Not OT -- kitchen work

Mary, before you get into the next major mess, please re-think the Corian. Maybe you are a careful and gentle cook and that will be fine - but a friend of mine's son slid a hot pot over onto her Corian counter and burned it. Badly. Another dropped a lightbulb (don't remember if she was changing it or merely getting a new one from a top cabinet shelf). It cracked the Corian. It's been many years since those accidents and we'll hope that the product has been improved. Just wanted to give you a heads up. Tell us about the venter hood. Did you choose a great beauty or one big enough to really work or what? Polly

Mary, We just redid the horizontal surfaces also, but not the ceiling. We went out looking for Corian and found it was more expensive than the natural products. Ended up choosing Quartz. It is a composite of quartz chips of rather high percentage and a man made filler. Been in use for 3/4 months and I love it. Does not have to be sealed, wipes clean as a slate and can handle all kinds of hot or sticky stuff. Anna Belle in Palm Bay

So, I got curious reading you guys comments on counter tops. From what I read most solid surface manufacturers have a 10-15 year warranty on their products. Worth looking in to. Corian looks to be very repairable. We've been house hunting and I swear anything but crummy old tile with wide dark ugly grout lines would look good to me. Good luck to Mary with the remodel. Kitchens remodels are a lot of money and work and mess! Taria

Mary, before you get into the next major mess, please re-think the Corian. Maybe you are a careful and gentle cook and that will be fine - but a friend of mine's son slid a hot pot over onto her Corian counter and burned it. Badly. Another dropped a lightbulb (don't remember if she was changing it or merely getting a new one from a top cabinet shelf). It cracked the Corian. It's been many years since those accidents and we'll hope that the product has been improved. Just wanted to give you a heads up. Tell us about the venter hood. Did you choose a great beauty or one big enough to really work or what? Polly

Well, I've had solid surface counter tops -- not Corian but one of the copycats made by one of the other counter mfgrs. -- in the house since we bought it twelve years ago. Never had a problem with hot stuff or marring, etc. Sure, breakable things dropped on it tend to break but there has never been any effect to the counter top. I chose solid surface counter tops because I liked the fact that it cleans easily and nicks & discoloration can be easily sanded & buffed out. I'm paying for it now. We've decided the main reason the house hasn't sold is because of the counter tops -- they are not the highly, currently desirable (and hated) granite -- YUCK!!! Eight or ten other houses in our subdivision have all been put on the market since ours (back in mid-April). All of them sold within a few months while ours is still just sitting there! The only common difference is that ALL of the other houses had granite counter tops and ours has the solid surface! DH took the house off the market and the hated, nasty granite counter tops will be installed in a few weeks. I'm sooooo glad I'm not living there and don't have to take care of granite counter tops! CiaoMeow >^;;^<

PAX, Tia Mary /\___/\

THANK YOU everybody for the information about countertop materials! I haven't made any decisions yet, and will definitely look into the quartz!

Now, about flooring . . . My house is 120 years old, kind of "bouncy", and not a good candidate for any sort of stone or tile. I've been thinking about some sort of top quality vinyl. Your advice?

Neighbor has been in her new home just one year. She mentioned Sunday that she needed to empty her counters and do something - maybe it was clean and glaze? Emptying her counters is going to be slightly more difficult than you can imagine. She has lotsa good stuff. Polly

"Roberta" What does that mean: taking care of granite? All I do for mine is wipe

Well, special cleaning & surfacing & sealing products are now made for granite. If you go to the home improvement store, they have a whole shelf stocked specifically for products to take care of granite. Besides regular cleaning with something like warm soapy water, this special cleaner is recommended to be used every 3 or 4 months. When it needs to be "resurfaced" -- once or twice a year, you're supposed to use something different -- not sure if it has alcohol or not. You "prep" the granite with this stuff and then finish it with a different product. Wayyy to much work for kitchen counter tops IMNSHO! Now, whether or not most people actually do that with granite is anybody's guess, but enough do that it keeps the cleaning product companies in business making the supplies!!! With the solid surface counter tops, I use warm soapy water. If there was a stubborn stain, I put a little soft scrub on it and that was it! No special products, no required special cleaning or preparation of resurfacing. CiaoMeow >^;;^<

PAX, Tia Mary /\___/\

DS was happy that her granite doesn't show dirt or messes. That kind of turned me off on darker colored granite. She is a real sweetie but not known for her cleaning skills or interest. ; ) Taria

What does that mean: taking care of granite? All I do for mine is wipe with a sponge. Maybe add a little dishwashing liquid if it looks really dirty. And once a month or so, I blast it with the steam cleaner to kill off anything the sponge missed. The only thing that sometimes annoys: the mottled colors make it hard to see the dirt! What am I failing to do that should be done? So far, it has been absolutely indestructible despite DH's best efforts. Roberta in D

Ohh, you are so right about dark granite. I asked our cabinetmaker to give me one, just one, granite countertop on the little cabinet that sits to the right of the stove. Just an experiment to see if I liked it and very easy to replace. The piece of granite he put there is quite a beauty but it is black with all sorts of happy sparkles in it. It is grand for hot skillets and such but I have to get down eyelevel with the light just right to be sure that it is really clean. Polly

"Taria" DS was happy that her granite doesn't show dirt or messes. That kind

Howdy!

Another quilter's house makeover: I love it!

Kardean; won't have anything else for vinyl. Definitely top quality.

We got old fashioned linoleum in our kitchen and really, really love it. Not off gassing of nasty chemicals like from vinyl. But still easy care, comes in about 100 colors and any pattern you can think up they can do with it. Very comfortable underfoot too.

I got a REAL hood, and since the stove is on an island the hood hangs from above. It was made by Broan, and has 5 built-in lights and 3 blower settings. It is supposed to automatically kick itself up to a higher blower level if it senses too much heat from below. It can be vented or not vented, and if not vented it recirculates the air after cleaning it with the 3 regular filters and a special charcoal filter. The charcoal filter can be replaced when necessary -- they estimate every 2 or 3 years -- and the 3 regular filters pop out and go through the dishwasher. The hood will fit with 8' ceilings or 9' ceilings, but with special-order extenders can hang from higher ceilings. You can have the bottom edge of the hood 22" to 36" above the stovetop. It does take solid overhead bracing added to the studs in the ceiling to hold it securely, and it does take two men to hang it. Appearance- wise, it is stainless steel on the underneath surface that faces the stove, but the rest is brushed stainless with rounded rather than sharp corners. I am very happy with it, which is good because it was NOT inexpensive.

Atta girl, Mary. A thing of beauty and a joy forever. When I have a load in the dishwasher but only the top rack, I take the toaster oven rack, the glass liner from the microwave and the vent hood's filters and give them all a good cleaning in the dw. Polly

I got a REAL hood, and since the stove is on an island the hood hangs from above. It was made by Broan, and has 5 built-in lights and 3 blower settings. It is supposed to automatically kick itself up to a higher blower level if it senses too much heat from below. It can be vented or not vented, and if not vented it recirculates the air after cleaning it with the 3 regular filters and a special charcoal filter. The charcoal filter can be replaced when necessary -- they estimate every 2 or 3 years -- and the 3 regular filters pop out and go through the dishwasher. The hood will fit with 8' ceilings or 9' ceilings, but with special-order extenders can hang from higher ceilings. You can have the bottom edge of the hood 22" to 36" above the stovetop. It does take solid overhead bracing added to the studs in the ceiling to hold it securely, and it does take two men to hang it. Appearance- wise, it is stainless steel on the underneath surface that faces the stove, but the rest is brushed stainless with rounded rather than sharp corners. I am very happy with it, which is good because it was NOT inexpensive.