Slar the preview button, we've found, only works on the threads limited to one page. So on the mighty Thread Central at 366 pages and counting it is pretty much useless.

Slart -
To preview, just copy your post, hit the preview button, paste it in the new response box and hit preview again. You'll then see your preview... when you're happy, just hit submit. Hope this helps.

I'm waiting till I find some decent used cabinets for my little kitchen.

Hardly, front page news, but there it was today. Couple sued for installing ‘ugly’ IKEA kitchen

Is it just me, or is Don Draper talking to me about Comcast exFinity ??
This has been driving me crazy. Maybe it's just a sound-alike...

I am looking at DSW for some good cold weather boots but instead I am sidetracked by these... Is it close enough to summer yet?

I have some thoughts on IKEA kitchens... but I need to get back to cooking dinner. Sorry, I am a tease.

Straw that article is bizarre. A couple rented a hotel room, and then were supposed to renovate it while they stayed there? And they put in an IKEA kitchen? And the hotel owner is suing because he thinks it's ugly? Methinks there is some info missing from this story!

LiG,

Where in NYC are you? I'm planning on bumming around Manhattan for most of the day Saturday, so if you're close I could stop by to give you a hand. =]

I'm at 192nd and Bennett Avenue, which is just off the 190th Street stop on the A train. Send me an email if you're able to stop by, and I can give you more specific directions. Any help would be appreciated.

archi, thanks i always wondered about that. cause i could never seem to get it to work for me on TC, which is one of the only places i ever try to.

LIG i would stop by if in NY.
Nite all

Hot shoes, manta. I'll email you again about the trip up, but not til tomorrow, I'm whipped.

We had Ikea maple cabinets in Philly and loved them. No problems with flimsy legs, and we had granite and Fireslate tops. Now we have Kraftmaid, and I'd say they're a bit better quality - but I still like Ikea.

Manta... Gramercy Park Hotel is a hotel but it is unique that the hotel has extended-stay "apartments" like many other luxury hotels in New York City.

Some hotels like the Waldorf-Astoria and the Plaza have had individuals stay in them for twenty or thirty years. Many times, these unique hotels will cut special deals for people if they agree to stay for a period of time and pay up front.

So, while they are hotels, some of them are treated like motor lodges of the rich and famous.

You could also think of it this way... Where else can you get a several thousand foot apartment with maid and linen service, an answering service, a 'personal' chef... without paying utilities... that's fully furnished at the luxury level?

$25,000 a month is kind of a bargain.

How these aerial jumper skiiers do it is totally beyond me! These guys are ridiculous! They defy the laws of physics!

How is everyone doing? The young lady that was supposed to train me at the gym tonight quit two days ago, lol. I did work out extra hard though! Then I went and had a beer :)

Honest to god this aerials sh*t is bananas...

nam, atp:

if you copy before hitting preview, then when it doesn't preview, past and hit preview again - it works.

it's a little weird.

HA!!! Exactly what I said, but you made it so much easier to understand.

Manta - Nice shoes... but how does one actually walk in heels that high? Never been able to do it without looking like I'm about to fall flat on my face when I walk.

LiG - I'll probably stop by sometime in the late morning or early afternoon (unless all this snow in NJ prevents me!)

So I have to click preview twice before it actually works?

and melt, re: PeaceCorps

Yes they would have let me put student loans on hold because it is a government gig however, if I remember correctly only federal student loans (so not if you had them through a bank etc).

Which was fine in my case cause all mine were federal.

However, the wrinkle for me was that some debt from putting my self through grad school took the form of credit cards etc.

Mostly from those times when i had to fix my car or pay utility bills etc and didn't have any money.

So it was understandable but disappointing.

Morning all

Manta, I have a pair of shoes nearly identical to those, but the heel is stiletto, and they're electric blue. Husband hates them, but I feel like a million bucks in them.

Had my teacher training orientation thing last night. I forgot how lame 3 hours in a class room can be. Ugh. Gonna get started on online courses though.

Morning everyone else.

Plug for my new thread!

HOME STAR. Check it.

jk3hl:

Send me an email or give me a call before you head over, just to make sure there will still be work to do once you arrive. I've got one person who is coming to help for sure, and two other people who are more tentative. If everybody shows up, then this whole operation should move pretty quickly. (The biggest impediment might be the massive snow bank in front of my apartment building.) My email is dscole312 (at) mac.com.

I'm slightly nervous about the highway conditions through the mountains in Pennsylvania, but I guess I'll deal with that when the time comes. This would normally be a one-day drive, but I may end up spending the night on the road somewhere and breaking it up into two days.

Be safe, LiG.

I gotta give props to the poppa docs.

I didn't write it but those it was cool how the gave a shout out to archinect. Hi *melt feels like FOREVER since we've spoken... *withdrawl

Gin careful in the snow... although that whole sequence sounds like a horror movie or maybe son of Sam

Sounds good, LiG.

Yea man, that drive will not be fun. I made the same drive from Cinci to NYC just after Christmas (when it was snowy, like it is now), and I had some 'uh-oh' moments up on those windy mountain roads.

I've driven the Pennsylvania Turnpike enough times that I could probably do it blindfolded, but this will be my first time using it in the dead of winter. I've been checking the traffic cams and the pavement looks pretty clear (as of today), and I can continue checking via my iPhone. Assuming the weather forecast doesn't turn surprisingly bad, I should be okay. My last time driving in winter weather was in a subcompact rental car over a 14,000-foot mountain pass in Colorado during a snow storm, so this should be okay. :)

please don't check the weather on your iPhone whilst driving in the dead of winter@ night. I'm just saying... I'm an island boy and even to me that sounds well... you know.

Sarah thanks for the news about my win... I'm sure it'll raise a few eyebrows

yeah montagneux I know about the live-in apartments -- but who would rent an apartment to a couple and require them to renovate it?! That's the part that doesn't make sense -- why would you trust some random person to renovate your capital for you? And why would that be a condition of the renting? It's just odd. Of course you're going to end up with something you don't like -- somebody else is renovating your capital investment.

Elle oh Elle.

I have heard of other similar disagreements.

In one old "college" apartment I had...

We were using oil paints in the kitchen. Well, I wasn't. My roommates were.

They had gotten oil paint... EVERYWHERE. And they let it dry! Well, they seemed to have all disappeared instantly when summer came... leaving to clean and fix up.

Well, needless to say... I tried using the all natural varnish remover the get the oil pant off. It got everything off except the oil paint-- the cabinet clear coat and the cabinet stain.

I was like SHIT. I can just restain them once I remove the oil paint!

So, I moved to more drastic chemicals... but those just bled the oil pants.

So, then I went with a razor blade. When I realized I had take off part of the cabinet with the razor... I was like "Shit, I just ruined expensive cabinets! And my inspection is like 18 hours away!"

Needless to say, I went to home depot and bought IRON ON VENEER.

And I spent the next 12 hours ironing on wood to these cabinets.

So, the clear coat and stain was literally drying when the inspection team came in...

They stopped, looked into the kitchen and said "Wow! These cabinets in here look really great! Better than the rest of the other apartments we've seen today!"

And no one, except, archinect will ever know that those great looking cabinets are a facade of a bad renter.

façade of a bad renter - sounds like the title of a artsy film

8.8 earthquake in Chile last night. Tsunami has already hit parts of that coast, and there's a warning in Hawaii, Australia, Japan, etc. Be on the lookout in California, Oregon, Washington. Never a dull moment in the Pacific Rim.

Actually, I was thinking it would be more like a horror movie.

So did that earthquake have anything to do with the one in Japan? I couldn't find that info anywhere.

we are just getting warnings of tsunami now. its on every channel. waves 2meters high coming into tokyo.

that chilean earthquake had me expecting horror too, at first, but seems the country was not hit as badly as 8.8 magnitude sounds.

wtf? And now Argentina with a 6.3 that was caused by the ground waves... of the one in Chile

Hey guys, sorry for double-dipping (I made a thread about this just now), but I thought I'd ask any Thread Central'ers that aren't looking at the rest of the threads.


I had a fast question about methods for finishing a basement with concrete masonry (CMU) walls. What options are there, exactly, in terms of finishing this kind of surface? I'm really only familiar with two...

Drywall
-either attaching on furring strips or by putting up a stud wall

Stucco/Smooth Plaster


Are there other alternatives for a space people will live in? What's the cheapest option? I guess I need to weigh appearance versus insulating effectiveness versus cost.

jk3hl when you say stucco/smooth plaster are you referring to cement/sand render? You could also use a trowel finish that's typically use for exterior finishes

What about doing some sort of foam board with fabric - that'd be cheep. I've also seen paneling used instead of drywall, but since we don't have basements here, I don't know what you'd do about moisture in either case. Cold sweaty walls would be gross.

foam board and fabric is not a good idea...as foam board is a combustible material. The foam board would have to be covered with gypsum board or plaster.

So I think I may have gotten a freelance gig of sorts. A friend just bought a condo in the up and coming Over the Rhine neighborhood and is going to be doing some major renovation to it. I offered my services to her, as all I've been doing lately is a bunch of CD production, and am craving to stretch my creative muscle. Not sure how far it will go, but I'm kinda excited. Keep your fingers crossed. I've never done residential, it could be very interesting.

Combustible smustible.

i might go to tokyo soon for a study trip :S

for basement walls: mud mixed with dung and hay. very rustic.

Just got an email from a potential client saying he "can't afford" our fee - what he wants to pay us is 2% on a $700,000 house. Yeah right.

lb, I'd say you're probably better off without him anyway then. When their numbers are so far off to start with, they'll kick and scream about every little thing throughout. Not worth it.

Hm, speaking of which, I have to do final billing for my big project this week, as it proofs wednesday and completes the run the following day. 15,000 copies, wooooo! Next one is much more manageable, but the fee is both lesser and delayed as I'm helping a friend with a start-up business. I've been having fun sketching the logos though... I'm delving into the world of custom ligatures which is a lot more fun that I ever realized!

Exactly, copper. He has no understanding of the level of effort we put into our projects. That fee is fine for someone just cranking out a floor plan and some elevations, but we do a gesamtkunstwerk, and he's seen enough of our work to know the difference!

Oh well. we ARE better off without it.

as long as you don't mention gesamtkunstwerk to the client, LB. I am not sure i would want to pay for that either ;-) sounds scary.

2% is crazy though in any case. total rubbish. i think 12% is cutting it fine in our office.

We typically get 10%, jump, and had offered a discount from that to this particular client already if they agreed to work with the contractor we wanted. No kickbacks, just the confidence that we could keep our drawings a bit looser since this contractor knows what we expect, how to price it, and how to build it.

Yeah, I knew gesamtkunstwerk would be shorthand language to this crowd - I'd never use that word with a client!

Lb, I'm going to need a definItion for that, and it is FAR from shorthand. That is one long crazy word.

We watched food Inc Friday night. I blogged about it.

Copper, I love doing the graphic work for our company. Granted, I'm no pro, but it's better than my mom could do.

happy monday all!

Morning all,

This weekend was one of those where i actually feel more rested Monday morning not less.

I don't know what standard fee is LB but 2% seems crazy low.

As for your use of gesamtkunstwerk high props to you.

Sarah if i remember correctly it translates to something like "total work" as in complete from top to bottom.

and ****melt sounds promising. Isn't residential where most architects get started. House for the in-laws etc?

Be sure to keep us updated.

700k and they want a 75% discount? they'll get what they deserve.

it would be funny if you did tell him that he was paying for the gestalt, though, LB;-)

sarah, it was something that was common in bauhaus inspired archi-schools back in the olden days. faded out in the 90's. i always liked it because it was something i could say when i danced like sprockets

oh, those were the days.