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Seewalds 39: Piping in on the IKEA conversation


samurai_sarah

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The stuff our house has that our apartments did not that has bettered my quality of life the most:
1. The carport. Love having my own spot and never having to look for parking (or remeber what areas you can park in in different days) but even more I love it when I don’t have to get snow and ice off the car in winter and never come out to a car that has been shoveled in by the snow plow and have to be dug out. 
2. The dishwasher. We put everything we can in there and it saves both time and our minds because we both hate doing dishes and would always leave them too long and sometimes argue about who’s turn it was to do them. We also had so little room to dry them. 


My husband just got a new parking space assigned to him, a garage [emoji16]. We live in a flat and the first months we lived here we didn’t have permanent parking but parked on the street or at my in-laws housing’s garage one kilometer away. Then we got a parking space. So much life quality [emoji126] We have had that parking space for 3 years now, and last week he got a garage and we will move in July first. He’s really happy about it! Especially to not have to get snow and ice off [emoji3]
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I remember how rich and spoilt I felt when we first got an automatic garage door opener. Not having to lift and pull down the door every time we parked or left was so convenient.

We’ve since moved, and we do have a single garage but our car is big and I’m not great at parking so I’d struggle to fit it without scratching something. It gets used to store a zillion things instead, especially since we ripped down our garden shed.

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I hate garbage disposals.  I was raised by a nurse and an exec at an insurance company so I got enough graphic details of everything that could cause injury that it's a wonder I can still function.

Also still terrified of motorcycles, fireworks, escalators, and see swimming pools as nothing but liability nightmares.  

I can live without a dishwasher too as it's just usually faster and easier to do them myself, but I would kill for a house with a laundry chute.  Haven't had one since I was a kid and frankly it's been an adulthood of deprivation because of that.

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Our townhouse has a garage! My car and our junk live in it. We have plenty of parking here (which is nice) but I love having the garage. 

IF the VA gods smile on us, we'll have an actual driveway AND a garage soon. We shall see. 

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I had a dishwasher when I lived in the southwest but, since I lived alone, it took about a week to fill it. I hated the hard water etching on my glasses, even with Jet Dry, so stopped using it.

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35 minutes ago, Audrey2 said:

I had a dishwasher when I lived in the southwest but, since I lived alone, it took about a week to fill it. I hated the hard water etching on my glasses, even with Jet Dry, so stopped using it.

The water here sucks balls. Most houses have water softeners installed. We don't have one right now but that's another thing that I'll be requiring...Rufus that list is getting long!

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22 minutes ago, feministxtian said:

The water here sucks balls. Most houses have water softeners installed. We don't have one right now but that's another thing that I'll be requiring...Rufus that list is getting long!

I'm house hunting myself and need to find something by the end of May...my requirement list gets shorter by the day and I'm now down to walls and roof :) 

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2 hours ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

I hate garbage disposals.  I was raised by a nurse and an exec at an insurance company so I got enough graphic details of everything that could cause injury that it's a wonder I can still function.

Also still terrified of motorcycles, fireworks, escalators, and see swimming pools as nothing but liability nightmares.  

I can live without a dishwasher too as it's just usually faster and easier to do them myself, but I would kill for a house with a laundry chute.  Haven't had one since I was a kid and frankly it's been an adulthood of deprivation because of that.

I don't have a garbage disposal, I have a patio.  Escalators are scary. 

I still love my dishwasher more than my bathtub. 

My dream and my bucket list and I know I will have made it in life is when I have a washer and dryer in my apartment or house. 

One day. 

my mom is going for her mammogram....7 years clean ! so think good thoughts. 

 

38 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

I'm house hunting myself and need to find something by the end of May...my requirement list gets shorter by the day and I'm now down to walls and roof :) 

you will get something great. 

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1 minute ago, nst said:

my mom is going for her mammogram....7 years clean ! so think good thoughts. 

All my good thoughts headed to your mom.

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Some people living in apartments here in Brussels apparently don't have washing machines. This boggles my mind - I don't think I could live without a washing machine available 24/7 (especially with a baby....). It was bad enough when I was living in student accommodation during my Master's. The laundry room was actually right next door to my room, but you'd always have to hustle for an available machine and it was just generally such a pain. I stand in awe of anyone who manages to survive using just laundromats.

As for dishwashers, I also cannot imagine living without one. Some people seem to enjoy doing the dishes, some even see it as some form of meditative occupation, but for my husband and me.... Actually my husband's main criterion for choosing a holiday home is always whether there is a dishwasher or not. I'm ok washing dishes by hand for a limited period of time, but when we're home there is nothing as wonderful as loading the dishwasher and then sitting back to read FJ while the dishwasher does its quiet rumbling business in the background. I always feel incredibly productive when dishwasher and washing machine are both working, and I'm chilling on the sofa.

When we moved prior to LittleJuly's birth, one of the main criteria was convenience. We have a private spot in the underground garage, and the quality of life gained from not having to search for a spot and potentially having to walk far with groceries or baby after finding one, as well as having the car cool in the summer and free of ice in the winter, is remarkable.

Writing this has made me realise how lazy I am :D

Edited by SweetJuly
grammar
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17 hours ago, Glasgowghirl said:

A lot of parts of Glasgow are the same, where I am things are not quite as crazy but I have noticed since the University I am at moved their campus to the outskirts of my town prices have went up a great deal, even in areas that are not that great. And a lot of one bed flats are the same price as two bed flats. 

 

We pay £895 pcm for our 3 bed, which may seem a lot to some but for here its reasonable. We had to move out slightly from the town area as I absolutely refuse to pay over £1000 pcm for so little. I do want to move next summer, same area but to one with a driveway as it drives me nuts with first come first get! 

My eldest is at UEA, she's on her 4th year there now doing masters, and the prices there are really good for the house shares. She'll be moving to Nottingham in Sept with her other half as he's got a graduate starting there. The 1 beds are not much different in price to the 2 beds so hopefully they'll choose that as then we wont have to pay for travel lodge when we visit ?.

My bestie is from Glasgow ?

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I had no idea dishwashers were so common until reading this thread!  They've always seemed like a luxury to me, and I'd lived my whole life without one until last October. My parents have never had one either. My last roommate in New York was from Denmark and she had never gone without a dishwasher before and had no idea how to even wash dishes.  I was so shocked by that!  It was horrible, she had no idea how to do it and I basically had to re-wash all her dishes because they still had food on them in the drying rack.  It would still have never have occurred to me to use disposable dishes though. 

I like having a dishwasher now but it's not nearly the game-changer having a washing machine is. This is the first time I've ever had a washing machine in my apartment and it's so amazing to do laundry whenever I want instead of having to haul everything to the laundromat once a month and spend half a day there. 

I've never had an ice maker either, but I only use ice occasionally in the summer when it's really hot, so ice trays are fine for me. 

We do currently have 6 different bins in our kitchen for trash/recycling: paper, plastic/metal, glass with a deposit, glass without a deposit (sorted into colored/clear when we take it to the big bins), compost, and trash. The only thing that bothers me is that we have to haul the glass a 10-min walk away to recycle it, so we don't do that as often as we should. Well, and it also bothers me that not all the stores will take all the deposit bottles, so sometimes we have to go to multiple places to get rid of those. 

When I lived in New York I had a basket for paper, a bin for other recycling, a bin for trash, and I kept my compost in the freezer. And I also kept plastic bags under the sink and every few months I'd take them to a place where they could get recycled. 

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My year without a dishwasher was also the first time without laundry in my apartment since finishing undergrad. I had a laundry room in the building, but it was old coin operated machines - they had a tendency to damage clothes and keeping quarters on hand was annoying. I ended using the wash/dry//fold service from the laundromat across the street. Drop off my clothes on Monday morning, then pick them up on my way home Tuesday evening. My new/current building has a nice laundry room in the basement - plenty of modern machines, and they have contactless payment (smartphone app or prepaid card). I do 2-3 loads each week, and can get all the machines I need on Sunday mornings when I’m doing other housework - just set the timer on my phone so I know when to go down downstairs and retrieve my clothes. I do still use a laundry service when I don’t have time to do laundry, now with pick up and delivery.

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Get this. The laundromat three blocks away burned down. I send my laundry out once a month. I suppose this is another kind of savings... Because I rewear my clothes quite a lot ("except for underwear... I own a bunch)

The laundromat would be slightly cheaper if I used it multiple times. But I'd hurt my back - hauling it over there was already a dicey situation. So I do not feel like this is an awful expense.

Would love the luxury to do wash when I felt like it.

 

Edited by AliceInFundyland
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7 hours ago, IsmeWeatherwax said:

We pay £895 pcm for our 3 bed, which may seem a lot to some but for here its reasonable. We had to move out slightly from the town area as I absolutely refuse to pay over £1000 pcm for so little. I do want to move next summer, same area but to one with a driveway as it drives me nuts with first come first get!

My brother lives down south and him and his fiance were paying £1000 pcm for a 3 bed flat that had no outside space. He now manages a pub and has free accommodation for now.

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7 hours ago, lumpentheologie said:

I had no idea dishwashers were so common until reading this thread!  They've always seemed like a luxury to me, and I'd lived my whole life without one until last October. My parents have never had one either. My last roommate in New York was from Denmark and she had never gone without a dishwasher before and had no idea how to even wash dishes.  I was so shocked by that!  It was horrible, she had no idea how to do it and I basically had to re-wash all her dishes because they still had food on them in the drying rack.  It would still have never have occurred to me to use disposable dishes though. 

I'm American and have never had a dishwasher, and can't understand why I would need one unless I suddenly popped out four kids. I live alone and wouldn't make enough dishes to fill a whole load until the end of a week, and everything would be smelly and moldy by then. You also have to scrub everything anyway before loading it up.

It is nice to have a washing machine though. I suppose I could cut down to a once a month laundromat visit if I had to though, and just catch up on reading while doing the wash.

What I can't go without is a full kitchen. Not anything fancy, but I need an oven, a full-sized fridge, and some cabinets for storage. A ton of places in this area are in-law suites or basement apartments and it's illegal in my county to run a separate gas line in your house. So, many places just have a microwave cabinet, a mini fridge, and a little table. Apparently plenty of people (working adults, not college students) are fine with this? And the rent isn't much cheaper for these places than for the ones with full kitchens. I just can't imagine living solely off of snacks and microwaved meals. It's a total deal breaker for me.

Edited by nausicaa
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On 4/26/2019 at 10:11 PM, NotQuiteMotY said:

To whoever commented on wringer washers being dangerous... They are. A relative lost the tip of her finger to one.

late to the party (as usual), but i agree with you 100% on wringer washers.  on that note, i recommend that you don't look at Atlanta Goodwin's instagram*.  she has a wringer washer on her porch, and last week posted a photo through a window of her daughter using the wringer without direct supervision.  her daughter is five.  

*my instagram is a hot mess of voyeuristic fundie-watching.  i don't know many people IRL who use it, and i started mine just to follow my dog's daycare and don't post anything.  so i use insta rather than FB to follow fundies, and i never click the like button on anything they share.

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11 minutes ago, catlady said:

*my instagram is a hot mess of voyeuristic fundie-watching.  i don't know many people IRL who use it, and i started mine just to follow my dog's daycare and don't post anything.  so i use insta rather than FB to follow fundies, and i never click the like button on anything they share.

I created a second instagram account just to follow fundies, and I only access it from my computer...weirdly I end up checking it most days whereas the one with my actual friends is like once a week. 

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1 hour ago, nausicaa said:

I'm American and have never had a dishwasher, and can't understand why I would need one unless I suddenly popped out four kids. I live alone and wouldn't make enough dishes to fill a whole load until the end of a week, and everything would be smelly and moldy by then. You also have to scrub everything anyway before loading it up.

 

I agree.  I’ve always had one and rarely use it even though all my kids are still home.

To me it’s more work to rinse everything, arrange it in there and then unload it later. So much easier for me to just wash and put away - no lingering task for later.

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34 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

I agree.  I’ve always had one and rarely use it even though all my kids are still home.

To me it’s more work to rinse everything, arrange it in there and then unload it later. So much easier for me to just wash and put away - no lingering task for later.

We don't prerinse anything and it's just two of us. I used to feel the same way - what's the point? When I lived with my parents we had to rinse everything and dry/polish it when it came out. But the dishwasher I have now doesn't require prerinse, and the only thing still wet when it finishes is the fake tupperwear, which I just let air dry on the counter. 

We do cook a lot though, so there's usually a load every two days. We put everything we can in there - Nalgene bottles, pots, pans, dishes, lids, cat dish, bird dish, racks, etc. And we go through a lot of glasses. You can't put a glass down in this house, it will end up in the dishwasher. (Not me, the SO, he's crazy like that) 

 

The best thing about this house, for me, is the washer/dryer right outside my bedroom. I hated hauling laundry up and down stairs. I never even realized how annoying it was until I didn't have to do that anymore. Or having it in the kitchen on the other side of the house. 90%of the laundry comes from the bedroom. 

My friend has a washer/dryer in their master suite and in their kitchen, which seems excessive. But it was also nice when house sitting. 

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The houses we're looking at all have the laundry on the 2nd floor. No hauling clothes up and down the stairs. I can't haul the clothes (my back won't cooperate after my car accident) so Mr. Xtian has to do it. In one apartment we lived in, it didn't have a washer and dryer so we had to go to the laundromat. That shit SUCKS ass in the hot-ass summer. The upside was we'd be done in about an hour and a half since we could use multiple machines. The downside was well...desert summer. YUK! 

This place has a washer and dryer in it. Its a nice place but would really need some upgrades to justify the rent we're paying. Oh well, it's worth it for the garage and security. Its gated w/a security guard instead of just a key pad. 

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Prerinsing is not recommended. A repairman once told me contemporary dishwashers work better if you don't. Obviously you would remove uneaten food.

Here's more information on that.

Edited by backyard sylph
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1 hour ago, Maggie Mae said:

And we go through a lot of glasses. You can't put a glass down in this house, it will end up in the dishwasher. (Not me, the SO, he's crazy like that) 

It sounds like we have the same partner! For a man that leaves his socks all over the house he sure is right on top of the glass situation. 

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We renovated our apartment last year and invested in some "luxuries" which I'm mostly glad that we did. The most important thing: washer/dryer (it's a combo machine because we don't have a lot of room in our bathroom). We only own two sets of bedding now- you pull one off, pop it in the machine and cca 3 hours later it comes out clean and dry. It's great. A walk-in shower: something you can definitely live without but it's great to have if you are already remodeling everything. If it has a glass wall- we found it most helpful to keep a squeegee at hand and wipe it down in 5-6 strokes after every showering. It takes about 10 seconds but greatly reduces the effort to clean the glass afterwards. A dishwasher: there are only two of us (plus the cats) but we manage to fill it up almost every day. No pre-rinsing and everything comes out dry. We do cook every day and Mr. also goes through glasses like candy. A pyrolytic oven- I only tried it once so far and it did burn off the grease quite well. I'm happy that I don't have to apply those heavy-duty degreasers in the same place where we prepare our food. A regular sized fridge for food and a small fridge inside the kitchen island for drinks. That seemed a bit excessive at first but honestly it's great. A lot of times during the day you only want to choose a cold drink without looking at all the yummy food at the same time. It helps to mentally separate thirst from hunger. A recycling trash divider: Mr. is a recycling freak so we separate plastic, paper, bottles, metal, glass.. The city system of having it taken away is not yet on a very high level but we do have a "recycling yard" near our place so we pile the bags up, store them in the trunk of the car (not the most elegant solution by any means) and dump them when we're driving by.

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When I moved into my current apartment I had never lived anywhere with or knew anyone with a garbage disposal, and my apartment had one. I didn't use it for a super long time because I really didn't understand the point, and I still hardly ever use it. I'm also semi-terrified that I will lose a finger to it someday...

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