good a time as any.
Don't you worry about the pots boiling over and KILLING THE BABY? (Um, this might be just my phobia.)
but it would be difficult to roofie a date's drink
Raised bar behind the counter FTW again.
I'm with Eggplant. When my Dad re-built the cabin (to erase any original charm and make it look like a suburban house anywhere), I insisted on a kitchen divided from the living room by only a bar. It was clear I'd be doing most of the cooking and I didn't want to be banished from the family. What, am I the staff, to be hidden behind a closed door? Come sit on your side of the bar and chat with me while I cook. I will put out cherry tomatoes to lure you closer.
A friend of mine has tiled countertops, as in like a tiled wall with three-inch-square tiles and grout and everything. What in the name of God were you thinking, former homeowner? They're terrible both to use and to clean.
128: Seriously, people, get the fuck out of my kitchen unless you're cleaning or doing prep or making out with me.
The open kitchen thing is one of about a dozen reasons I've been dragging my feet for several years now about buying a place--it's almost impossible to find a house here that is in my reach but is not either (a) a total shithole or (b) a recent renovation with an open kitchen. A few months ago I tried to buy a place* that had a galley kitchen with a pass-through to the dining room, and I was grumpy about it but could live with it.
*Uniting the subthreads, my jackass (former) realtor somehow managed to fuck up that deal even after he twisted my arm into an escalator clause (sure, why not give my counterparty overwhelmingly assymetric information about my willingness to pay!) that ended up putting me about eight grand over the offer the seller ended up taking. I'm still not sure how that happened (the other offer was not cash, and I didn't ask for any burdensome contingencies, which were the only rational reasons I could think of to leave money on the table like that). Strong suspicion is that my realtor was not returning phone calls/emails promptly.
Neglecting to roofie a date's drink because of an open kitchen indicates weak character and lack of imagination. Extra dash of bitters, babe?
Our kitchen is closed in and a little small. Ffamily and friends assume that we're interested in knocking out the wall separating it from the dining room (and living room beyond), but it works.
What made the kitchen really work for me was a portable dishwasher that functions as a rolling 2'x3' counter top, which i great for rolling out dough and such.
So, CCarp and TLL, in light of your experience, is buyer's title insurance worth the money? The counterargument I have heard is that in most cases, all you need to do to clear up a title problem is pay a few grand to a lawyer. Better to accept a small chance of having to pay than the certainty of paying thousands in title insurance up front. I am about to close a real estate transaction where the title insurance will be ~$3,600. I know that the policies are ridiculously overpriced - loss ratios in the low single digits, and there is no competition. I'm sorely tempted to decline it and take my chances.
137: In general real property will keep pace with inflation, so your question becomes what would you do with the proceeds? Would another investment do as well or better after paying the transaction costs?
What I'd do with the proceeds: put a downpayment on a house I could actually live in. Another investment would not remotely do as well or better, unless there's magically some investment that would instantly produce six figures when I make a median income. Let me know if there is such a thing.
Tell me about these transaction costs: how much are they usually expected to be?
Don't you worry about the pots boiling over
Our recent realtor (to buy a property for my mom) was genial and professional. So much as I could tell, he did a lot of negotiating for me. He was definitely on the ball; when things got close to the end and a little sticky, he took to dropping by my house at 7am each day to make sure I was doing whatever he needed of me. That was a little much, but it ended when the purchase was complete.
In general, I prefer a closed kitchen, but I have come to love the particular open kitchen in my current apartment, WHICH I FOUND OUT YESTERDAY I HAVE TO MOVE OUT OF. Goddamnit.
he took to dropping by my house at 7am each day
This is when you walk around naked, isn't it? And you refuse to put on clothes just because someone came over. Because it's your house, dammit.
Seriously, did you have sex with my mother?
all you need to do to clear up a title problem is pay a few grand to a lawyer
IME a few grand would be light. Plus you may not even know there was a problem until you tried to sell or borrow against the property. And consider your lender's position as well. Many will not lend on a property without the insurance.
Title insurance is more like catastrophic health insurance. Only takes one problem case to really screw up the margins.
147 is awesome. At first I thought, Holy Christ!, then I thought, oh hey, I have that same cast iron pan.
What I'd do with the proceeds: put a downpayment on a house I could actually live in.
If that's what you're planning on doing, it seems like a pretty easy call to move ahead if the market is no longer terrible. Assuming some correlation between the market you're selling in and the market you're buying in, waiting for a hot market on the sell side means you're also in a hot market on the buy side, and interest rates are still cheap.
And consider your lender's position as well. Many will not lend on a property without the insurance.
Aahhh, but the lender's title insurance is mandatory. They are also pushing an optional borrower's policy (same amount of premium again) to protect me personally. I have to pay for both. I'm 90% convinced it is bullshit.
Seriously, would I go to Chicago?
Oh god, a non-denial denial.
You are killing me.
The older one climbs those cabinet handles to get on the countertop.
The Calabat will be a climber, so we decided no-kitchens-for-babies is the rule until he's, like, 12.
In general real property will keep pace with inflation, so your question becomes what would you do with the proceeds? Would another investment do as well or better after paying the transaction costs?
Since most real estate purchases are leveraged you're going to make a profit assuming the real price stays constant.
Seriously, would I go to Chicago?
Some people have always wanted to meet you.
You could arrange a tour of the Deep Tunnel, our huge runoff system, in construction for many years now and with only a fraction of its eventual capacity online at this point.
Title insurance is more like catastrophic health insurance.
If it had the same 80% loss ratio as catastrophic health insurance, I could accept it. But loss ratios on these policies run 4-6%, i.e. profit margins before reserves of 94-96%. That can't be a good deal for the consumer, even if he has become more risk averse after that unpleasantness in Sarajevo.
Newt, surprisingly, is still alive. A companion story that I don't think I've told -- Sally, maybe four: "Why do you keep the cookies on top of the cabinet?" "So you can't reach them." "Yeah, I can't reach that high even when I climb on the counter next to the window."
protect me personally
Oh I see. Nevermind. That is bullshit. Whatever unfucking of the title that may arise would be covered.
I am assuming that you are 'Mercan. Ferner's got some weird property laws from feudal hangovers.
147: Oh god I can just see the oven swinging open. Hopefully she's too light for that.
160: How do you get any cooking done if you can't watch the 'bat at the same time? Selah gets strapped into her seat and yells about bananas and goldfish while the big girls do their homework at the kitchen table and I dream about having a kitchen door that locks, and maybe a nanny.
I am assuming that you are 'Mercan.
Not only that, I'm in one of the handful of states that use a modified Torrens title.
Zardoz loves the kitchen. She can pull heavy pots out of the cabinets and drop them right next to her feet.
I can just see the oven swinging open
Just in front of his left hand, you can see a strap lock, which keeps that from happening. We're not completely irresponsible.
At about the same age, the girls could take out heavy ceramic pie dishes and break them right there in front of the cabinet while I was trying to meet a deadline. Such fun times!
170: Oh. Phew! (And sorry for pronoun confusion.)
We knocked out a bunch of a wall to make our kitchen/dining room/living room a more open contiguous space and it's way better.
We never worried about kitchen accidents too much with the kids because we were always in there with them. But I'm glad my kids weren't toddlers anymore when I encountered this.
We don't have any corded blinds. Seems like a reasonable concession to safety.
If we knocked out a wall to make out kitchen and dining room contiguous we would lose our china cabinet, and our kitchen is big enough for a couple of people to hang out in there with whoever's cooking so... yeah, kinda like it as is.
This thread is pissing me off because I keep thinking it's going to be about reptiles.
175: check out those hardwood floors.
Has anyone ever lived in a place where there are lots of geckos, and had a cat? Do the cats hunt the geckos? I think our cat would go crazy for that, but unfortunately it is too cold for much lizard action here.
177: The cats do indeed hunt the geckos. And bring them to you or secrete them for you to find in places like your bed.
177: IME you mostly just end up with a lot of tail-less geckos running around for a while and then the cats lose interest.
Come on Halford, it's the perfect easter present.
http://www.firstchoicereptiles.com/monitors-for-sale/
The more-common definition of "secrete" makes 178 a lot grosser than I think it was even aiming for.
I seriously fucking love monitor lizards, though not over the Herpys line.
God, that link is great. "A beautiful and reasonably large monitor species that greatly appreciates a large body of water in which to swim. Intermediate requirements for care (and a large amount of space), though they will eat just about anything that moves that they can overpower." Yes!! Now that is a sales pitch.
I wonder what the advanced requirements for care are?
Hot damn, you can sometimes actually buy one of these:
It's only $600!
One of these:
"The longest lizard in the world, reaching over 10 feet in total length. Though many people believe the Komodo Dragon to be the longest species, they are actually the largest by weight. Crocodile Monitors are generally not trustworthy, can be dangerous, and are capable of inflicting egregious injury. They are, however, absolutely beautiful, and incredibly physically impressive. Best left to experienced keepers, these are the sort of animal one should never purchase on a whim. Individuals available are roughly 3 feet in length."
I'm thinking advanced care requirements involve taking precautions to ensure your personal safety.
Crocodile Monitors are generally not trustworthy
Yeah, I wish I'd known that before I bought my title insurance from one of 'em.
Crocodile Monitors are generally not trustworthy
Which implies that sometimes you can place your trust in a Crocodile Monitor. A comforting thought in a cold world.
I only get involved in pretty much anything, including real estate transactions, when things are totally fucked up. Which gives one a somewhat negative view of human nature.
If the lender's policy is only covering up to loan value, though, you'd have a gap, certainly.
I haaaaaate the stage of "I'm fascinated by drawers, and while they're open, I try to stand up, and crunch my fingers when it slams shut!" The baby's just innocently opening and closing the drawer and I can barely keep from lunging every few seconds.
Crocodile Monitor solves the problem in 191 fast.
We took out awful dark brown formica and put in a fairly cool, and apparently quire rare, while marble. (With blue and green things flowing in it.) Marble isn't as durable as granite, which means that no one had better spill anything, or look to hard at it. Which seems to suit the wife fine. Didn't knock down the bearing wall between kitchen and living room, although the wife would prefer to be able to converse with guests while keeping them away from the countertops.
Does a crocodile monitor monitor crocodiles? 'Cuz they seem seem a little small to be very effective.
I would have thought they were banned as pets - so many animals are in California - but 14 CCR 671 lists restricted animals, and while it specifies all Crocodilidae, snapping turtles, various venomous snakes, and the reticulate Gila monster, monitors are not on the list.
I'm sure your average snapping turtle could monitor children's thumbs pretty effectively. Just put one in each drawer you didn't want opened.
We've replaced the baby monitors in this suburban household with crocodile monitors. Let's see what happens...
In my dream kitchen, it's so large that it doesn't need to be open to the rest of the house, because the party can happen there. However, I'm unlikely to win the lottery, so instead I'll probably have to settle for something less extravagant. In which case, I really like open kitchens. We both love to cook, and it's nice to be able to chat away/what have you while one of you is in the kitchen. Our current kitchen is galley style at the end of the house and I occasionally feel a bit isolated when in there. (Though being able to shut the door and keep the cat out when working with raw chickens is a nice feature.)
Also, we're in a chancel repair liability area, which cracks me up. (Please, god, don't destroy St. Mary's, I can't afford it.) Our neighbourhood is also in a conservation area, so no one is allowed to make major changes -- the previous owners put a vestibule (or, in British lingo, a porch) on the front of the house and we had to spend weeks ensuring that we wouldn't suddenly be liable for removing it.
177: I had a cat, and a serious hunter, in Samoa, but she never did much of anything to the geckos. Rats yes, but geckos were either beneath her standards or too fast for her.
Oh Halford, you are going to be making good on our bet. The dinner you're gonna owe me might bankrupt you.
Maybe geckos are good at dodging cats? I've wondered the same thing about quail. They're everywhere in our neighborhood year after year and there's no shortage of cats. I would have thought a bunch of poor flying plump little birds running around would get wiped right out but apparently not.
I love quail but doubt I'll get close enough to see any for a long while. There's a flock on our river route, but my dog charges and scatters them before I can catch a glimpse. No quail for me to admire. No peace for the quail either.
177 I had a cat in Morocco who emitted the most bizarre squeal of purest feline delight you ever did hear as she tortured those poor geckos to death.
Geckos were everydamnwhere in NM. The neighborhood cats seemed to catch them pretty regularly.
203: I practically trip over them around here. They're hanging out around the rose bushes in the front yard, on the roof over the porch, running in a line down the sidewalk, etc.
More insurance complaints: our mortgage requires replacement level homeowners insurance. The cheapest replacement cost anyone has quoted us is 180% of the value of our house. Which might be correct, but since we're not idiots, we would not replace our house if it were destroyed. We would buy an equivalently nice house in the same neighborhood for 100% of the value of our house. So why does our lender care?
Because when the lender forecloses on your property after the fire has destroyed your house and you decided to walk away, it wants the entire value of house plus land available to it.
208: as long as the insurance proceeds are more than the loan either way, the lender shouldn't care.
The cheapest replacement cost anyone has quoted us is 180% of the value of our house.
Is your property in a lousy neighborhood? It's quite possible for the replacement cost to be more than the house + lot are worth, if it's sited where there is a lot of existing housing stock and not much demand. Imagine building a new house in Detroit that might cost $100K to build and have a market value of $60K. Negative value added, so to speak.
as long as the insurance proceeds are more than the loan either way, the lender shouldn't care.
Not strictly true. The rule for FNMA conforming mortgages is that hazard insurance be in force for the greater of the outstanding principal balance or 80% of the replacement value of the structure.
I'm convinced we bought our house at the price we did because of dated remodeling suppressing its appeal. Our kitchen had a dropped ceiling, dark rustic cabinets, yellow laminate countertops, a yellow sink and badly outdated range and dishwasher. Before my son's Bar Mitzvah in 2005 we did "surface treatments" without changing the layout, stripping wallpaper and painting and removing the dropped ceiling. Used a solid surface countertop because of an unusual shape. I'm glad of it and think that was as far and no farther that we should have gone.
My daughter had one of those walker things, looking like a bumper car on casters, and managed to fall down the basement steps in it. Frightened my wife and still distresses her, but no harm done.
My house is insured for the replacement cost if I rebuild myself using cob.
The replacement value for a crocodile monitor's thumbs can't be very affordable.
OT: Does the Men's Warehouse sell morning dress? I'm thinking of trying it out but don't want to pay a bunch.
There's not one of those by my house.
I'm not going to pay a lot for this affectation.
They say dress for the job you want.
217 sounds surprisingly uncertain. I would have thought that you would have a complete mental list of all the places where morning dress could be purchased anywhere near the eastern seaboard.
222:. Very classy all around there.
I bought a suit from then not too long ago and don't recall seeing any, but I think I remember seeing some morning suits in their catalog when planning our wedding. Might have been a different catalog, but I don't think so.
210.1 is the position we're in, although I still think the ratio (closer to 300%) is pretty absurd. Yes, it would cost a lot to build a house with woodwork this nice, regardless of where you put it. However, nobody's going to build a house with plaster-with-significant-water-damage, knob-and-tube wiring, corroded iron/steel plumbing and no fucking insulation in the walls, are they?
A friend of mine has tiled countertops, as in like a tiled wall with three-inch-square tiles and grout and everything. What in the name of God were you thinking, former homeowner? They're terrible both to use and to clean.
Heh. My parents bought the house they did in Albuquerque in part because the tile countertops reminded them of the tile countertops in their previous house, which they had put in themselves. I've never thought to ask why.
The ones we had when I was a kid had a thicker tile around the edge that made a little dam, so you could make a slurry of water and scrubbing powder and clean them with a brush. Worked nicely when it actually got done.
I don't understand the hate on granite kitchen surfaces, which are incredibly hard wearing and last forever, which is the only thing that seriously motivates me in choosing kitchen surfaces. Maybe they have some social implication over there that they don't have here.
They've just been trendy over here for the past few years and people are apparently worried that they won't be popular forever. I don't really get it either.
231 displays true class in that it does not worry about the vagaries of fashion but decides solely according to its own judgement. "Ah, yes, my gnome. (pause) I'm very fond of my gnome."
Maybe they have some social implication over there that they don't have here.
It was the comments at Calculated Risk when I used to hang out there in 2006-2007 - they made the phrase "granite countertops" a synecdoche for the vulgarity, greed, and self-delusion of the housing bubble.
Whereas I would make them a synonym for the Vimes theory of boots.
That is definitely the single most useful thing to come out of the whole Discworld series.
My wife has expressed Vime's theory of boots to me several times.* She's never heard of Vime, of course.
* she runs a shoe shop.
It's very definitely true. Not just in general as a socioeconomic point, but very specifically true of boots.
And counter tops. Hasn't Pratchett been translated into Czech? Seems like a strange oversight by the publishers.
re: 239
I'm sure he has. SF and fantasy are pretty big in Central and Eastern Europe, and Pratchett's sense of humour is, I suspect, right up their street. It's just not the sort of thing my wife would read. She largely reads academic stuff for her OU degree [almost done!], and, when reading fiction, it tends to be fairly classic stuff.
incredibly hard wearing and last forever
Correct! Insofar as home decoration is fashion, they're outmoded; insofar as it's functional, they're not going anywhere.
240: he has been. And Polish. See here for the problems posed by finding a Polish equivalent of the Soul Cake Duck.http://www.teacher.pl/artykuly-metodyczne/neologisms-in-translating-terry-pratchetts-books/
I would have thought they were banned as pets - so many animals are in California - but 14 CCR 671 lists restricted animals, and while it specifies all Crocodilidae, snapping turtles, various venomous snakes, and the reticulate Gila monster, monitors are not on the list.
Speaking of, does anyone know why leases bar you from keeping any "bird, animal or reptile"? Presumably there was once a court case which ruled that reptiles and birds are not animals. I'd love to read that judgment.
If you really want to understand the animus against granite countertops, watch about five episodes of House Hunters in a row and see how quickly you're thinking, "I'm going to take that granite and crush your skull with it." I promise you'll get there.
and people are apparently worried that they won't be popular forever
Despite the great range of colors and patterns of granite, there's a very particular mottled style and color of granite that seems to go in all the "upgraded" kitchens. Add some cherry or other dark-finished cabinets and one or more pendant lights and presto! It's 2008 in your kitchen.
When we were househunting we saw so many renovated kitchens with granite countertops and no range hood.
The house we're buying has a completely white kitchen (except for a few black appliances). Blindingly white, even. It's dated, but in a way I enjoy--it's vaguely reminiscent of the space hotel in 2001.
I want my kitchen to look dated like my house looks dated (i.e. pre-depression), buuuuut kitchens don't really work that way.
I like my women the way I like my kitchens: old, but functional.
My taste for kitchens is overly formed by food bloggers/Pinterest: white wooden cabinetry with subway tiles (sorry Megan) on the walls and white marble and butcher block surfaces. And lots of windows. I'm not sure exactly what era it is dated to (late 2000s, I suspect), but it's definitely such a specific look that it makes me question my taste.
We've got the blindingly white glossy cabinets that I suspect dalriata might also have. I was worried I'd hate them but it turns out that the love of white kitchens (see above) plus putting in lots of colourful appliances has me quite enjoying them.
I want my kitchen to look dated like my house looks dated (i.e. pre-depression), buuuuut kitchens don't really work that way
Not completely, but it is quite possible to keep a classic look and have updated appliances and workable flow.
Ogged mentions House Hunters above. Another HGTV/DIY show, Rehab Addict, despite its silly name very often rehabs kitchens while retaining period harmony.
Our current kitchen is a fairly random mismish of things that the previous owners liked (plywood cabinets! salmon-ish laminate countertops!), things from the kitchen remodel before that (subway tile), and things that we have imported (cabinet hardware from ikea! official fuckyournoguchitable.tumblr.com chalkboard wall! butcher block table!) that I am confident nobody will be able to pin it down to a specific date. They may well say "what the hell is up with your kitchen decor?", but we will merely smile and be quietly timeless.
251 is grammatically weird but I blame the fact that my procrastinating about doing final prep for the talk I'm giving in two hours has entered URGENT phase.
Not completely, but it is quite possible to keep a classic look and have updated appliances and workable flow.
That's what we're aiming for, but you know, updated appliances are a big part of a kitchen. Plus fitted cabinets are themselves a relatively recent innovation (though our own house is new enough that I think it probably had one all along).
249: Yeah, I guess they're kinda glossy. I don't know what material, but it's the kitchen equivalent of an Imperial stormtrooper. The one difference is that it has hardwood floors, but they're also stained/painted white.
251: Despite not having any of the specific things in your kitchen, I'm pretty sure that is what ours is like as well.
I do want to do a small bit of chalkboard paint. Are you enjoying it?
It's 2008 in your kitchen.
This suggests a granularity of change in kitchen fashions that drives me up the wall. Are we to rip out the counters and cabinets every five years to stay au courant?
I think when it's time for me to do my own kitchen I'll go with something vaguely 1890-ish. At least retro stays put.
254: Yep. Turns out they're really easy to keep clean, which is a plus!
Agreed with the House Hunters. I'm sure there are a dozen drinking games out there. Personally, I like my open kitchen/island/granite countertops but could live without the magnets-don't-stick-to-it stainless steel fridge.
People - including Tweety above - keep calling the tile in our kitchen subway tile. I don't think it's that? It's the same kind of glossy, colored tile that was in my grandmother's kitchen; it is probably from the late 40s or early 50s.
Anyway. People on Apartment Therapy are always saying that they chose subway tile in their kitchen remodel for its "timeless" look, which makes me laugh. In 10 years it will be as timeless as the early 2000s timeless granite and stainless with dark cabinets look.
My in-laws got soapstone which I guess is higher end but is really soft so you have to be so careful with it it's quite annoying. I'm going to install gypsum countertops!
Are we to rip out the counters and cabinets every five years to stay au courant?
Preferable would be to try to avoid choosing every single high-trend at the time of remodeling.
I thought subway tile just had to do with the orientation/placement of the tiles - slender, rectangular ones horizontally stacked but with each row offset.
When we rip out our current stainless steel backsplash (which I hate) I will probably put in colourful small square tiles rather than subway, even though I like the latter.
256.2: That's my general feeling, although I don't know if I really believe it. Mad Men is retro-cool but bell-bottoms are just dated, but who knows if that'll still be true in ten years. "Retro" goes through trends like anything else. (More in my bailiwick, 8-bit retro was all the rage five years back but it's much more about 16-bit now.)
I totally thought 248 was going to end with "completely white. "
slender, rectangular ones horizontally stacked but with each row offset
Ah, thanks, that's the difference! Our tiles are glossy and offset, but square.
261 is comforting in that it suggests one can fly under the radar a bit.
245 is the truth. Put in a range hood before you put in fancy countertops! That way you have less aerosolized grease on your pendant lamps and everything. A granite countertop is objectively good, but it seems over-engineered and a bit of a fetish object. I agree with LB that soapstone à la school lab would be good, but alternatives I'm considering include recycled fir beams, pool-table slate (featured in the sake bar around the counter) and bowling-alley maple (the place where I bowled with girls last summer is about to close, but I reckon the salvage vultures will snatch it up before I can have any).
Watching House Hunters makes it impossible for me to maintain compassion-- I want to sell everyone on the screen for their parts when the show and I are together in a room. Rehab Addict on the other hand-- man, would I ever like to make friends with the principal Detroit rehabber.
243: the restriction has to include "bird, animal or reptile", so that it's certain that pet dinosaurs are within the restricted category.
270: What percentage of amphibian DNA do I have to splice in to make my Coelurosaur street legal?
I have so many comments on this! We bought our house last year and used Redfin (the same agent that Becks tried to use at least once, although I believe she ended up working with a different guy). We got only good advice from our guy, somehow, including what turned out to be a prescient early warning about trying to use our credit union. When the credit union ended up saying "oops, we know we said on multiple occasions that we could get you a loan, but it turns out you're not an exact fit for any of the three (3) loan products we actually issue" we turned to one of the independent brokers our agent recommended and had a loan by the end of the week. This proved especially useful because in the insane DC market the sellers rejected the one offer they got by their deadline (5pm the Tuesday after Memorial Day) and we were able to get an offer in - with our new loan - overnight Thursday.
We did not come away with a good impression of the sellers' agent, though. "Reptile" would be an upgrade for that guy.
As for title insurance, I asked my lawyer dad about it and he ranted for a good twenty minutes about how the whole thing is a scam before he admitted that if the lender required it (and they did) there wasn't anything I could do except turn down the option for an upgraded "eagle" plan. And we got a discount on our title insurance because the previous sale was within an eligibility window that apparently allows the title company to file a claim against the previous title insurance, or something. That part wasn't completely clear to me.
And on kitchen islands: our place was built in 1924 and had a "major" renovation in 2009. The biggest thing done in that renovation was the removal of the wall between the kitchen and dining room and the addition of an island. Having seen before-and-after pics, I have to say in this case the open kitchen is a big improvement. The other stuff they did was mostly cosmetic (removing carpet and restoring original wood flooring, retiling the bathroom, enclosing the original garage to make it a fourth bedroom) and the house doesn't end up looking like the sort of cookie cutter gut job that surrounds us. I'm not sure who things ripping out every interior wall is a good idea, but those houses won't age well at all. Where do people in open plan houses put bookcases and china cabinets and all the other things adults accumulate?
Anyway, our kitchen does look pretty standard for the 2000s (and there are some issues with how they did the electrical wiring) but it's not as 2000s as my parents' house was 1970s. Avocado and Harvest Gold, anyone?
Will Avocado and Harvest Gold ever be back in style? In a "one true '70's" way? Finding authentic period decor gets harder over time. I figure sometime around 2030 whatever has replaced Hipsters will be thrilled with Formica.
I've actually litigated [not in court] whether or not a particular creature was/wasn't an "animal" under the law. Wish I could say more about it here! Best cases to read ever.
274: In the context of research animals(or non-animals)?
I'm not actually against avocado and harvest gold, for that matter.
ISTR that, under English law, lobsters are not animals, but insects.
I have some vintage 20s things in my kitchen (particularly, a sink) and no island and butcher block countertops. The idea was that no one could accuse the kitchen of being trendy. It does loom nice but functionally sucks, someday I'll rip it all out and put in modernity.
275 -- entertainment animals.
The beaver was a fish for the purposes of fish-eating on lent under canon law.
The remark about slime mold above is IMO a slight-- slime molds are a border case in the fascinating transition from single-celled life to metazoans. In particular, Dictyostelium is a widely-studied social amoeba that has a life cycle that includes both a stage as an isolated individual in the soil and as a collective with adaptive specialization of the individual cells. Gentle cooperators when they need to be, these organisms shouldn't be used as a shorthand slur for selfishness.
As for realtors, we weren't happy with our first one, even though he was recommended from a friend. We nearly bought a place that would have been both a money pit and a legal battle. More generally, we set a maximum price we could afford when we started looking, and as we got some experienced we realized we'd only pay that much if the place was really, really perfect, but half the places he showed us had higher asking prices than that anyway. After backing out of the money pit, we went with Redfin, and were happy with them.
15, 17: I hadn't heard the term "scissor-stacked" before, but that diagram looks like my first apartment after I moved out of my parent's place. It seemed logical enough, partly because it was built into a hill, partly because it was one of three apartments that a large single-family house had been converted into. When you walked in the main door to the apartment, you were in the kitchen, with a bathroom to the side. Down half a level from the kitchen was a living room area, up half a level from the kitchen was a bedroom area directly over the living room area. Like a studio in that the only interior wall or door was the bathroom's, but it had some division to the space.
31: Counting steps: same here. There are 23 steps between the floor my office is on and each one below it. There are 17 in my house, 8 to the basement, 10 if you count the back door stoop.
67
And has it not occurred to anyone that the vast bulk of properties aren't ancient mansions with strange recording histories?
In some places tenants get a chance to buy their home if it goes up for sale, and I'm sure there are other conditions too that could interfere with the owner's right to sell a place. In some places, houses are all sold "as-is," but maybe they aren't in some states? The discussion has moved on a bit and I'm not arguing the system isn't broken, but there's a difference between "ownership is clear" and "owner has the right to sell."
I have some vintage 20s things in my kitchen
Several houses ago the kitchen included a small door from the service porch from which the iceman could deliver the ice to the icebox without entering the actual house. We kept it just in case an EMP burst wipes out the grid and we go back to horse and buggy like the TV show Revolution
282.1: Oh $deity, we looked at a place that had been in the same family for three generations, but for reasons we didn't quite understand, one member of said third generation was living in the house as a renter with a lease. I guess the house had been set up in a trust and she had been living there to take care of her mother. Once her mother passed away she was still ... there. It would have made for an insanely complicated proposed transaction with DC's TOPA laws. As best we could figure she was only failing to clear out because she had been told she could get a payout for selling her TOPA rights, on top of whatever part of the estate she was going to inherit after the sale. The house certainly would have sold more quickly if she'd just gotten out already.
I did the math to try to figure out how much "go away" money we'd have to pay her to buy the house, and we realized the potential legal complications and timing issues just weren't worth the hassle. Evicting somebody in DC takes months even without TOPA considerations. Yeah, no.
People - including Tweety above - keep calling the tile in our kitchen subway tile. I don't think it's that?
It's not.
Re House Hunters: the American version is bad enough, but the people on House Hunters International take it to another level. White people in Latin America: objectively the worst.
||
Colbert named to replace Letterman. What Twitterstorm?
|>
"Ms. Bell's sloth, despite its passport and driver's license, is still designated an Animal under California Law and cannot be designated a collaborator on any creative work"
Yep. Turns out they're really easy to keep clean, which is a plus!
Glad to hear that. My new place has the glossy white cabinets (and less glossy but equally white countertop), and I'm a bit worried about them staining over time.
275 -- entertainment animals.
Ah, the famous case of Siegfried v Roy.
Best cases to read ever.
Can you at least point me to the case law/statutory history you researched?
Get with the program, people- will no one note how great it was that the church officially sanctioned people eating beaver on Fridays?
I might actually want to watch a network late night show for the first time since Conan got tired (about a year after he started, iirc). I really hope the pressure to be anodyne yet funny on a daily basis doesn't grind him down.
289.1: I don't know about the countertop, but I haven't noticed that these are prone to staining. The high gloss seems to mean things just wipe off and never really sink in.
Yeah, so in fact the Colbert Report will be cancelled in way. I'm pretty sad about it: the way that he's stayed in character for so long is unique. We'll probably never see someone testify before congress in character again.
274 -- http://www.nabranimallaw.org/Content.aspx?id=207&libID=227
Though I am kind of curious to see what he does with the new gig. (Though an hour is just too long, so I doubt I'll watch it nearly as regularly.) An interesting comparison point is his Christmas Special. I wouldn't be surprised if he goes for a kind of old-timey variety show feel. Certainly I think we'll see a lot of him singing with people.
Doesn't Fallon have the variety show format? (Haven't seen his show, but clips.) Colbert is such a sharp and funny interviewer, I'd hope for lots of interesting guests, but the demands of the gig seem to militate against consistent smart/funny.
This thread is making me really sad about my tiny scummy kitchen, which is painted a shade of rust red that I don't believe was ever fashionable.
Conveyancing is a big part of my bread and butter so I won't waste my leisure time opining about it, other than to say 1. that someone did try to introduce the whole title insurance thing to Ireland with IME poor results 2. land law in this country still rejoices in several antique features inherited from England which England-and-Wales actually abolished long ago 3. the bloody government keeps attaching taxes to the property so right now I have to get clearance on 3 different property taxes for every transaction
Googling "subway tile", I notice a much more disturbing kitchen trend: glass-fronted cabinets and open shelving. Doesn't everyone have cabinets stuffed full of mismatched mixing bowls and assorted ugly crap?! How did this even get started?
How did this even get started?
Looks like you're starting to understand income inequality, young one.
I guess I should weigh in on my experiences. I'm looking for a condo, although I'm not committed to buying, and my agent seems very middling. He has useful experience, like how to infer a condo association's condition from its disclosures; he can also distinguish places I might be able to buy from places marketing to investors and expecting lots of cash up front. At the same time, he is sort of tedious in person, often spends way too much time explaining simple things to me, and has worked to get me to increase my price range with only a veneer of subtlety.
One of the oddest experiences was when we were driving and he gave money to a panhandler at an intersection, and talked about how he felt compelled to do so in such situations. All I could think was how exactly, precisely that lined up with what someone sleazy would do to establish trust, and how I still couldn't say for sure if he's hiding sleazebagitude.
I thought for sure it would be Louis C.K. He did so well in the pilot interview.
which is painted a shade of rust red that I don't believe was ever fashionable.
Oh but it was! In 1969 or thereabouts. You might want to consider repainting it before somebody slaps a preservation order on it.
Frigging iPhone eats my comments.
Before it happens for 4th time: I have put in my spake for my mother's ;
Chair like this in red tweed
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0jy1w1VPIcQ/UH7RJ4s33fI/AAAAAAAADpE/C6s17RIBv9c/s320/crannac+2+005.JPG
Table like this but shelves badly scraped
http://37.media.tumblr.com/4e10e9005995e8b2f9f7328452f3b3b6/tumblr_n28nw6shpq1qa9uc3o1_1280.jpg
will no one note how great it was that the church officially sanctioned people eating beaver on Fridays?
White people would rather talk about kitchen countertops than leisurely pick at succulent low-hanging fruit.
Looks like you're starting to understand income inequality, young one.
Everybody's rice cookers and bundt pans are ugly, though, right? And our Saran wrap and Comet come in the same containers?
Even I have some stuff that I like to display; I keep my Fiesta pitcher on the windowsill above the kitchen sink. But I look at something like this and think, where is all the ugly stuff supposed to go?
it was! In 1969
What were you people thinking
My rice cooker lives out on the fucking counter, yo. OWN THAT SHIT.
Othe one hand, such a display makes you think the kitchen isn't actually used very much. On the other hand, you'd have to use all your dishes all the time to keep them from getting dusty in that kind of open setup, wouldn't you?
Saran Wrap
You keep leftovers?
Comet
You do your own cleaning?
Everybody's rice cookers and bundt pans are ugly
True. Spiritually as well as aesthetically.
bundt pans are ugly
Bundt pans are fucking awesome and the viking of Nordic Ware will now be paying you a visit to ruin your shit. If it wasn't for the inevitable massive weight gain I'd make bundt cakes all the time.
On the other hand, you'd have to use all your dishes all the time to keep them from getting dusty in that kind of open setup, wouldn't you?
The alternative is to get takeout, and use all the extra time you would have spent cooking, dusting.
305. Huh, I guess there is kind of a fishy taste sometimes.
If it wasn't for the inevitable massive weight gain and having to grease/flour all those goddamn ridges and subsequently having to hand-wash all the grease/flour out of all those goddamn ridges I'd make bundt cakes all the time
I love bundt cakes! But I wouldn't call the pan pretty.
As for kitchen furnishings, we're proud of our latest addition. One weird feature of our house was a window in the kitchen even though the only thing on the other side of it was an enclosed pantry, with no glass but the metal frame to hold it, and even bars on the wall outside. The previous owner, or for all we know the one before that, had built a pantry adjoining the kitchen but hadn't got around to removing the metal parts of the window. We had kind of sort of thought of hiring a decorator to turn it into cabinets, but my wife's parents visited last month, and her dad did 90 percent of the work on that while he was here. I can take credit for the idea of a granite countertop under it - fuck all y'all - and the rain glass as a backing was Teresa's idea, and I helped paint a bit and screwed in the stemware rack we bought, but her dad did all the rest. Painting, cutting, drilling, shopping for parts... sometimes I wonder if there's something wrong with getting along with your in-laws so well.
301.last: The smart thing to do there is mention it. If it's a fair point, he'll hopefully be more wary of scamming you. If it's not, ha ha, just kidding.
One of my elementary school friends lived in a house where there were plastic runners over a lot of the floor and one was not allowed to walk anywhere else. Most of the furniture was also covered in plastic. I'm sure it was all very nice underneath the plastic, but it seemed kind of odd to try to preserve a living space in a state of perpetual pristineness, I guess in case some magnificent royal visitor ever dropped by for whom all the plastic would be whipped away to reveal a fashionable and spotless home.
Oh god, my sister's ex-boyfriend's grandparents in Alabama have a house like that. If it had been made clear to me ahead of time, I would have tried not to arrive wearing cutoff shorts and halfway through a Burrito Supreme.
317: One of my neighbors growing up did this. There was even a room (horrifying "French Provincial") that no one was allowed in. Like, no one. Ever.
Open shelving means dust and (as mentioned above) aerosolized grease on everything. It works for cookware that gets used regularly, but it's a terrible idea for, say, all the stemware I used to have out in the open which had to be washed before every party.
Glass-front cabinets can be lovely. We have one filled with cocktail glassware (thanks to a stock-the-bar shower instead of the standard wedding shower), and one filled with our matching dishes (thanks to our wedding registry). We also have a glass-door bookshelf filled with overflow glassware (because we have a problem) and a glass-front china cabinet filled with the china my mom was pleased to be able to ship to me, after fifteen years of trying.
My only problem with eclectic mixes of things in the kitchen is that nothing stacks. It takes more room than matching items do.
We have a couple bundt pans. Love 'em. Have you seen the octopus bundt pan?
It would take a whole lot to convince me to have open shelving. I don't want to spend time keeping dishware nicely stacked.
Unlike their homologous bagel cousins, the crust is the worst part of any cake, leaving uniformity of cooking as the only justification for using a bundt pan. Or, making it look like an octopus rising out of a sea of icing.
My only problem with eclectic mixes of things in the kitchen is that nothing stacks. It takes more room than matching items do.
My assortment of stadium cups stacks fine, and I bet your matching collection of wedding-shower cocktail glassware does not. But nobody wants to store 2009 Braves schedule cups in their glass-front cabinets.
I like glass-fronted cabinets and (some) open shelving. I think stuff tends to look fairly nice behind glass-fronted cabinets regardless of what it is.
I'm planning on putting in one or two open shelves in the kitchen. They won't be on the same wall as the range (and we have a good hood) so the aerosolised grease issue doesn't bother me, and I use everything in the kitchen frequently, so hopefully there won't be too much dust. The space is currently empty and having overhead cabinets there would make the room feel overly small, so I think it's a decent compromise.
My last place had one of those upside-down-stemware-hanging-racks (there's a real name for that, right?) over the sink which was right next to the stove, that shit got nasty. Or maybe I could have invented a novel cocktail-drinking act involving a fine coating of grease in your drink.
I'm curious how Colbert the character is going to handle this. It's not clear how he can acknowledge in character that he's taking an out-of-character job. Is he going to break character on the show to talk about it? Is he not going to talk about it on the show? Is he going to talk about it in-character as if the character got the job? It's tricky.
Maybe Colbert will have the Colbert character come on his new show, a la "The Mighty Carson Art Players"
327: Character claims that #cancelColbert worked and he's going Galt in protest.
Another relatively new feature of our kitchen is wire open shelving from the Container Store. That wasn't a fashion statement, though, we just had to put stuff somewhere, and installing open shelves was cheaper than closed shelves would have been.
320:Either my house is dustier than most, or we're using different definitions of some of those words, or closed shelving doesn't solve this problem. Some glasses that wound up near the back of the cabinet definitely had to be rinsed at least when they were used for the first time in 6+ months.
326: Hmmm. This is near to the stove, now that you mention it. Uh oh. But fortunately, we use those glasses often enough that they probably won't develop too much residue... It's not big enough for all the stemware we own, so we still have several in cabinets that will probably need to be dusted before the next big party or something.
329: I'll try to remember to put one on imgur tonight.
331.2: nah, we're using the same definitions. Closed cabinets significantly reduce dust, etc, but they are not hermetic. With our insane amounts of glassware the doors are the difference between having to wash a particular shape of glass every time it's going to be used and having a few reasonably clean glasses in each shape because they haven't accumulated so much dust since the last time they were used.
If we had a drinking problem, the glassware wouldn't have a chance to gather dust.
323: Do you not even see frosting or what? (Okay, sometimes it's good. And I guess it's rare that the crust is.)
Our cocktail glasses are in the glass-fronted china cabinet which is great because I get to look at them and think "hm, a cocktail. That's a solid idea!"
I will take a picture when I get home out of solidarity with fedward.
The kitchen feature that I love the most is a dish drying cabinet like this.
Don't piss dry your dishes on me and tell me it's raining.
329: Here you go. Let me know if that doesn't work.
That's lovely, Cyrus! And functional and all that, but it's how nice it looks that's really impressive.
Are rice cookers necessary? I had a dinner guest recently who was aghast that I cooked rice in a pot of water and went on and on about how it was impossible to cook rice properly that way (ignoring my polite inquiry about how it was that everyone in Asia seemed to have managed OK that way from the dawn of agriculture up to about 1980 or so).
re: 341
No. I guess become some people have bad luck using the absorption method in a normal pan, people think they need them.
In my experience, just plain boiling in plenty of salted water and not stirring, works just fine. And there are all sorts of absorption methods [other than the cover pan, and pray method] that are more or less fool-proof, if you want to do more fancy or flavoured rice.
They're clearly not necessary, but a friend with long Japanese experience uses hers for almost everything so I guess they are at the very least convenient.
I would love to hear about rice-cooking methods that work. It's the one thing I feel like I don't know how to make consistently, even though it's supposed to be take rice, add salt and water, boil. No two batches the same!
345: After it's done cooking, you mean?
Standard absorption method works fine for four or five servings, provided 1. you have halfway decent white rice, 2. you wash it enough. When it's absorbed enough of the water that you're getting antsy about burning, tun it off, stir quickly with a fork, replace lid and leave for about ten minutes. It'll still be well hot and dry enough to eat. If you're feeding ten people regularly you should get a rice cooker.
One nice thing about rice cooker is that they keep the rice warm and moist something close to indefinitely; I think the reason a lot of Asian families like them (or at least, the reason I've been told that they like them) is that you can put on rice in the morning and then have it around all day. They are also pretty impressively foolproof with all kinds of rice.
346; No.
347: I never heard of washing rice.
My main two methods are:
i) Boiling [duh]
Take good quality basmati rice, pour into large pan of boiling salted water.
Stir once to make sure the rice hasn't clumped together.
Turn down to a nice rolling boil.
Wait about 12 - 15 minutes.
Drain.
I tend to start checking it regularly after about 10 minutes, as the main thing is to make sure you don't over cook it. So I taste a couple of grains, and once it's ready, I stop cooking immediately. Make sure there's plenty of water, so the water doesn't get all starchy and the rice gets all clump and gooey, and nasty.
ii) Pilau/pilaf/whatever method
Fry aromatic stuff [onions, garlic, chilli, bits of bacon or pancetta, or whatever] in a non-stick pan
Add rice, and stir a bit in the hot oil and aromatic stuff, but not too long or the rice will take ages to cook.
Pour over water/stock
Cook a bit, add more water if required until all the water is absorbed and the rice tender.
Much like the normal absorption method, but because you are cooking in an open pan, you can add more water if you need it. I don't bother measuring the water, I just eyeball it. Don't stir it too much, just occasionally check it's not catching on the bottom of the pan. You aren't making risotto.
iia) There's an oven variation on this that I like.
This is a good version of it:
http://www.simonhopkinson.tv/recipe/15/tomato-curry.aspx
Scroll down to the lemon rice. I find the quantities, times and temperatures work well.
Oh yeah, and all recipes for risotto are lying bastards.
I've never had a problem with just using a pan, but I really want the top-of-the-line Zojirushi with the Nambu iron pot.
Bloody hell! That's ... expensive.
OH yeah, and on general rice recommendations. Generic long-grain rice is a waste of time, in my experience. Much better to go with good quality basmati [or bomba, or carnaroli, or whatever, if you are doing something specific].
I never heard of washing rice.
Gotta do it these days if you want to get rid of the arsenic: http://www.fda.gov/food/foodborneillnesscontaminants/metals/ucm319870.htm .
ttaM, your first method is how I make pasta. Never thought to try it with rice, but it makes sense. (I broke down and bought a rice-cooker long ago, but I still want to know I can make rice without it.)
351 is wisdom that should be imparted to everybody.
I never heard of washing rice.
If you buy generic cheap long grain rice you need to rinse and stir it in about six or eight changes of water to get the superfluous starch out or it will end up like porridge however you cook it. The marginal extra cost of decent basmati is less than the value of your time. I wash even that once or twice for reduction method, but you don't need to if you're boiling it in a big pot of water a la ttaM.
Oh yeah, and for brown rice, this works nicely:
http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Perfect-Brown-Rice
Although meh on brown rice for most recipes.
Brown rice, seaweed and a dirty hot dog is traditional as a reducing diet. In general it's the mark of competitively hard core hippies. Sticks to your teeth. Yuck.
I've always just cooked it in the pan with decent results. Mush isn't a problem, the only problem is if you're not careful it can stick to the bottom of the pan. My method is more or less like 350(i), though I put the rice in before the water (2.5 times rice volume) and turn down the heat as soon as it boils. But I just bought myself a rice cooker, or rather a multi-function slow-cooker which is also a rice-cooker, and I'm interested to see how it compares.
Oh, yeah, I always use basmati, so maybe that's why mush isn't a problem.
341, rice cookers are not necessary but they are very convenient. Since they switch from cook mode into keep warm mode automatically, you don't have to get check it regularly or get antsy. So if you're just making rice to eat with leftovers, you don't have to hang out in the kitchen; if you're making rice to go with an elaborate main dish you can focus on the main dish without worrying about timing the rice exactly.
Also, what 348 said. Foolproof with all kinds of rice and ricelike grain products including quinoa, wheat berries, and so on.
Zojirushi not as good as Cuckoo brand. The expensive one talk.
If you are Julia Child or into kitchen zen, knock yourself out with pan cooking or an artisanal handmade bamboo steamer, top weighed down with exqusitely rough piece of granite.
For the harried afterwork cook, or for timing-related flexibility, rice cookers are great.
351: Nigel Slater's in this book is pretty good (very wordy).
I can't believe that I tried to steer the thread towards awesome monitor lizards that will totally gnaw off your fucking face and there are like 100 comments about rice cookers instead.
If you go a google image search for "lizard in a rice cooker" you get a picture of Roger Ebert. Dunno why.
I can't believe that I tried to steer the thread towards awesome monitor lizards that will totally gnaw off your fucking face and there are like 100 comments about rice cookers instead.
I can't believe that you can't believe this. Have you ever met this place?
I honestly don't get how rice cooking could be a problem. Add rice, add water, add salt, bring to a boil, turn down, set timer for 20 minutes, walk away. Enjoy the tasty, tasty arsenic.
I know a site where you would have better luck steering the conversation to lizards.
So simple, even a monitor lizard could do it.
373 to 371 but it goes okay with 372 so whatevs.
You do get that 371 is three more steps and at least 10 minutes more paying attention than using a rice cooker, though, right?
368: http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/221408796312?lpid=82
Yeah, if you have the rice cooker (or have an awesome multi-function pressure cooker/slow cooker/rice cooker/personal masseuse), then go for it. If you set a timer for the approximate this-will-reach-boiling-now time you can cut the attention time to 2 minutes or so.
358 It sounds like Ogged doesn't know how to make a good tadigh. I am disappoint. And so's his mom I'm sure.
While monitor lizards can be scary fast, their low to the ground body structure combined with an inability to rear up on their hind legs makes them not very scary overall.
You know what's scary? A Slow Loris. They have poisonous elbows! They lure you in with cuteness and them bite your sorry ass with elbow-poison.
I mean, it's not like frying onions where there's some ambiguity about the desired result and most cookbooks lie to you about how long they will take (looking at you, Madhur Jaffrey).
As a rule of thumb, multiply the time any cookbook tells you to fry onions or garlic by four or five, and the check to see f it's done.
Ogged doesn't know how to make a good tadigh. I am disappoint. And so's his mom I'm sure.
Right and wrong. Persian rice is a seventy billion-step process that put me off cooking rice almost entirely. But my mom, being from Iran, doesn't expect her son to cook at all.
This rice cooking discussion is stressing me out, for I have never found it difficult to make rice, but if it's the kind of thing that requires time, skill, and seventeen steps, perhaps I've been making it wrong all these years!
I don't think we eat rice often enough to warrant the purchase of a rice cooker. (Although shiv can't make rice worth a damn, so maybe we would more often if we did.)
340: Thanks. We plan to put another shelf in between the plate rack and the stemware rack, and make the back look prettier because it's held together pretty roughly, but still, that was definitely a big favor he did.
As for cooking tools, I'll try to remember this thread later. We've always cooked a fair amount, but have broadened our horizons a lot over the past six months, both because I gave up pescetarianism and we unpacked the kitchen appliances that were wedding presents. We've only used the slow cooker once, for example, and it came out terribly.
Without having read the last 100 comments: easy rice is easy to make.
I don't understand how people have trouble making plain rice. Wash it, put it in a cooker or in a pot with enough water, cook until done, the end.
I once saw this "Hoarders" type show on Animal Planet, about this guy who was obsessed with lizards, and kept dozens of them, including several komodos, in his apartment. The komodos would just walk around, because they were too big for cages. He was always bragging to his coworkers at Circuit City about his bite marks. One day he didn't show up for several days, and his coworkers came by and finally called the police. It turned out that the lizards had eaten him up. The worst thing is that the cause of death was not a sudden attack but sepsis, from an infected bite. He didn't have a home phone, naturally. Brrr.
I'm not sure I understand how the show in 386 gets produced, unless it was either fiction or an after-the-fact dramatization with actors. (Neither of which would really be a "'Hoarders' type show.")
There but for the grace of God goes a large proportion of the unfoggetariat.
Or interviews with people with knowledge of the facts. Obviously, unless you were really lucky with a webcam, you wouldn't get footage of the guy dying from an infected lizard bite.
388: I'm not certain what this refers to, but I feel judged.
389: so they just happened to be producing a documentary on a guy who kept too many lizards in his house, and in the middle of production (or possibly sometime after, but before the show aired), his lizards ate him? If so, that's quite a lucky break for the producers.
("Interviews with people with knowledge of the facts", all gathered entirely after the fact, with no actual footage from when the person had been alive with the lizards in his apartment, would make for an awfully boring show. They'd almost have some dramatization with actors.)
387. There were interviews with coworkers and scientists, and then dramatized footage with actors. I guess it wasn't like "Hoarders" the show, in that respect. It was a show with hoarders type people, sorry for the confusion urple.
courtroom sketch artist draws munching komodos and sepsis death
393 is a helpful clarification. I'm glad we're agreed that a show with hoarders type people isn't necessarily a "Hoarders" type show.
388 to 386.
391.1 sounds even better if read in the voice of Lt. Columbo addressing the shiftily upper-class producer of the documentary in question.
No discussion of rice cookers is complete without a link to this.
I lived in a kind of shitty student ghetto apartment for a while in California; my neighbors seemed nice enough but I never talked to them, so one day I went over and introduced myself. They were a super nice couple from China who were also at the University. They had a rice cooker, of course, and also hundreds of pet snakes in plastic cages stacked to the ceiling all over the apartment and on the deck.
390: No one is judging you, LB, but given your pseud, could you blame anyone for being suspicious?
Jesus Fucking Defamation. It wasn't komodo dragons, who are totally innocent. The man died of being eaten by his monitor lizards. Monitor lizards -- so badass.
400: Quote from the cop: "We weren't prepared for what we found."
Jesus. Guy keeps a bunch of dangerous lizards in his apartment, hasn't been seen for days, terrible smell coming from the apartment--what the fuck were you expecting to find??
384: nice.
Slow cooker needs more spices than you think, and might still be getting too hot for some meats.
Komodo dragons are monitor lizards.
When we began renting a friend's house in grad school, he'd made arrangements to have his ball python (which probably wouldn't have survived his move) given to a sanctuary. I think the sanctuary dude just liked snakes. He and his lady friend had come straight from 1989. Bleached blond hair, mullet on him, teased sky high on her. Acid washed jeans, motorcycle boots, and those tank tops with really big arm and neck holes (hers with a spandex tube bra). He was very enthusiastic about the snake, which was kind of sweet. They are now what I think of anytime I think about reptile enthusiasts.
398: what the everloving... are you sure they weren't "pets"? Maybe they were eating the snakes. Maybe they were agricultural saboteurs?
406: I think he bred them and sold them. There might have been species than you couldn't legally buy?
405 is what true commitment to the reptile lifestyle looks like, Halford.
But if you're choosing, choose the way described in 405.
The worst thing is that the cause of death was not a sudden attack but sepsis, from an infected bite.
I'm not sure how that's "the worst thing". That's how komodo dragons kill large prey like water buffalo. They just bite its ankles and wait for it to die.
We've all got to die sometime.
I don't think 411 is true, at least as a general matter. They bite the ankle and then wait for the buffalo to become weak enough that it can't defend itself, but at that point the dragons move in to deliver the kill.
Jesus. Guy keeps a bunch of dangerous lizards in his apartment, hasn't been seen for days, terrible smell coming from the apartment--what the fuck were you expecting to find??
The lizard info maybe wasn't in the call log? "Neighbors haven't heard from so and so and now there's a smell" is a fairly common "we're gonna find a body" call. The body being snacked on by giant lizards, not so much.
Although pets gnawing on a body is pretty common, as in old lady Jensen is missing a calf because the cat.
I don't think 411 is true, at least as a general matter. They bite the ankle and then wait for the buffalo to become weak enough that it can't defend itself, but at that point the dragons move in to deliver the kill.
OK, sure, but the point is we're not talking about consumption immediately following the initial attack. If someone told me a person had been eaten by komodo dragons, I'd expect it to have been sepsis that got them.
Dang it, Monica! I can't live this charade any longer. I'm not a telephone repairman who stumbled into your life. I'm a Komodo Dragon--largest member of the lizard family and a filthy liar
A bit of googling indicates that pythons are the most common culprits by far in the "killed by domesticated reptile" department. Komodo Dragon guy gets points for originality.
19-year old Grant Williams of 365 East 183rd Street Bronx died as the result of an attack by his 13 foot long Burmese Python which may have mistaken him as food.
Mistaken?
pets gnawing on a body is pretty common
The recipient of the first partial face transplant was a woman whose dog ate her face after she overdosed on sleeping pills. There was also the more recent one involving a pet chimp who ripped and chewed another woman's face off. In conclusion, pets are awful.
I was about to make a comment about how stupid it is to keep animals that can kill you in your house, but then I thought back about some of the cats we've owned. One in particular comes to mind . . .
It's not that she couldn't kill you; she just chose not to.
Huh. My mother used to have a cat that seemed to be sincerely trying to kill, or at least severely injure us -- we used to discuss the fact that if he were only a little bigger, he'd be too dangerous to have around.
Pretty much any dog over twenty pounds or so, I'd think would be intolerably dangerous if they had real hostile intent. Dogbreath impressed the hell out of me cracking raw cow femurs with her teeth, and she was a very moderate sized dog -- 45 lbs when healthy, about.
I would really recommend not doing a Google search of the type described in 418, because disturbing.
I will once again say that video of my kitty attacking gets shown at vet conferences.
The pivotal event that led to me confining him away from all other people: he attacked my friend's face while my friend was sleeping. Scratched his forehead and cheeks up.
423: Pythons got nothing on chimps, who chew off a bunch of things like faces, hands, and genitals before you're "rescued" and live the rest of your days as an open wound waiting for death.
425: Come on dude, try and muster the balls to defend your family from a godamn house cat.
Sometimes I think cats aren't actually domesticated animals. Is a tiger raised with humans from a small cub actually any more likely to attack its owner than any other housecat, or is it just a lot more likely to kill you when it does? (Not because it's more aggressive--just because it's bigger.)
427: If you're packing heat, sure.
Pythons got nothing on chimps
I suppose setting up a series of Pythons vs Chimps Ultimate Fighting events would be illegal.
Did you ever notice that there are people who think they are quite clever, who are only of average cleverness, but are deceived due to the fact that almost everyone they hang out with is an idiot?
430: Rap battles, on the other hand, are still permitted.
424: My mother's cat would do that. Never did much damage to anyone's face while they were sleeping, but you'd wake up with kitty-fangs buried in your feet fairly often if you left your bedroom door open.
My new brag is going to be "step off motherfucker, don't you know I'm a match for any house cat alive?"
428.1: I thought that was conventional wisdom -- that there was some strict definition of domestication that cats don't meet. But when I come to think about it, I don't know what I mean specifically.
I dunno, gswift. It seems to me that people in surprise situations don't often think of going on offense.
Or even consider multiple options. Trapped in bathroom by cat?
Exit the window.
Wrap towels around the smalls, make a dash for it.
Wrap towels around arms, open door expecting to kick cat.
Fill container with water, splash cat.
Call neighbor, ask neighbor to put out catfood nearby.
Not all the options are equally good, but it doesn't seem like people even think in terms of options.
Abandon any sense of pride and call the cops.
My father's family, cat people, took for granted that they would kill you if they got the chance. Domestic, to them, meant "deign to take over your house." The house my grandfather built, where my dad grew up had become a cathouse by the time my uncle, never recovered from his war injuries died in a fire and his sister my aunt, always unable to live on her own was taken to a home. Place was demolished then.
438-439: turn on shower, open door, get in shower. Watch cat run in terror
a cow, which would be pretty much fucked left to its own devices
Especially if the feral cats had any say in the matter.
In conclusion, pets are awful.
Truth. I think it was Sherry, back in the day, who wrote about the salutary effects of getting a dog. I knew she was wrong, but I didn't realize how wrong until we took one in in NM, and although it was a sweet dog, holy shit, was that the worst decision of my life (and I was a philosophy major). Having a dog made pretty much every moment of my life worse. We eventually gave her away to some very nice folks.
No way, man. Getting a dog was the best decision we've made in years. Even without the front door greetings, being forced to go to the river everyday mades for a substantial improvement in quality of life.
444: Preach it. My girls are allowed to each have a cat and that's it. The cats are partially outdoor cats and aren't allowed in bedrooms or downstairs, only in the upstairs common area. Dogs are the worst. They're like kids but smellier with worse judgment that never grow up and then degrade straight into senility.
As right as Megan is about open kitchens, she's even righter here.
We eventually gave her away to some very nice folks.
Paying the misery forward.
441: Now either your clothes are soaked, or you're facing an even-more-homicidal-than-usual cat completely naked. I'd try the windows first.
We have a cat we call Buddy, and I have to admit the not-really-domesticated thing is fair. Sometimes it feels like Stockholm Syndrome. "He wouldn't have bit you if you weren't playing with him so much," I have said in earnest. But he's a stray we've adopted and still spends half his time outside - more than that, this time of year - so we're just surprised at how friendly and social he is.
A point of comparison helps. One of our neighbors has a genuinely scary cat. Sometimes he'll just decide he's mad and latch onto your leg with all five pointy ends. He makes Buddy look like a sloth.
Dog person here. Pretty much everything said in this thread confirms my prejudices about cats and their people.
or you're facing an even-more-homicidal-than-usual cat completely naked.
Not completely naked. You forgot the crucial step from 438 :Wrap towels around the smalls, make a dash for it.
Wait, the front door greetings are being held up as a positive? Yes, after a long day of work here's a smelly ball of fur waiting to coat me with its stink and and saliva. Hey there snookums, what possessions of mine did you chew and/or poop on today? Awesome.
It just occurred to me that perhaps, given one commenter's experience with a cat bite, I shouldn't be so flippant. Sorry, Cecily, I don't think you're an embarrassment to the species!
My lovable cat will hold down my hand with her paw while we watch TV together. She is sweet and gentle. Doesn't know her own name though.
Dogs seem like toddlers or furtive thieves waiting to attack unless you give them orders all the time. I don't need ineffectual domestic staff.
Jammies has finally decided that the kids don't need to grow up with a dog, at least for the forseeable future, thank fucking god. Dogs are the worst. Back when he was advocating for it, I said "I can't have breasts and dogs in the same house" meaning we'd talk about it post-breasts.
Time for the obligatory link to a classic, Pinky the Cat.
One of the things I love about the dog is how fast he is ready. Dead asleep and hears the clink of the leash? He's at the front door before the leash is fully off the hook. He doesn't have to be convinced. He doesn't need to put his shoes on. He doesn't need to fill a water bottle. His answer is YES! I love that. I wish I were better that way.
It must be said that there are many cats who do not listen to the voice of Satan. We were lucky enough to have one cat who was way over on the gentle-friendly-affectionate end of the spectrum. Best cat ever.
My cat is very dog-like (greets at door, plays fetch), exceeding well-behaved (except for the one time that he bopped a visitor on the head with his paw, claws sheathed), and incredibly cuddly and soppy. Best of both worlds!
Also, dogs smell. Even the very best ones. I really like dogs, but I do not like dog smell.
461 is so very right. You touch the dog, you have to wash your hands. So gross.
Other things to hate:
- their gross mouth slurpy noises when they're just laying around
- their wet noses being dragged up the back of your leg
- having to leave various doors closed to prevent the dog from having access to whatever they tend to destroy or shit on.
461, 462: DogBreath didn't smell doggy at all, didn't destroy things, and wasn't much for wet-nosing people. She shed like a fiend, the apartment was full of grey tumbleweeds of dog-hair, but she didn't smell.
"I can't have breasts and dogs in the same house"
Hey Fido, you know what I said about a dog being man's best friend? Well, I lied.
I will concede that DogBreath was a true legend among dogs, and if I could have one like her I'd totally go for it. (I do really like dogs. But I'm more of a cat person.)
I really like all the things in 462 about dogs. The problem with dogs is simple, they demand too much work and too much work sucks. I like the cats we have now. So contemptuous, so easy to care for. Even when they throw up on something, which they do all the time, they're all like "yeah, fuck you, I threw up on something, doesn't mean you don't suck. Now fuck off and let me do my thing." I can admire that.
OT: I created and emailed to various people a file called "Wang Separation". I feel a little bad but I don't know when I'll get another opportunity.
Buddy can be funny in a lot of ways. Having an inside-outside cat is definitely nice, but he seems to think he absolutely has to go in or come out every 10 minutes and 30 seconds. We're probably going to have to start watching his diet because he starts begging as soon as he can see the bottom of his bowl. And we don't let him sleep in the bedroom, so he makes a game of running in there and under the bed before we can stop him.
Put it all together and I've remarked, "Teresa is a dog person. I'm a cat person. So we compromised and got a very needy cat."
463 -- You can't argue with cat people. Only pity them.
The problem with dogs is simple, they demand too much work shit.
462.1: YES. If I want my hands to smell funny after I touch something I can scratch my balls.
469: Oh, I am cat people.
I loved DogBreath, but I miss having a cat. Buck really doesn't like them: combination of personality conflict and being really sensitive to litterbox odor. So I probably won't ever have another one. But I like cats generally better than dogs.
a file called "Wang Separation"
Old enough to think of the word as referring to a machine, a sort of almost PC. So I wondered what kind of operation this is, and why somebody would still be using one.
I had will and codocil templates, seldom used real estate documents--because realtors weren't familiar with them!--and we could do simple word processing, like lawyer's letters. Daisy wheel printer the size of a filing cabinet. All-in-one design, looking like a giant emac.
I have both a dog and a cat. Both are good natured. But the dog improved my generally pleasant life more than the cat did. Forcing me out onto the river parkway was a huge boon to my life. It wouldn't (didn't) happen without the dog but nearly every day it is the best thing I did that day.
Dogs seem like toddlers who are always super-happy to see you.
A friend of mine read an essay at an event that started "I had a baby and now I am waiting for my cats to die." We had a baby and Mrs. K-sky was like, "Oh my god, I totally know what she means," and I was like, "that makes me feel bad," and then she didn't say anything else and now I totally know what she means.
Please, cats, if you read Unfogged, stop pooping outside the litterbox. No more random bits of turd that don't unstick from your fur until you're on the bedroom carpet and definitely no more explosive diarrhea when I'm working with the door closed.
My kid-pet takeaway was "wow, they are a whole lot the same." There apparently was a slot in my brain for small, dopey, dependent creature and I spent the first year of O's life calling the pediatrician the vet and calling O "Vanka." After a while that switched, and I'll tell stories about "O" that are in fact about Vank. This is problematic because once the story went "When O died . . ." UGH UGH UGH UGH.
478: What's it worth to her? I might know a guy.
Well my dog thinks you're all smelly. Especially your butts.
Dogs or Cats is so Ginger or Maryanne. Pets or kids is a different level. I know my folks were sad but relieved when the dog finally died, the kids have relocated 10 years prior. Freedom to travel, mainly.
Were they trapped in the bathroom too?
Yes, but for a different reason. Milk of Magnesia helped.
We had a cat as grad students in Hyde Park, eventually killed in traffic. No pets since then. Friends of ours, whose nearly-grown children forced them to get pets have had their lives taken over by them, seems to us.
I'm under not small amount of pressure to get a dog. And I sort of want a dog myself. The problem is that I'm looking for a breed that lives maybe 8 years tops. I haven't found any.
I have the impression that the more super-giant the breed, the briefer their life's brief candle.
Practically, it has to be a small dog. We don't have a big house or much of a yard.
How about some kind of deerhound or wolfhound kind of thing? Eightish years, says the internet. They're pretty awesome, too.
No but the big dogs are super lazy.
If somebody has created a breed of terriers with defective hearts, that would be about perfect.
It's hard to buy a used dog that wasn't abused or neglected.
I think that's right. Mastiff, Great Dane ... short shelf life. Mastiffs are lovely dogs, too, if you can tolerate drool.
(Actually, a neighbor has an Italian mastiff, which is a smaller version -- ordinary big dog size. There is a dog I covet. Beautiful, dignified, calm, authoritative, I'm not sure if I want it as a pet or as my representative to the state legislature.)
And I'm not sure I'm competent to deal with a dog with those kinds of issues.
Terriers are terrors. You could get an old one! Although it would probably still be a terror. Otherwise, tiny dogs suck and last forever. Pass! I vote that you something giant that you take somehwere to gallop once a day and otherwise mostly lies around like a piece of furniture. Like look at this amazing beast!
I grew up with spaniels. I could do with one of those.
That dog pictured in the link in 497 is covetously perfect. Dignified, gentle, silent. When she wants petting she comes up to you courteously and stands just close enough that you can tell she wants something but not close enough to be oppressive.
No, used dog is the way to go. Don't go to the shelter, if you're worried about getting a psycho, pick a breed and find a breed rescue organization. You'll be dealing with people who know the dog's prior history, and if you're willing to be picky, you can find one whose prior owner was a little old lady who only drove it to church on Sundays.
I could hang out the dog run and ask if harried-looking 50-somethings if they really want that thing around now that the kids are all dating or in college or whatever kids do when they turn 15.
I see that LB and I agree that large + dignified = covetable. I am not a dog person, but I wanted that dog.
pick a breed and find a breed rescue organization
What if they don't trust me?
Sadly, I've just realized that if I were a dog, I'd definitely not covet me. Bummer.
What's the breed? Some kind of sighthound -- a borzoi? Or just a shaggier than usual greyhound?
Anyway, my sister went to some animal rescue thing and she got a Chihuahua. It was chewed on by the prior owners bigger dog and now it shakes all the time. Or maybe they do that anyway.
Mastiff are buckets of drool. Avoid.
Don't get a terrier-whippet mix like we did. Avoid.
A "lurcher," I was told, which I guess is not so much a breed as an approach to doing hound crosses. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lurcher) I think she was half deerhound, half... I don't know what, but not anything small.
I should also mention that my wife refuses to consider any dog that can put its front paws on her shoulder while still standing on the ground.
Terriers are only for people who either (a) already know they like terriers or (b) have a severe rat problem they need help with.
I approve of big poodles. Maybe a gently used poodle?
If you have a moderate rat problem, try half a terrier.
Man, now I'm suffering these pointless pangs of longing over that dang dog. Probably she's already died of old age in the interim.
Maybe just get one of those invisible dog rigid novelty leashes and be done with it.
now it shakes all the time. Or maybe they do that anyway.
Yes, they do that. I recently had to take care of a friend's Chihuahua, and I could feel my blood pressure skyrocket when I was near it, it was so nervous. On the plus side, small poops.
510 makes me remember that I know a guy who keeps spaniels for birding. I wonder if those are like the drug-sniffing dogs and need to retire after five or six years?
That's not a bad idea. A standard probably fails Mrs Hick's size requirement, but they come in all sorts of intermediate sizes, so you could get a medium sized one that was still big enough to look like a real dog.
518: You should see how they shake when a five-year-old wants to "help" walk them.
Right. You can get poodles way more sizes than any other breed.
But you sound like you actively want a spaniel, which is a perfectly reasonable dog to want. I think they live forever, but if you get a nice middle aged rescue, you're doing a good deed as well as getting the lifespan you want.
Our spaniels both died before 12, but maybe we just sucked at taking care of them.
My guess with the guy with the birding spaniels is that he won't have retirees, but he'll have dogs that are lousy at birding he wants to get rid of. Dropouts, as it were.
The hamster only lasted four weeks. I don't know if that's a good run or not.
526: I assume he puts them down. He's a lawyer.
If I had a dog it would definitely be a poodle - they're the smart ones. (I'd figure out some other hairstyle, though.)
I know some folk who have hunting dogs. They breed them serially, like chain-smokers.
529: Poodle hair is famously less allergy-provoking than most dogs.
For a dog my thought was English Bulldog. Apparently cuts down on a lot of the peppy bullshit and is also super gentle and patient.
Do you get to rename a used dog? A poodle is sounding better, but if I had a poodle, I'd want to name it after Marshall Foch.
I think you can tweak a dog's name. Find a poodle named Marcia Deaux and you're set.
530 conjures up some weird breeding imagery.
Dogs aren't reptiles. they're mammals.
I agree with all the negative things said in this thread about both cats and dogs. I am not a pet person.
I am not a pet person.
Teo refuses to be domesticated.
530: They breed them serially, like chain-smokers.
Chain-smokers are made not born. This is a very biologically incompetent thread.
Spaniels kill birds and leave them thew.
Thew? Stupid generic Android tablet.
Cats eat birds.
Thereby eliminating both the birds and their music. They're your natural allies.
Stupid generic Android tablet.
I blame Kathleen Sebelius.
Cats eat birds.
Sometimes. Sometimes they just kill them and bring the mangled corpses into the house. Do Not Want.
Anyway, I'm not going to argue that there are no good things about cats (or dogs, for that matter). For me, though, the bad things definitely outweigh them.
Let's pretend that I formatted that link correctly: http://www.theonion.com/articles/i-think-im-going-about-this-catbreeding-thing-all,10891/
I should go steal some pictures from my dog's Facebook page. (No, it wasn't my idea!)
Also, ogged gets it exactly right in 444 and can have his rural cred back.
(Not because there's anything in 444 that particularly establishes rural cred, just as a reward for a comment well done.)
If any of you start trash-talking my turtle, I'll sulk.
I have nothing against turtles. We had a pet desert tortoise when I was a kid.
(And have put some in the pool. We like to have a dog that's big enough to do stuff.)
teo is a mercurial rural cred autocrat.
Apparently there are some little dogs that don't live very long -- King Charles Spaniels are supposed to live 10 years, but I've heard it can be less than that.
I would get a bulldog of some kind, if I had to have a dog. Probably a nice mixed pitbull of some kind. There's a pitbull-chihuahua mix on LATFO that is pretty cute. But I'd just want one of the classic types. Good natured, active, not too slobbery or hairy, makes you look tough. What's not to like? However, I am a dyed-in-the-wool cat person, so probably no dog for me ever. And truth be told, even the less-slobbery ones are still too slobbery for my tastes.
It's kinda messed up that Moby wants a dog that will have a brief life and then die of some terrible disease. He should pick a healthy, long-lived breed and then, you know, take care of things when the time comes. Alternately he could just get part of a big dog.
Yeah, go with a rescued pitbull, that is my vote. The second-to-last punk show I went to was a benefit for and anti-breed specific legislation campaign. Felt pretty good about that. Poor little fellows.
If ogged had taken in a desert tortoise, his rural cred would be assured.
This reminds me that I canNOT look at petfinder because it is TOO SAD!!! Way too sad.
Edward Oggedy's Desert Tortoise/Hare
I second the vote for a pitbull. Looking at mine makes me want to work out, and they will love you with an unmatched intensity.
My mother was left in charge of a farm at the age of 16 when her father died, and had to run it for a couple of years until it could be sold. End of school for her. My father as noted above came from a cathouse.
So I feel blessed to have grown up in a house without animals; both my parents had had enough of them. Both my brother and sister got animals as soon as they left home, early. I'm the one who's happy without pets, and match my wife well that way.
I think Jews traditionally were less likely to have pets, especially dogs. Many exceptions of course, but somewhat less likely. In our circle about half the families/couples have dogs or have had them even though I don't remember any of them having dogs twenty years ago.
I am astonished at the end-of-life intensive care costs people incur with their pets these days. Usually uninsured I think.
My rural dog story is that ours was bitten by a snake. We got home from a walk (she ran free, because it was, as Teo helpfully notes, The Remotest Place On Earth) and five minutes later her head was half again as big as it had been with her eyes nearly swollen shut. Rushed to the vet (60 miles) and she turned out to be lucky because the snake had bitten her very bony head, rather than soft tissue. Some months later, our neighbor's dog was bitten on her side and died a sad, lingering death. There might be a snake/dog package solution for Moby.
There might be a snake/dog package solution for Moby.
Also a Komodo dragon option.
had forged our signatures on the standard contract and given that one to the counterparty
I'm sorry. I know I'm way too late to this, but ... this is absolutely unconscionable! Not to mention illegal, unethical, reptilian, and just nervy as hell. Jesus.
We had a horribly aggressive agent in Brooklyn who tried to pressure us into buying an apartment we couldn't afford. This was just as the housing bubble was bursting nation-wide. We resisted the pressure, and ended up buying a house in New Jersey.
But before that, we almost did buy an apt. in Brooklyn. We had put in a bid, and the seller had accepted. We were doing the paperwork, and etc., when along came a couple who had just sold a place in Manhattan. And that couple, flush with cash, offered our seller the total price of the property in cold hard green stuff (no financing). The seller dropped us in a New York minute; do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars.
Pets are nice if they belong to other people, and even then if they're cats you don't want to spend too much time in their homes since you end up all itchy and sniffly and teary. No way in hell would I ever live with a cat, and if it were a dog it would only be if the other person was willing to deal with most of the trouble. Plus, how do pet owners go on vacation? They're worse than kids that way.
I am not caught up but when did this thread take off and TURN INTO A CAT THREAD?!
I was in a paranoid schizophrenic veteran's SRO today and he had four lovely cats. I am maybe a little surprise they let you have four cats in an SRO.
All negative comments about cats are marked as incorrect. Getting a cat was my lifeline out of a period of horrible anxiety brought on by things like moving to Chicago and being in a PhD program.
That just put your rural cred in serious jeopardy, Smearcase.
And yes, I realize that docking rural cred for statements in favor of domestic animals makes zero sense whatsoever.
Which is to say that 558 gets it exactly right.
I had so very much rural cred!
I love having a dog: it's like you've invited a domesticated wolf to come in out of the cold and share your private space. Sure, a dog smells, but it smells good, the way a dog should. And remember: a dog is not only by your side, but is also on your side. Canine loyalty and fidelity, there are books and poems and (increasingly) academic articles about that.
I've got nothing against cats, mind you. But is that creature even domesticated?
I love having a dog: it's like you've invited a domesticated wolf to come in out of the cold and share your private space.
Yes, it's exactly like that. Do Not Want.
I had so very much rural cred!
Heh. Congrats on the new job, btw.
The Ginger/Mary Ann comment is right on. What I love about this discussion is that the facts aren't in dispute, eg., Dogs jump up to go out if you so much as glance at the leash: Yea: they're so eager and energetic! Nay: sit the fuck down, we're not going anywhere--thanks for making me feel like I disappointed you again.
I'm probably missing some nuance, but it seems that the dog haters are the ones who take the dog more seriously: it wants to go out, we're not out right now, I feel bad. It's following me around, it needs attention, I can't give it attention right now, I feel bad. It's so tired, but it gets up every time I move, I feel bad. (Just typing this is bringing back memories and stressing me out. I should put in a auto-trigger warning.) Dog lovers seem to be able to think: it's just a stupid animal; ignore it and it'll be grateful for whatever scraps of attention it gets.
Cats also suck, of course, but even cat lovers seem to recognize that, in their own masochistic way.
But is that creature even domesticated?
No, it's a symbiote. It can be a genuinely affectionate and loyal symbiote if its environment is conducive to becoming such, but it's never domesticated in the sense that a dog is, because it doesn't naturally live in packs, so it can't join a fake pack of human beings.
sit the fuck down, we're not going anywhere--thanks for making me feel like I disappointed you again.
It's been like 12 years since I've had dogs but the conditioning against uttering the word "walk" out loud persists to this day.
582: Even after fifteen years with DogBreath, I'm not real dog people. But I think the difference is that you're getting bent out of shape because the dog isn't getting everything it clearly wants, while a sophisticated dog owner has a much better sense of what it actually needs to be happy. Ignoring the frantic desire for a fifth walk isn't insensitivity to the dog's needs, it's more like saying no to a toddler asking to buy candy.
I used to have to walk the toddler. He didn't know what candy was.
560
He should pick a healthy, long-lived breed and then, you know, take care of things when the time comes.
By sending it to live on a farm?
440/567
dad grew up had become a cathouse
I'm so pleased that Natilo in 559 wants a dog that makes him look tough. I want one that looks intimidating enough that I'll be fine walking it alone after dark (in areas other than our current one). I'm quite fond of pets, as is the boyfriend, but we also don't time or space for more than our two cats (one per lap).
Re: vacation, you pay some nice person to come feed and play with your animals, or you board them at a kennel or the vet's office. It's not particularly expensive.
Eggplant, do your dog and cat get along well? Which did you have first?
Phrasing!
I don't really live on another planet, but I do keep trying to recolonize expressive language otherwise lost to the taboo of innuendo. So I do that semi-intentionally, semi only in the sense that I've ignored or forgotten half the words with other associations than their obvious or traditional ones. There are so many!
If you want to look intimidating, you get a pug. It says "I'm so tough that I can be protected by a dog that can't even breathe."
Pugs don't need walks. They're bug-eyed throw pillows.
My neighbor walks a pug. Or at least makes it come with him to watch him smoke.
I don't think my anti-dogness is over-responsiveness. I can't really imagine getting attached to a grody dog in the first place. When I visit someone with dogs, I'm the kind of guest who's awkwardly shoving the dog away by the head when he tries to get near my food. Hoping to be just awkward enough that the host calls the dog off.
The main problem with dogs is their heads: that's the area that generates all the gross sounds and wetness. I suppose their whole bodies smell, but it's really the head that generates the most grossness per square inch.
I do like going on dogwalks. If cats liked to be walked, I'd enjoy that.
I just repaired the dryer. The part cost as much as a used dog.
Of course a new dryer costs as much as a fancy, new dog.
Moby, do not get a terrier. They are relentless and energetic. If you only barely want a dog, don't get one of the worst kinds of dog.
Yeah, I get the complaints about the dogs that look at you constantly and needily every instant. I refused any kind of border collie for that reason. Even my friend's golden does that. But my dog surely doesn't. He's just two, but so long as he's gotten an outing, he is pleasantly asleep a lot. He gets up to troop into whatever room you just moved to. But he doesn't watch us constantly. He is companionable, not fixated.
Get some nice lab-hound mix.
He gets up to troop into whatever room you just moved to
This is incredibly annoying.
477: Dogs seem like toddlers who are always super-happy to see you.
Of course they're always happy to see you, since per 579 they are actually wolves whose though balloons would read, "Humans: owners or meat?" One way or another they're getting fed.
Except that he's quiet and genial and nice to have around. So I like him in the same room as me.
I'm sorry, Megan, you're wrong. Your dog is incredibly annoying.
Post it as OPINIONATED OGGED and she might listen to you.
What has Ogged ever convinced me of before?
I don't know your folkways anymore. Last night, in a surge of trollishness, I almost noted that Americans are the only people in the world who truly love dogs and Israel, but that seemed a little over the line.
This "Fun vs. Effort" chart (Which I believe I posted here recently) does pretty much get it right with respect to the benefits of "Your Friend's Dog." Growing up in a time and place where dogs ran loose, we never had a dog but I did enjoy the benefits of playing with some* of the neighborhood dogs.
*Of course there were also the neighborhood dogs that terrorized. As I believe I've posted here before, a non-trivial amount of my involuntary verbal output seems to be related to dogs. They apparently scarred me deeply.
"The English were already a nation of dog enthusiasts if not dog lovers..."
I just repaired the dryer. The part cost as much as a used dog
heating element? control module?
The linked quote in 611 is pretty great.
I second the vote for a pitbull...they will love you with an unmatched intensity.
Just like their bite. Which yeah, the odds are low but still, if I had a small kid I wouldn't be looking to get a breed that consistently leads the pack so to speak when it comes to fatal bites.
We maybe want one of each some day. Does this bring healing to the blog?
612: The control board. Which is separate from the module where the controls are. It was $220 new, but I got a reconditioned part for half of that.
590: My dog adores them. They've grown to tolerate him. I think it works better if you get the dog first and then get a kitten, rather than follow my lead and introduce a highly affectionate, energetic puppy to middle-aged cats.
614: I can only vouch for mine, who loves kids and puppies and is all bark and no bite with dogs he doesn't know. It's a hell of a bark, though.
We maybe want one of each some day
I can't identify the referent. Dog? Cat? Kid? Fatal bite? I'd recommend only a couple of those, both with reservations.
614: I usually argue that whatever you read about pitbulls in the news, any actual pitbull I've ever interacted with has been soppily affectionate and sweet. On the other hand, I was sitting in Buck's office yesterday when his phone rang and his boss told him that two pitbulls had just mauled and hospitalized her mother. So, I dunno.
any actual pitbull I've ever interacted with has been soppily affectionate and sweet
Generally my experience as well but they really do dominate the lists when it comes to fatalities and serious injuries. Rottweilers overrepresented as well.
If all the Rottweilers are in North Dakota, they're bound to be overrepresented in the Senate.
Generally my experience as well but they really do dominate the lists when it comes to fatalities and serious injuries. Rottweilers overrepresented as well.
But this possibly means nothing, given that when someone wants to train a dog to be violent, they always reach for those breeds.
624: I have made exactly that argument. But that means at least that it makes sense to be wary of rescue pits (and Rottweilers) because of the possibility they've been trained to be psycho before you met them.
Their sheer physical capabilities are also a likely culprit.
Also, popularity. The numbers aren't bites per 1000 dogs or some normalization. There are some seriously scary big dogs (like Presa canario) that are probably more dangerous but not as common.
617: Thanks! I sort of suspected dog then cat was a good order, but it's good to hear it's OK the other way.
617, 627.last: Cat - dog - baby can also work, in its way, though I then had the cats moved to live with a friend in hopes of making things better for the finally-diagonsed-with-an-official-breathing-disease baby. Selah has figured out how to unlock the dog's crate, which should expand the reach of their reign of adorable terror. (Selah doesn't actually get to spend time alone with the dog, especially now that we know "the dog" includes "the dog locked in the crate," even though the dog adores her as the chief giver of hugs and dropped food in the home.)
