I think it was Amazon that was experimenting with those food stores that have no cashiers. I read about it a few years ago when they opened up a few to test the market. I believe you needed an Amazon account and a credit card to use the shop. I've not read anymore after that initial experiment and those stores are not in the news either. Thus I don't know if Amazon abandoned the project or if it's still in the testing phase. It seemed like a great idea, but if the prices were high I can also see why it might not be widely accepted.
One of the cool things about Schnucks is that you can shop there without actually being in the store. I believe they have an app so that you can set up a wish list and then some store employee does all the shopping for you. This is tied to a home delivery service that is not free. In fact I don't recall the pricing but when I looked into it I could get close to a full tank of gas for that home delivery fee. At first I thought they did this only for the pandemic, but apparently it's still a thing. You can also shop from home and go pick up your stuff at the door. They roped off a section of the parking lot for those Internet buyers and those parking spaces are always empty. So, I'm not sure how successful online shopping is at Schnucks. WallyWorld also has same day home delivery for a high price. I see it advertised when I shop them online and they won't ship an item. But, they will deliver it.
Major Announcement
Forum rules
Post a new topic to begin a chat.
Any topic is acceptable, and topic drift is permissible.
Post a new topic to begin a chat.
Any topic is acceptable, and topic drift is permissible.
Re: Major Announcement
I couldn't remember the name of the grocery store yesterday, it is Amazon Fresh, who also owns Whole Foods and both carry about the same things, but Whole Foods has more organics. Amazon Fresh is slightly cheaper than Whole Foods also.
Apparently there was some problem with their overhead scanning system, so now you need a Schmartz-Fone in order to shop there, and YOU have to scan the QR code on each item yourself, or if it don't have a QR code, you have to hold the Bar Code facing up until the item appears on your Schmartz-Fone screen.
You can shop the same way at Whole Foods also!
You can order on-line also, and if you buy over 150 dollars worth, delivery is free.
Someone said it used to be only 35 bucks for prime members to get free delivery, but that didn't last.
Delivery charge for non-prime members is 50 bucks, for prime members 30 bucks, if under the limit for free delivery.
You can order on-line from WalMart for pick-up at the store, but they are always out of so many things, if you don't want substitutions, then when you get there, they only have a few of the things you ordered. So we don't use it!
Apparently there was some problem with their overhead scanning system, so now you need a Schmartz-Fone in order to shop there, and YOU have to scan the QR code on each item yourself, or if it don't have a QR code, you have to hold the Bar Code facing up until the item appears on your Schmartz-Fone screen.
You can shop the same way at Whole Foods also!
You can order on-line also, and if you buy over 150 dollars worth, delivery is free.
Someone said it used to be only 35 bucks for prime members to get free delivery, but that didn't last.
Delivery charge for non-prime members is 50 bucks, for prime members 30 bucks, if under the limit for free delivery.
You can order on-line from WalMart for pick-up at the store, but they are always out of so many things, if you don't want substitutions, then when you get there, they only have a few of the things you ordered. So we don't use it!
Re: Major Announcement
My youngest granddaughter spent four years at Truman University right here in Missouri getting a degree in data science. I know because she got me a sweat shirt from the school store to prove it. LOL When she graduated and started looking for a job in tune with her education she was shocked to discover that she did not qualify for most of the jobs. Why not? Well, all the job openings for database managers required some knowledge in SQL, and she never had to take a class or learn SQL. To my way of thinking that is a freshman required course for anybody pursuing a degree in data science, but not so at Truman.
When Grace, my granddaughter, was home on leave from college she had a part time job at a local grocery similar to Schnucks but in the Chicago suburb I moved from. They loved her and promoted her to manager before she graduated. In fact they treated her special hoping she would stay on after she got her degree, but her future husband landed a government job in DC so that they were not staying in the old neighborhood. They married and relocated and the first place Grace went looking for work was at ... Whole Foods. She decided to abandon databases and stick with the grocery trade. To everyone's amazement she was hired as a manager in spite of the fact she didn't have a business degree, but she DID HAVE management experience. She prepared a speech for that interview because she knew it was going to be questioned, and voila. You might think that four years of Truman University was wasted, but it was not. She would not have been hired without a degree. Any degree, apparently.
So Grace is now working for Jeff Besos and has no need to know SQL. Unfortunately she lives in Maryland and I am not in contact with her at all. I guess she is doing well but I would be interested in a manager's view of modern day shopping. Maybe I'll get to see her around Christmas. I can ask her then.
When Grace, my granddaughter, was home on leave from college she had a part time job at a local grocery similar to Schnucks but in the Chicago suburb I moved from. They loved her and promoted her to manager before she graduated. In fact they treated her special hoping she would stay on after she got her degree, but her future husband landed a government job in DC so that they were not staying in the old neighborhood. They married and relocated and the first place Grace went looking for work was at ... Whole Foods. She decided to abandon databases and stick with the grocery trade. To everyone's amazement she was hired as a manager in spite of the fact she didn't have a business degree, but she DID HAVE management experience. She prepared a speech for that interview because she knew it was going to be questioned, and voila. You might think that four years of Truman University was wasted, but it was not. She would not have been hired without a degree. Any degree, apparently.
So Grace is now working for Jeff Besos and has no need to know SQL. Unfortunately she lives in Maryland and I am not in contact with her at all. I guess she is doing well but I would be interested in a manager's view of modern day shopping. Maybe I'll get to see her around Christmas. I can ask her then.
Re: Major Announcement
Sounds like Debi's niece who had 7 or 8 years of college, degrees in a few major things, and was turned down for many jobs due to some missing degree in something none of the schools she went to taught at all.
A lot of places are like that, despite my 18 years of taking college classes, I never did so to get a degree. Figured I wouldn't need one for our family business, or my own businesses. I went mainly to get knowledge, not a sheet of paper. Doing it this way as an Auditor, I only paid like 15 bucks per class which was normally over a thousand bucks per class.
But then ended up getting promoted to Engineering jobs TWICE at the places I worked.
A few months back, on the way home from a doctors appointment where I couldn't eat ahead of time, I stopped at a downscale restaurant on the way home. I sat at the counter and right next to me was the driver of the Food Lion tractor-trailer, and we struck up a conversation. I told him about a couple of the trucks I drove that had strange shift patterns, but my favorites were the 15 & 18 speed Road Rangers. He was old enough he had driven a couple of those himself, and after he learned how long ago it was I was a driver, he told me they don't make them like they used to, the new trucks are all much easier to drive, and a whole lot less work. After he explained their transmission and the way they are shifted now, I doubt I could even drive one of them anymore, not even if my health was good. He wasn't talking about automatics either, the ones you still shift have a lot of electronics in the way you split the axles, and in some cases, how you shift gears. He said some of the newest trucks are actually idiot proof so you can't land in a wrong gear, hi hi.
A few months before that, I got to sit in the cab of a large combine. The darn things are almost all controlled by computers now. You don't shift them anymore, you just push buttons, hi hi. And the inside of those things look like a cockpit for a jet airliner, hi hi. Several computer screens for all the different functions the contraption does.
Ever since I saw that, I've been watching a few harvesting video's, and those machines are amazing now, even the small ones.
A lot of places are like that, despite my 18 years of taking college classes, I never did so to get a degree. Figured I wouldn't need one for our family business, or my own businesses. I went mainly to get knowledge, not a sheet of paper. Doing it this way as an Auditor, I only paid like 15 bucks per class which was normally over a thousand bucks per class.
But then ended up getting promoted to Engineering jobs TWICE at the places I worked.
A few months back, on the way home from a doctors appointment where I couldn't eat ahead of time, I stopped at a downscale restaurant on the way home. I sat at the counter and right next to me was the driver of the Food Lion tractor-trailer, and we struck up a conversation. I told him about a couple of the trucks I drove that had strange shift patterns, but my favorites were the 15 & 18 speed Road Rangers. He was old enough he had driven a couple of those himself, and after he learned how long ago it was I was a driver, he told me they don't make them like they used to, the new trucks are all much easier to drive, and a whole lot less work. After he explained their transmission and the way they are shifted now, I doubt I could even drive one of them anymore, not even if my health was good. He wasn't talking about automatics either, the ones you still shift have a lot of electronics in the way you split the axles, and in some cases, how you shift gears. He said some of the newest trucks are actually idiot proof so you can't land in a wrong gear, hi hi.
A few months before that, I got to sit in the cab of a large combine. The darn things are almost all controlled by computers now. You don't shift them anymore, you just push buttons, hi hi. And the inside of those things look like a cockpit for a jet airliner, hi hi. Several computer screens for all the different functions the contraption does.
Ever since I saw that, I've been watching a few harvesting video's, and those machines are amazing now, even the small ones.
Re: Major Announcement
Reading your description of modern day trucks and farm combines reminded me of the story I heard about Panasonic's television factory in Japan. It was back in the days when computers and robots were first being introduced to a manufacturing operation. The idea was to automate as much as possible so that human error would essential be designed out of the process. The assumption was that machines do not make errors. LOL It sounds funny but that is the idea Panasonic used to make televisions. They made them in a totally automated factory and did not bother to test them at the end of the line. The story was at the time there was only one person in that factory needed to load the parts onto the machines, and they were working on ways to eliminate that person. I don't know now true that story was, but it does sound typical of automation.
I've seen a few modern day farm shows on Public Television. One of them was in Kansas City and all aquaponics. There was a lot of automation getting the plants started and harvested, but people were still needed during the growing phase. They showed people picking weeds from the trays and emptying buckets of nutrients into troughs, but that could all be automated as well. So, not only can the farmer be eliminated from the food growing business, but also the soil can be replaced with liquids.
We are almost there with self driving vehicles on public roads. Once that becomes reliable and safe many deliveries will be performed by robots and self driving vehicles. The USPS, I do believe, is on that track and experimenting already in some places. They also have some amazing looking droids that could pass for humans if you were far enough away from them. I can see those types of bots doing things like waitress work and certain home health care visits. I used to think it's many decades off, but all these intelligent robots already exist and are being trained. Truly amazing it is.
I've seen a few modern day farm shows on Public Television. One of them was in Kansas City and all aquaponics. There was a lot of automation getting the plants started and harvested, but people were still needed during the growing phase. They showed people picking weeds from the trays and emptying buckets of nutrients into troughs, but that could all be automated as well. So, not only can the farmer be eliminated from the food growing business, but also the soil can be replaced with liquids.
We are almost there with self driving vehicles on public roads. Once that becomes reliable and safe many deliveries will be performed by robots and self driving vehicles. The USPS, I do believe, is on that track and experimenting already in some places. They also have some amazing looking droids that could pass for humans if you were far enough away from them. I can see those types of bots doing things like waitress work and certain home health care visits. I used to think it's many decades off, but all these intelligent robots already exist and are being trained. Truly amazing it is.
Re: Major Announcement
I took a tour of the Chrysler Plant during their open house event after they built the new building.
One of the welding machines putting a large part on the body went haywire while we were there.
Instead of welding in the spots it was supposed to, it moved forward by about 2 inches, poking holes in the body part it was supposed to be putting on. Of course someone was there and shut it down, and workers were scrambling, because this incident stopped the entire line until they cleared that car off the line.
But it was something to see when all was running smoothly, they could churn out cars super fast.
Farmers even have automated weed picking now too, if they can afford to buy all that extra technology.
Before all the big monster sized farms came along. Different farmers would buy different machines, and then at the time they were needed, they would all head around to each farm, one after the other to do the job that machine was designed to do.
That was about the only way the small farmer could compete with the big farms. But then the big farms got bigger equipment mostly automated, and more land to do. I don't doubt those big farms have over a billion dollars in equipment to work those farms.
Over in Nashville, TN, they have an automated bus that makes its rounds to all the stores every hour. It is just following a pre-set route, over and over again. The same as the people driven trolleys have done for years. They may have more than one by now though, since the first one worked out OK for them.
Debi's son lives in Nashville, but doesn't go downtown much, except to the courthouse when he has a case that requires him to attend. But then he has a special parking area inside so has no need to take a bus. But he's been behind that automated bus a few times. Says it is a royal pain to get behind, because it stops at every single stop, even if nobody is getting on our off. So it can use some improvements to stop it from doing that, somehow.
One of the welding machines putting a large part on the body went haywire while we were there.
Instead of welding in the spots it was supposed to, it moved forward by about 2 inches, poking holes in the body part it was supposed to be putting on. Of course someone was there and shut it down, and workers were scrambling, because this incident stopped the entire line until they cleared that car off the line.
But it was something to see when all was running smoothly, they could churn out cars super fast.
Farmers even have automated weed picking now too, if they can afford to buy all that extra technology.
Before all the big monster sized farms came along. Different farmers would buy different machines, and then at the time they were needed, they would all head around to each farm, one after the other to do the job that machine was designed to do.
That was about the only way the small farmer could compete with the big farms. But then the big farms got bigger equipment mostly automated, and more land to do. I don't doubt those big farms have over a billion dollars in equipment to work those farms.
Over in Nashville, TN, they have an automated bus that makes its rounds to all the stores every hour. It is just following a pre-set route, over and over again. The same as the people driven trolleys have done for years. They may have more than one by now though, since the first one worked out OK for them.
Debi's son lives in Nashville, but doesn't go downtown much, except to the courthouse when he has a case that requires him to attend. But then he has a special parking area inside so has no need to take a bus. But he's been behind that automated bus a few times. Says it is a royal pain to get behind, because it stops at every single stop, even if nobody is getting on our off. So it can use some improvements to stop it from doing that, somehow.
Re: Major Announcement
My understanding is that people recognition is the biggest hurdle for automated cars. Distinguishing a mailbox from a human isn't too difficult but when that human is in motion there has to be some accurate judgment about where that person is headed. It's tricky because the sensors have to know the difference between a basketball and a small dog, or a small child. Humans have no problem with the recognition or the path prediction, but apparently computers still need to catch up. There has been some help from AI, but then when you put too much technology into a vehicle nobody will be able to afford it. Since I plan to be around for a few more years, I'm fairly certain I will see the day when all I need do is get into my vehicle and tell it where to take me. That should happen about the time I'm too old to pass the drivers license test. LOL
I've not been to that Chrysler assembly plant in Belvedier (which probably doesn't exist anymore), but I have seen movie clips of the production line. It is truly amazing what can be done with robots but I have to wonder about the costs. Those machines are not cheap and need to be retooled every year. You can hire a lot of people for that same amount of money. Of course you don't have to pay the robots nor offer fringe benefits, but their initial cost has to be astronomical.
Food production is changing out of necessity. Fertile ground is being destroyed and recreated at a rapid pace and farming has to adapt if everyone is going to be fed. You make a good point about the big farms being the only ones that are profitable, but like the auto industry it seems that heavy investments in capital equipment are required to maintain the profits.
I've not been to that Chrysler assembly plant in Belvedier (which probably doesn't exist anymore), but I have seen movie clips of the production line. It is truly amazing what can be done with robots but I have to wonder about the costs. Those machines are not cheap and need to be retooled every year. You can hire a lot of people for that same amount of money. Of course you don't have to pay the robots nor offer fringe benefits, but their initial cost has to be astronomical.
Food production is changing out of necessity. Fertile ground is being destroyed and recreated at a rapid pace and farming has to adapt if everyone is going to be fed. You make a good point about the big farms being the only ones that are profitable, but like the auto industry it seems that heavy investments in capital equipment are required to maintain the profits.
Re: Major Announcement
I've seen some videos of autonomous cars screens showing what is in front of them.
A motorcycle pulling a small trailer came on the screen as the back end of a semi, hi hi.
On another one, a guy on a horse came back as a slow moving motorcycle.
The funniest one was a tumbleweed came back showing a lady pushing a stroller across the intersection.
Yep, they have a LONG way to go with recognizing what is out there.
I wonder what they do about all the erroneous lane markings on the roads?
Sometimes even people can't figure them out, hi hi.
We had a flat planter for 12x24 cell flats. It did a lot though, it set the flat on the conveyor, dropped in the cell unit, filled the cells with potting soil, tamped them, added more soil, tamped them again, only now with a divot in the top, planted one seed in each hole, or two seeds if it was set that way, and then added a fine layer of peat moss over that. Then it went through fine mist sprayer and on out the end of the longer conveyor to the roller conveyor where workers took them and put them on a whoopie to take to the greenhouse where they go.
This machine and all of its components combined to be able to use it for that, cost around 185,000 bucks in 1970 when things were still cheaper than only 5 years later.
We also had a wide bodied dirt shredder, that would take clean dirt and literally pulverize it, then added peat moss also pulverized, and finally some perlite and vermiculite. Then depending on the usage, it added granulated fertilizers to the mix and blended it all up. As big as this machine was, the cost was only like 85,000 in 1964 give or take a couple years.
It came in handy also when we were bagging various potting soils for sale at retail markets. However, our bagging machine that replaced the human with a shovel, a human with a scale, and a human running the bag sealing machine, and a human boxing them up for shipping. This machine was awesome, and only cost around 35 grand. It did it all, including putting the bags into the boxes and closing the lids, but a human still had to tape or staple the lids shut, and also make the boxes ahead of time.
We closed down in 1984 and most of our equipment sold for nearly what we paid for it, due to the much higher cost of the same equipment in the 1980s.
I got burned really bad with Chrysler products, so swore them off for the rest of my lifetime.
I think the biggest fight my grandparents ever had, when they were still produce farmers, was when grandpa wanted to buy a tractor, just a simple tractor, used, and she wanted him to continue to use the old plow horses, since he only plowed once each season, which wasn't true, he plowed several times a year for different crops.
But then he started making a lot of money, enough to build the florist and greenhouses with all A#1 products, boilers, the smokestack, and of course the first greenhouses of A1 quality.
Grandma didn't much care what he spent on equipment after that as long as he was bringing home the bacon, hi hi.
A motorcycle pulling a small trailer came on the screen as the back end of a semi, hi hi.
On another one, a guy on a horse came back as a slow moving motorcycle.
The funniest one was a tumbleweed came back showing a lady pushing a stroller across the intersection.
Yep, they have a LONG way to go with recognizing what is out there.
I wonder what they do about all the erroneous lane markings on the roads?
Sometimes even people can't figure them out, hi hi.
We had a flat planter for 12x24 cell flats. It did a lot though, it set the flat on the conveyor, dropped in the cell unit, filled the cells with potting soil, tamped them, added more soil, tamped them again, only now with a divot in the top, planted one seed in each hole, or two seeds if it was set that way, and then added a fine layer of peat moss over that. Then it went through fine mist sprayer and on out the end of the longer conveyor to the roller conveyor where workers took them and put them on a whoopie to take to the greenhouse where they go.
This machine and all of its components combined to be able to use it for that, cost around 185,000 bucks in 1970 when things were still cheaper than only 5 years later.
We also had a wide bodied dirt shredder, that would take clean dirt and literally pulverize it, then added peat moss also pulverized, and finally some perlite and vermiculite. Then depending on the usage, it added granulated fertilizers to the mix and blended it all up. As big as this machine was, the cost was only like 85,000 in 1964 give or take a couple years.
It came in handy also when we were bagging various potting soils for sale at retail markets. However, our bagging machine that replaced the human with a shovel, a human with a scale, and a human running the bag sealing machine, and a human boxing them up for shipping. This machine was awesome, and only cost around 35 grand. It did it all, including putting the bags into the boxes and closing the lids, but a human still had to tape or staple the lids shut, and also make the boxes ahead of time.
We closed down in 1984 and most of our equipment sold for nearly what we paid for it, due to the much higher cost of the same equipment in the 1980s.
I got burned really bad with Chrysler products, so swore them off for the rest of my lifetime.
I think the biggest fight my grandparents ever had, when they were still produce farmers, was when grandpa wanted to buy a tractor, just a simple tractor, used, and she wanted him to continue to use the old plow horses, since he only plowed once each season, which wasn't true, he plowed several times a year for different crops.
But then he started making a lot of money, enough to build the florist and greenhouses with all A#1 products, boilers, the smokestack, and of course the first greenhouses of A1 quality.
Grandma didn't much care what he spent on equipment after that as long as he was bringing home the bacon, hi hi.
Re: Major Announcement
Vision systems are improving by leaps and bounds. I have no doubt the videos you viewed were pretty funny which is what they were intended to be. The technology needed for safe autonomous driving is at a stage where it can be seriously thought about putting it into every vehicle sold. There are more legal problems than there are technical problems and that is what is holding up the show. Who is liable for what has yet to be decided.
Farm equipment never was cheap no matter what year it was purchased in. However your $185,000 machine got my attention to the point where I had to do a little research. It's the kind of machine that likely is still in use, but in 2023 you would need $1,415,140.34 to buy one -- https://www.carinsurancedata.org/calcul ... 85000/1970 While that sounds like a killer situation, it should be remembered that the market price of crops has also risen in the past fifty years. It would be no more difficult for a farmer to buy equipment today than it was back in 1970 because farm income also is affected by inflation. Even so, I don't know which small time farmers are buying new equipment because all the ones I've talked to are using machines about as old as I am. That plus they tend to share the use of equipment.
Replacing the old with new items probably is a good idea in the long term. Yet, there are guys like me (and certainly you too) who get along perfectly well with the old reliable tools. I had to put up a curtain rod yesterday and that required drilling a few holes around the window. I used the hand crank drill I saw my dad use many times when I was a youngster. It was easier to grab that old drill out of the tool box rather than find the power drill stored somewhere safe in the basement. My wife bought a battery operated drill for her to use but I didn't know where that was at either. Besides, it is pink. No real man uses a pink drill. So I cranked the old time drill and banged a knuckle or two while doing it, but the job got done quickly and easily.
Farm equipment never was cheap no matter what year it was purchased in. However your $185,000 machine got my attention to the point where I had to do a little research. It's the kind of machine that likely is still in use, but in 2023 you would need $1,415,140.34 to buy one -- https://www.carinsurancedata.org/calcul ... 85000/1970 While that sounds like a killer situation, it should be remembered that the market price of crops has also risen in the past fifty years. It would be no more difficult for a farmer to buy equipment today than it was back in 1970 because farm income also is affected by inflation. Even so, I don't know which small time farmers are buying new equipment because all the ones I've talked to are using machines about as old as I am. That plus they tend to share the use of equipment.
Replacing the old with new items probably is a good idea in the long term. Yet, there are guys like me (and certainly you too) who get along perfectly well with the old reliable tools. I had to put up a curtain rod yesterday and that required drilling a few holes around the window. I used the hand crank drill I saw my dad use many times when I was a youngster. It was easier to grab that old drill out of the tool box rather than find the power drill stored somewhere safe in the basement. My wife bought a battery operated drill for her to use but I didn't know where that was at either. Besides, it is pink. No real man uses a pink drill. So I cranked the old time drill and banged a knuckle or two while doing it, but the job got done quickly and easily.
Re: Major Announcement
Computers always have something go haywire with them, if it is not the hardware, then the software has glitches.
I think for autonomous vehicles to ever work right all the time, they will need double systems like airplanes.
So if a glitch appears, the other computer takes over and says, put your car in the shop NOW or DIE!
Smaller, but still big, farmers, buy the used equipment from the larger farms after they upgrade to even bigger equipment.
Heck, when I worked on the farm my grandpa G. took care of. I used a horse drawn manure spreader but pulled it with a small ford tractor. Bad enough I had to muck the stalls using a pitchfork and wheelbarrow, then go dump the wheelbarrow on the compost pile. Then from the other end of the compost pile, load the wheelbarrow and spread it out in the fields by hand.
And that old manure spreader just sat there unused. Well, I decided to fix it up, replaced a few broken parts, greased it up real good, and painted it inside and out with a few heavy coats of enamel paint. That thing worked as good as it looked too.
I did a lot for Mr. O. on that farm where grandpa worked and lived, and sometimes he gave me a chance at something, like playing Polo on the tour the year we beat Kraml Dairy. That's me in the center of the picture in Chicago on my Farcebook profile page. I'm very proud of that day! And the chance to be in competition as well, in a sport I could never afford to be in.
I hear ya, I had four different sizes of those hand crank drills, plus the much larger braces and bits too.
I used the braces and bits most often when I was out doing work on the wooden fences. Grandpa taught me a few tricks on how to keep a fence together, especially the post and rail fences. Normally they drive a nail in the rails to hold them in place or from sliding out. Nails, even galvanized, seem to rust out fairly quick, or pull out from the wood expanding and contracting. Well, If you drill a hole and drive a peg in, it is not coming apart until you want it apart, hi hi.
I also used to have a hand crank grinding wheel, but I didn't use it for that purpose. Back when you could buy string on wooden spools, we kept those spools and refilled them with waxed string from the large cones of string. I made a little attachment where the grinding wheel used to be and placed the wooden spools over that expandable clamp and just gave it a few cranks to fill up those spools fairly fast.
I think for autonomous vehicles to ever work right all the time, they will need double systems like airplanes.
So if a glitch appears, the other computer takes over and says, put your car in the shop NOW or DIE!
Smaller, but still big, farmers, buy the used equipment from the larger farms after they upgrade to even bigger equipment.
Heck, when I worked on the farm my grandpa G. took care of. I used a horse drawn manure spreader but pulled it with a small ford tractor. Bad enough I had to muck the stalls using a pitchfork and wheelbarrow, then go dump the wheelbarrow on the compost pile. Then from the other end of the compost pile, load the wheelbarrow and spread it out in the fields by hand.
And that old manure spreader just sat there unused. Well, I decided to fix it up, replaced a few broken parts, greased it up real good, and painted it inside and out with a few heavy coats of enamel paint. That thing worked as good as it looked too.
I did a lot for Mr. O. on that farm where grandpa worked and lived, and sometimes he gave me a chance at something, like playing Polo on the tour the year we beat Kraml Dairy. That's me in the center of the picture in Chicago on my Farcebook profile page. I'm very proud of that day! And the chance to be in competition as well, in a sport I could never afford to be in.
I hear ya, I had four different sizes of those hand crank drills, plus the much larger braces and bits too.
I used the braces and bits most often when I was out doing work on the wooden fences. Grandpa taught me a few tricks on how to keep a fence together, especially the post and rail fences. Normally they drive a nail in the rails to hold them in place or from sliding out. Nails, even galvanized, seem to rust out fairly quick, or pull out from the wood expanding and contracting. Well, If you drill a hole and drive a peg in, it is not coming apart until you want it apart, hi hi.
I also used to have a hand crank grinding wheel, but I didn't use it for that purpose. Back when you could buy string on wooden spools, we kept those spools and refilled them with waxed string from the large cones of string. I made a little attachment where the grinding wheel used to be and placed the wooden spools over that expandable clamp and just gave it a few cranks to fill up those spools fairly fast.
Re: Major Announcement
Redundancy on an airplane is a requirement because there is no place to go but down when a primary system fails. Cars are already on the ground and could indeed cause a fatal incident to occur. Take note of the exploding Tesla's out on the roads today. In most cases when a system in an automobile fails the car will just stop working. Now that they have intelligence the risks probably are a little higher if the intelligence goes dumb. But even then it's not like a planeload of 200 people crashing.
Now you are bringing back memories of things I never did in the first place. I have spread composted manure on my garden, but compared to a farm the garden was pretty small. Plus I have repainted rusted wheel barrows and snow shovels to make them work like new again. However, I just barely recall seeing string on a wooden spool. I think the last time I saw that kind of thing was in the butcher shop when they had such things in the local neighborhoods. The butcher used the string to tie up rolls of meat. Or something.
I also recall something similar to your fence fixing. I made a storage cabinet or two out of particle board because that was cheaper than plywood. I didn't use nails on that either, but did use dowel rods instead along with a healthy coating of glue. They lasted the full twenty years I lived in that house and never showed signs of coming apart. To be honest about it, however, my neighbor was the one who gave me that idea. He was a mechanical engineer for United Airlines.
Now you are bringing back memories of things I never did in the first place. I have spread composted manure on my garden, but compared to a farm the garden was pretty small. Plus I have repainted rusted wheel barrows and snow shovels to make them work like new again. However, I just barely recall seeing string on a wooden spool. I think the last time I saw that kind of thing was in the butcher shop when they had such things in the local neighborhoods. The butcher used the string to tie up rolls of meat. Or something.
I also recall something similar to your fence fixing. I made a storage cabinet or two out of particle board because that was cheaper than plywood. I didn't use nails on that either, but did use dowel rods instead along with a healthy coating of glue. They lasted the full twenty years I lived in that house and never showed signs of coming apart. To be honest about it, however, my neighbor was the one who gave me that idea. He was a mechanical engineer for United Airlines.
Re: Major Announcement
There's more fatal car accidents than the number of folks killed in plane crashes.
Well, even in the flower business, we used tons of different types of string for all kinds of things.
To bind sheet moss to wreath rings and other designs.
To tie bunches of flowers together, etc.
And you were the envy of kids on the block with a whole Cone of string to fly your kites with, hi hi.
Two of our oldest barns on our property didn't have a single nail in either of them.
All built using wood pegs. Even the roof rafters were installed using pegs.
I'm not sure how the tin roofs were held down, but they were covered with tar, that much I remember about them.
The stables had no nails either, but did have iron bolts holding the stall boards to the vertical posts.
Didn't want the horses kicking those boards off, hi hi.
Well, even in the flower business, we used tons of different types of string for all kinds of things.
To bind sheet moss to wreath rings and other designs.
To tie bunches of flowers together, etc.
And you were the envy of kids on the block with a whole Cone of string to fly your kites with, hi hi.
Two of our oldest barns on our property didn't have a single nail in either of them.
All built using wood pegs. Even the roof rafters were installed using pegs.
I'm not sure how the tin roofs were held down, but they were covered with tar, that much I remember about them.
The stables had no nails either, but did have iron bolts holding the stall boards to the vertical posts.
Didn't want the horses kicking those boards off, hi hi.
Re: Major Announcement
You are right about automobile crashes vs airplane crashes. The automobiles crash mostly due to cockpit errors while planes crash due to system failures. Redundancy in automobiles would be superfluous.
I have a ball of string that I use for cooking purposes. It is about ten years old now and I'll probably have to replace it sometime next year. Or possibly the year after that. Don't know what it is for certain but we don't use as much string as we used to. Same goes for rubber bands. I guess now that I'm older I have it all together, finally.
Shortly after we moved in here we had some landscapers come out and plant some shrubs and trees. Three pine trees about 5' tall were put out back in the full sun at the top of the ridge. Last year one of them dried up and died off entirely. Now that the weather is warming up a bit the second one is drying up like the first one did. That third one which is in a position to get the most sun of all is doing well, but it has a couple rose bushes planted alongside it. Over the last five years my next door neighbor had the same problem and had to replace two of his pine trees which were a bit taller than the ones I have. I don't know what it is but pine doesn't do well around here. I would think the landscaper would have known that when we had them come out to make suggestions. Maybe they did.
I have a ball of string that I use for cooking purposes. It is about ten years old now and I'll probably have to replace it sometime next year. Or possibly the year after that. Don't know what it is for certain but we don't use as much string as we used to. Same goes for rubber bands. I guess now that I'm older I have it all together, finally.
Shortly after we moved in here we had some landscapers come out and plant some shrubs and trees. Three pine trees about 5' tall were put out back in the full sun at the top of the ridge. Last year one of them dried up and died off entirely. Now that the weather is warming up a bit the second one is drying up like the first one did. That third one which is in a position to get the most sun of all is doing well, but it has a couple rose bushes planted alongside it. Over the last five years my next door neighbor had the same problem and had to replace two of his pine trees which were a bit taller than the ones I have. I don't know what it is but pine doesn't do well around here. I would think the landscaper would have known that when we had them come out to make suggestions. Maybe they did.
Re: Major Announcement
16 ply white cotton string is often used for making tamales, tying up chicken legs, holding a roast together, etc.
Had a mess one year when the frau used nylon cord I had in my office. So I got her and her sister a lifetime supply of 16 ply white cotton, one cone for each of them, hi hi.
Debi's sister, who is now completely blind, sat down and rolled balls about the size of baseballs of the twine and gave it out at her church to the other gals who use it when cooking. She also used a trick I taught her, and put the twine in a small plastic butter tub with a star-cut hole in the top, so they can pull the string out without touching the ball itself.
I thought I was a pack-rat. She had 22 of those small size butter tubs in her storage closet. I used a chisel and a mallet to cut the stars in the center of the top on the end of a log. Did all 22 of them for her while I was at it, hi hi.
Your best bet would have been Blue Spruce, because Pines have a hard time staying alive.
I bought Debi's dad a Wagon Wheel Pine before Debi and I were married to replace one he had that died.
It looked great for about 4 or 5 years, then it died too. A Japanese Larch tree is now in its place.
Took a couple of years for it to get going good, but now that it did, it looks awesome.
Had a mess one year when the frau used nylon cord I had in my office. So I got her and her sister a lifetime supply of 16 ply white cotton, one cone for each of them, hi hi.
Debi's sister, who is now completely blind, sat down and rolled balls about the size of baseballs of the twine and gave it out at her church to the other gals who use it when cooking. She also used a trick I taught her, and put the twine in a small plastic butter tub with a star-cut hole in the top, so they can pull the string out without touching the ball itself.
I thought I was a pack-rat. She had 22 of those small size butter tubs in her storage closet. I used a chisel and a mallet to cut the stars in the center of the top on the end of a log. Did all 22 of them for her while I was at it, hi hi.
Your best bet would have been Blue Spruce, because Pines have a hard time staying alive.
I bought Debi's dad a Wagon Wheel Pine before Debi and I were married to replace one he had that died.
It looked great for about 4 or 5 years, then it died too. A Japanese Larch tree is now in its place.
Took a couple of years for it to get going good, but now that it did, it looks awesome.
Re: Major Announcement
It's been many years, decades, since I've even seen string tied tamales. I even had some made by a genuine Mexican lady who sold them as a side business and they were not tied. The husks were simply folded over to keep in innards in place. The cooking string I have now is wrapped around a hallow ball and sits in a drawer. I don't see what advantage there would be putting it in a tub with a star cut cover. And, since you mentioned it, my #2 daughter does not have any store bought storage containers. She does exactly what you described Deb's sister doing. She saves plastic containers and covers to store leftovers and things. I guess that works well if you don't mind the advertising printed on the containers.
Thanks for the tip regarding trees. There are no conifers along the streets here. Most of those trees are maple or oak. But, several of the neighbors have pine trees in their back yards. Up north we bought a Colorado Blue Spruce for one of our early wedding anniversaries, and dubbed it our Anniversary Blue Spruce. It had to be all of three feet tall when we got it and was at lest 25 feet tall when we left town. It was a magnificent tree that sat in the corner of our lot near the street. Back then they were pretty expensive and I doubt they came down in price over the years. I may look into it when I replace the dead wood. I looked up the Japanese Larch and like what I saw in the pictures. I doubt any nurseries around here would have any. I can't even get lavender.
Thanks for the tip regarding trees. There are no conifers along the streets here. Most of those trees are maple or oak. But, several of the neighbors have pine trees in their back yards. Up north we bought a Colorado Blue Spruce for one of our early wedding anniversaries, and dubbed it our Anniversary Blue Spruce. It had to be all of three feet tall when we got it and was at lest 25 feet tall when we left town. It was a magnificent tree that sat in the corner of our lot near the street. Back then they were pretty expensive and I doubt they came down in price over the years. I may look into it when I replace the dead wood. I looked up the Japanese Larch and like what I saw in the pictures. I doubt any nurseries around here would have any. I can't even get lavender.
Re: Major Announcement
I bought the frau a box of Grease Pencils so she can write what is in all those containers, hi hi.
When I lived in Creve Coeur, one of the first things I bought after I built the new kitchen was two-dozen square glass decorative wide-mouth jars to line the top of the top cabinets, and I had fluorescent lights behind them. They looked great, and gave a place to store all the bagged or boxed things that take up so much space in the pantry, things you only use a scoop or two of at a time, but not all that often. We put the label from the bag or box in the jar also, but that faced the back. They looked nice up there too. But with out low ceilings down here, they ended up in the pantry anyhow, hi hi.
I made a mistake on the name of the tree in our front yard. It's a Chinese Weeping Cyprus!
The Japanese Larch is over in the corner of the front yard. Not as pretty as the Chinese Weeping Cyprus, who we named Grogg, because of how it looked when it was young, hi hi.
Have you tried Home Nursery in O'Fallon?
I know I can get seeds from Amazon for a few different types of Lavender, but many Lavender trees are actually Mimosa Trees which most folks don't want.
When I lived in Creve Coeur, one of the first things I bought after I built the new kitchen was two-dozen square glass decorative wide-mouth jars to line the top of the top cabinets, and I had fluorescent lights behind them. They looked great, and gave a place to store all the bagged or boxed things that take up so much space in the pantry, things you only use a scoop or two of at a time, but not all that often. We put the label from the bag or box in the jar also, but that faced the back. They looked nice up there too. But with out low ceilings down here, they ended up in the pantry anyhow, hi hi.
I made a mistake on the name of the tree in our front yard. It's a Chinese Weeping Cyprus!
The Japanese Larch is over in the corner of the front yard. Not as pretty as the Chinese Weeping Cyprus, who we named Grogg, because of how it looked when it was young, hi hi.
Have you tried Home Nursery in O'Fallon?
I know I can get seeds from Amazon for a few different types of Lavender, but many Lavender trees are actually Mimosa Trees which most folks don't want.
Re: Major Announcement
Home Nursery in O'Fallon ... didn't know they existed. I need to get out more, and thank you very much for the lead.
I like the idea of apothacary jars for storage. In fact I have a few for specific items. I did have rice in one of them and my wife of many years complained that it was difficult scooping it out. So it's now in a plastic box. We have 9 foot ceilings in this house, which I consider to be among the greater flaws in its design. It's horrible trying to keep this place warm in the winter and cool in the summer. All the good air is up at the 9' mark when you need it down lower. Of course they didn't install double hung windows to counter that. The kitchen cabinets go nearly to the ceiling level. There is about 6" of space between the cabinets' top and the ceiling. In order to reach that height I would have to span more than 8" 6" and I'm not that tall. I did in fact try to put stuff up there one day and discovered the actual tops were lower than the visible boarder. Thus anything resting on the actual top of the cabinets would be behind that decorative border. I admit that without the over sized border the space between the ceiling and cabinets would be ugly as crap. An 8' ceiling as was the norm when I built my last house would solve the whole problem. But that wasn't the current fad when we moved here ... I guess.
I like the idea of apothacary jars for storage. In fact I have a few for specific items. I did have rice in one of them and my wife of many years complained that it was difficult scooping it out. So it's now in a plastic box. We have 9 foot ceilings in this house, which I consider to be among the greater flaws in its design. It's horrible trying to keep this place warm in the winter and cool in the summer. All the good air is up at the 9' mark when you need it down lower. Of course they didn't install double hung windows to counter that. The kitchen cabinets go nearly to the ceiling level. There is about 6" of space between the cabinets' top and the ceiling. In order to reach that height I would have to span more than 8" 6" and I'm not that tall. I did in fact try to put stuff up there one day and discovered the actual tops were lower than the visible boarder. Thus anything resting on the actual top of the cabinets would be behind that decorative border. I admit that without the over sized border the space between the ceiling and cabinets would be ugly as crap. An 8' ceiling as was the norm when I built my last house would solve the whole problem. But that wasn't the current fad when we moved here ... I guess.
Re: Major Announcement
My uncle Louis's house had 9 foot ceilings throughout the house. And a great room with 2 story tall ceilings.
He had the same problem with heating and cooling, so in each corner of every room, he installed the triangular box from floor to ceiling, with a decorative embossed front so it looked more like crown moulding. Each of them had a reversible fan inside the housing. So they took air in and blew it out, for the winter it took ceiling air and blew it down to the floor, and in the summer it took floor air and blew it out at ceiling height. They were perfectly quiet, but kept the temp in the rooms balanced between floor and ceiling. He was rich so could afford the fancy designed ones, hi hi.
In my bedroom, I have a clock with a thermometer in it. At the ceiling it usually shows 74 degrees, while the remote, normally used outside, sits on the ledge of our headboard, and it usually shows 71.
I have a normal ceiling fan and if I set it to run so it pushes the air up through the fan and down the outer walls, you don't get hit with it while in bed, but it does make the room balance, so both thermometers show 72 degrees.
In his kitchen, he has cabinets above the normal height of cabinets, that match of course, hi hi.
This is where they store the plates, trays, dishes, and cups for specific holidays.
Plus one of them is used for his backup liquor storage, hi hi.
On the great room side of the kitchen, they enclosed above the cabinets with drywall, and have the opening with doors up high in the great room. His wife uses those high storage areas for winter clothes, sweaters, and the winter blankets.
I have to tell you something my dad did at his house. His house was all hip roof so had no gables. But his living room, namely the corner of the living room where he used to put up the tree, before mom started putting it in the den.
Dad put wooden slats on the ceiling to make like a large grid pattern. Looked nice, but there was a reason behind his madness, hi hi.
In the inside corner of the living room, those slats formed a large box, with a criss-cross of slats inside the larger square.
On the wall, hidden behind the window curtains was a hole for a crank with a metal plate on hinges over it.
He could use a hand crank, or an electric drill to turn the winch hidden inside the wall.
This would lower the already decorated artificial Christmas tree down from the attic all the way to the floor. But normally he set four wooden boxes on the floor to make the tree sit higher, since the tree couldn't be full height do to the height available inside the attic under the roof.
Years later he replaced this tree with a much taller tree that came apart in the middle, and if you took the top part of the tree and turned it upside down and pressed it against the bottom part of the tree, it would still go up into the attic just fine.
Best if you took a few of the ornaments off of it first, but there was room to keep those in pasteboard boxes under the tree.
End of Christmas season, he would crank the whole affair back up into the attic and the ceiling would look normal again.
When he cranked it down, there were two little doors that would drop down to hide the hole in the ceiling, and they had a couple layers of styrofoam over the top of them. What looked a little dorky were the two metal rods that opened and closed these doors. There were up above the ceiling year round, but at Christmas they stuck down and across the top of the tree.
Mom had this Angel for the top of the tree that hid the Cable Wire and partially hid the metal bars. Her cardboard and tinfoil wings on the angel helped some, hi hi. But dad wanted it all automatic when he turned the crank. You couldn't see the four cables to the bottom panel because they went into the tree to the main cable and were hidden by the tree itself.
He had the same problem with heating and cooling, so in each corner of every room, he installed the triangular box from floor to ceiling, with a decorative embossed front so it looked more like crown moulding. Each of them had a reversible fan inside the housing. So they took air in and blew it out, for the winter it took ceiling air and blew it down to the floor, and in the summer it took floor air and blew it out at ceiling height. They were perfectly quiet, but kept the temp in the rooms balanced between floor and ceiling. He was rich so could afford the fancy designed ones, hi hi.
In my bedroom, I have a clock with a thermometer in it. At the ceiling it usually shows 74 degrees, while the remote, normally used outside, sits on the ledge of our headboard, and it usually shows 71.
I have a normal ceiling fan and if I set it to run so it pushes the air up through the fan and down the outer walls, you don't get hit with it while in bed, but it does make the room balance, so both thermometers show 72 degrees.
In his kitchen, he has cabinets above the normal height of cabinets, that match of course, hi hi.
This is where they store the plates, trays, dishes, and cups for specific holidays.
Plus one of them is used for his backup liquor storage, hi hi.
On the great room side of the kitchen, they enclosed above the cabinets with drywall, and have the opening with doors up high in the great room. His wife uses those high storage areas for winter clothes, sweaters, and the winter blankets.
I have to tell you something my dad did at his house. His house was all hip roof so had no gables. But his living room, namely the corner of the living room where he used to put up the tree, before mom started putting it in the den.
Dad put wooden slats on the ceiling to make like a large grid pattern. Looked nice, but there was a reason behind his madness, hi hi.
In the inside corner of the living room, those slats formed a large box, with a criss-cross of slats inside the larger square.
On the wall, hidden behind the window curtains was a hole for a crank with a metal plate on hinges over it.
He could use a hand crank, or an electric drill to turn the winch hidden inside the wall.
This would lower the already decorated artificial Christmas tree down from the attic all the way to the floor. But normally he set four wooden boxes on the floor to make the tree sit higher, since the tree couldn't be full height do to the height available inside the attic under the roof.
Years later he replaced this tree with a much taller tree that came apart in the middle, and if you took the top part of the tree and turned it upside down and pressed it against the bottom part of the tree, it would still go up into the attic just fine.
Best if you took a few of the ornaments off of it first, but there was room to keep those in pasteboard boxes under the tree.
End of Christmas season, he would crank the whole affair back up into the attic and the ceiling would look normal again.
When he cranked it down, there were two little doors that would drop down to hide the hole in the ceiling, and they had a couple layers of styrofoam over the top of them. What looked a little dorky were the two metal rods that opened and closed these doors. There were up above the ceiling year round, but at Christmas they stuck down and across the top of the tree.
Mom had this Angel for the top of the tree that hid the Cable Wire and partially hid the metal bars. Her cardboard and tinfoil wings on the angel helped some, hi hi. But dad wanted it all automatic when he turned the crank. You couldn't see the four cables to the bottom panel because they went into the tree to the main cable and were hidden by the tree itself.
Re: Major Announcement
I have some very mixed feelings about this Ol' Missouri home. It is everything I told myself back up in Chicago that I do not want in a house. The good news is that it has some things that were lacking in the old house and tip the comfort scale to positive by a 55:45% ratio. The high ceilings, the plastic windows that are not double hung, and the ticky tacky look on every single house in the neighborhood all are negatives. The fee I pay to the HOA is a lot less than the real estate taxes I was paying back home, but the issues they govern are a joke. The builder of this house did a pretty good job by 2016 standards, but all the manufactured infrastructure is simply a cost reduction not an improved design. We are on the crest of a ridge along with our neighbors and that gives us an amazing southern exposure. Passive solar heat is the main advantage of all that. The sky view is spectacular on certain days - I couldn't even see most of the sky in my last house. The basement has a walkout sliding door which puts the house partly into the side of a small hill. That location effectively eliminates the need for a sump pump which was a small nightmare previously. The cabinets and appliances are all low tier and are barely big enough to store our normal sized dinner plates. That too is a cost reduction. I'm not sure why they decided 9' ceilings were a good idea other than the fact that I suppose all the other houses in this subdivision are built that way. No two houses can be different around here.
We live in a one floor house but it would not take much to make a few rooms up in the attic space. The attic is huge and high at the peak, but not insulated. We have ridge vents so that you want the air to flow freely up there. Thus, doing something like your dad did with the Christmas tree would require rebuilding the entire house in our case. LOL I love that story and it just reinforces my thoughts about where you got all your creativity from. Your entire family seems to be inventive. We have a ceiling fan in the living room but that isn't as effective as you would suspect. The reason is due to the open floor plan concept that went into the kitchen, dining room, and living room where there are no walls to separate them from each other. There are walls for the bedrooms at the other end of the house, and those smaller rooms don't have the same heating/cooling problems ad does the open area. It might be worth installing one or two more ceiling fans to even out the temperature gradient. But then, we hardly use the one we have. It wouldn't take too much to motivate me to look for something better. But, I have a feeling I would not be able to afford a new house now and days.
We live in a one floor house but it would not take much to make a few rooms up in the attic space. The attic is huge and high at the peak, but not insulated. We have ridge vents so that you want the air to flow freely up there. Thus, doing something like your dad did with the Christmas tree would require rebuilding the entire house in our case. LOL I love that story and it just reinforces my thoughts about where you got all your creativity from. Your entire family seems to be inventive. We have a ceiling fan in the living room but that isn't as effective as you would suspect. The reason is due to the open floor plan concept that went into the kitchen, dining room, and living room where there are no walls to separate them from each other. There are walls for the bedrooms at the other end of the house, and those smaller rooms don't have the same heating/cooling problems ad does the open area. It might be worth installing one or two more ceiling fans to even out the temperature gradient. But then, we hardly use the one we have. It wouldn't take too much to motivate me to look for something better. But, I have a feeling I would not be able to afford a new house now and days.
Re: Major Announcement
You should see my old house here, built in the mid-40's with whatever materials they could scrounge up at the time. Everything in this house is crooked, the floors, walls, and ceilings, which are only 7 feet high.
I wanted to raise the roof another foot, but that never came to pass.
I also wanted to cut out the floor and install all new floor joists too, also never came to pass.
But I did get all the major rooms renovated, like the master bedroom, second bedroom used as Debi's office, the bathroom and the kitchen are all new with top quality components throughout. That's why I'm broke, hi hi.
The heart attacks put a damper on my finishing the den and living room, which are the easiest to do.
When I owned my big building with 12 foot ceilings, I bought some white plastic dryer tubing. Used a coathanger to make the top support for the tubing, and placed a small box fan at the bottom, the weight of which kept the tubing fairly taut. Because I couldn't have cords running all over the floor, I bought a whole roll of zip-line (extension cord wire), and ran it from the motor up to the ceiling and over to power outlet boxes. To pass code they had to have plugs on the end, not hard wired into the boxes. Even with a dozen of those small motors running, it still cut down our heating bill by about 1/3 of what it was our first year there.
House designs have gone crazy, so much wasted space in them these days. I hate wasted space!
Family members and relatives most familiar with the house and what was where in it, were amazed at how I recovered a lot of lost space, without using up any space that wasn't already used up.
One simple example: The cold air return has a grill that faces the den (center room), and had a big metal box on the kitchen side about 20 inches deep by 28 inches tall. Exposed.
Debi's mom kept a tablecloth over it that hung down to the floor, and on top a 3 shelf wire rack. From the top of that metal box to the north wall of the kitchen was an 18 inch wide shelf, access under it was not available, due to a washer and dryer sitting next to that shelf on the north wall.
On the kitchen side, I built a wall from floor to ceiling and with the drywall over it, it completely hid the metal box. But over the top of the metal box, I built a small pantry closet with a folding louvered door to keep laundry items in on the first shelf, and food wrapping supplies on the shelf above it, and just junk on the top shelf. This made the kitchen clean and neat now.
On the Den side, I built a 4 foot wide linen closet with 18" deep shelves for towels, blankets, bed linens, etc. I made it with a 3 inch raised floor to protect from dust getting in there. It runs from the rights side of the vent to the door I had to move down for the master bedroom. Where the door was originally located caused a lot of wasted space due to the bathroom being built in the house years before, which took up a 3 foot part of the bedroom.
Now there was absolutely zero wasted space in that area of the house, and two storage spaces added, besides making it look 100% better than before.
Debi's mom had a tear in her eye when she saw all that I had done. Another tear to see and use the new bathroom, with the high toilet. She passed away before the kitchen remodel started.
I wanted to raise the roof another foot, but that never came to pass.
I also wanted to cut out the floor and install all new floor joists too, also never came to pass.
But I did get all the major rooms renovated, like the master bedroom, second bedroom used as Debi's office, the bathroom and the kitchen are all new with top quality components throughout. That's why I'm broke, hi hi.
The heart attacks put a damper on my finishing the den and living room, which are the easiest to do.
When I owned my big building with 12 foot ceilings, I bought some white plastic dryer tubing. Used a coathanger to make the top support for the tubing, and placed a small box fan at the bottom, the weight of which kept the tubing fairly taut. Because I couldn't have cords running all over the floor, I bought a whole roll of zip-line (extension cord wire), and ran it from the motor up to the ceiling and over to power outlet boxes. To pass code they had to have plugs on the end, not hard wired into the boxes. Even with a dozen of those small motors running, it still cut down our heating bill by about 1/3 of what it was our first year there.
House designs have gone crazy, so much wasted space in them these days. I hate wasted space!
Family members and relatives most familiar with the house and what was where in it, were amazed at how I recovered a lot of lost space, without using up any space that wasn't already used up.
One simple example: The cold air return has a grill that faces the den (center room), and had a big metal box on the kitchen side about 20 inches deep by 28 inches tall. Exposed.
Debi's mom kept a tablecloth over it that hung down to the floor, and on top a 3 shelf wire rack. From the top of that metal box to the north wall of the kitchen was an 18 inch wide shelf, access under it was not available, due to a washer and dryer sitting next to that shelf on the north wall.
On the kitchen side, I built a wall from floor to ceiling and with the drywall over it, it completely hid the metal box. But over the top of the metal box, I built a small pantry closet with a folding louvered door to keep laundry items in on the first shelf, and food wrapping supplies on the shelf above it, and just junk on the top shelf. This made the kitchen clean and neat now.
On the Den side, I built a 4 foot wide linen closet with 18" deep shelves for towels, blankets, bed linens, etc. I made it with a 3 inch raised floor to protect from dust getting in there. It runs from the rights side of the vent to the door I had to move down for the master bedroom. Where the door was originally located caused a lot of wasted space due to the bathroom being built in the house years before, which took up a 3 foot part of the bedroom.
Now there was absolutely zero wasted space in that area of the house, and two storage spaces added, besides making it look 100% better than before.
Debi's mom had a tear in her eye when she saw all that I had done. Another tear to see and use the new bathroom, with the high toilet. She passed away before the kitchen remodel started.