5 Steps in Hiring the Perfect Kitchen Designer

Monday question: Confronting a cleaning person

25.01.10

Hoss - you have no idea the reasons why the questioner needs or wants a housecleaner! i have one of the so-called 'invisible disabilities' where the refrain i constantly hear is 'but you LOOK great!' well, looking great and as though i'm healthy doesn't make it so. i've been hospitalized 3x in the last 6 months and had countless (i've lost count of them they've been so numerous) surgeries. i'm unable to work, but have embraced being a homemaker wholeheartedly (i also volunteer w/ kids and elderly b/c i couldn't stand not contributing to and being a part of society). i finally got a cleaner after trying to do everything myself and stressing myself out to the point of making myself sicker. i had to re-prioritize so that i would have the energy to do the things that are most important to me and my husband. that said, even if the questioner is not in my situation and WANTS rather than needs a cleaner, it is none of your business. how dare you judge his/her character? people judge me all the time (i've heard it all, including the ludicrous 'you're so lucky not to have to work!' as if i wouldn't do the crappiest job in the world if it meant i would be healthy!) but haven't the foggiest notion about who i am at core and why i do what i do! i don't owe you or anyone else an explanation, but i'm so tired of people jumping to conclusions - often the wrong ones. why not give the benefit of the doubt and be open-minded? you have NO idea about the questioner's character, however you've shown us a lot about yours. you have a chip on your shoulder and it sounds like you're sucking on sour grapes to me. what's the matter? can you not afford a housecleaner?

Source: Boston Globe

SIX STEPS TO LOW COST HOME ADDITIONS AND RENOVATIONS! « FLYING ...

by remodelor

Did you ever wonder how you can add more space to your home for far less than it would cost to have an addition built? Many people who were hoping to ad onto their home have had to postpone those plans due to the current economic climate. However if you still have the need for additional space but find that the 800 square foot addition you had been planning is just not feasible at this time don’t give up just yet.

There are ways to greatly expand the usable living space inside your home without going to the expense of hiring someone like me to design and build an addition for you. ( ) You just need to start thinking inside the box! By this I mean looking inside the existing walls of your home at poorly used space and improving its function through design modification and/or disciplined editing of the contents.

1. GET RID OF SOME OF YOUR STUFF

I recently added a two car garage to my home and it didn’t cost me any money at all. Actually, I profited around $1,500 when all was said and done!

In my case, the garage space was there all along, it just wasn’t functioning as a garage. It had evolved over the years into a storage area that hadn’t seen a car cross its threshold in a long time. So this time when it became too cluttered to tolerate I decided to do more than just re-organize, which in the past had always yielded an amazing amount of additional space. I realized that I had moved many of these same items into a more orderly arrangement numerous times over the years and still hadn’t found a use for them. I decided it was now time to let some of this stuff go.

While getting rid of stuff doesn’t cost much money, it will require some time and elbow grease. Start by organizing things into the following four categories;

For sale – craigslist and eBay are a great way to turn your clutter into cash! Don’t be too discriminating about the items you put up for sale, you would...

Design Matters » Blog Archive » Sapper, Stradivarius and Skylight

by David Hill

Back in November of 2008, I first erudite of the Lenovo wonderful cryptic stand out that would long run become the Skylight smartbook . It sounded fascinating to me that we would shot at to devise an in every respect new oblation listing in the computer expanse. I could only surmise a charge that would react compare favourably with to a acute phone, but be of a square footage and surmount that would insinuate it more timely for viewing or typing observations. The block out purpose was also to produce something that would attack heads. It could not look like fitting another small notebook computer.

I consideration it would be a immense concoct to get Richard Sapper, our fancy but study guru, tortuous with. After all, Richard has specialized in turning the common-or-garden variety into the noteworthy for decades. I’ve seen him do it over and over again with things as purportedly mundane as a desk lamp, cheese grater, tea kettle, kitchen timer, transistor trannie, goggle-box set, and of speed our own ThinkPad exemplar. When I first proposed the outlook to the administrator rig I was asked by several if Sapper had ever designed a consumer consequence. Not such a surprising dispute if your believe to Sapper and his profession has been through the restricted lens of trade computers, but I knew heartier. I straight away made a Powerpoint mind to show of Sapper’s m, to mark aggressive it perceptibly what he was expert of. It worked. Everyone was intrigued enough to short him on the programme without delay.

Sapper and side discussing intention details

On November 12th of 2008 Sapper was in city for a form trade seating where we took the time to condensed him on the wonderful mystery plan. Conscience-stricken I can’t dividend the corpus juris name with you. He had many questions about purchaser scenarios, cull sizes, technologies, and other such map-interconnected details. Sapper was undoubtedly interested in breaking the mold with us. His amusement dimmed, however, when he was learned of the deadline for completing the think up concept. The delineate had to be locked before the Christmas feast in decree to care for the very forward register. I over the words Sapper habituated to were “you must be joking, I penury moment to intend such a point” . The worst part was that it had not been formally unmistakable if Sapper would be retained to frame the conception. That wouldn’t come to pass for yet another two weeks at the next Lenovo elder regulation appointment. The timeline problem would only become worse if he had to hang around two additional weeks before he had the agreement to start working.

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