Where did you splurge?

[TroyBilt]

love food! I always thought "poke" was toxic though. Now I can't wait till summer to give it a try. However, not sure the wife will allow me to apply it to her sore breasts. This is what I found with google: Poke is well know among country folk in the south as a tasty cooked green. The sallet term in one of the common names is an old term for cooked greens. Tender young shoots are gathered and boiled twice discarding the first water to rid the leaves of any possible poison. Seasoned with salt and bacon drippings it is a popular dish in the rural south. The root, older leaves and possibly the berries can be toxic. Native Americans introduced this plant to European settlers and it was so popular as a potherb that seeds soon were being cultivated back in Europe.
Medical Uses: Various parts of the plant have been used since pre-Colombian times to treat many conditions. It seems the berry juice has been used for pimples and boils, in some cases taken internally in other cases applied to the skin. It has also been taken for joint pain and applied to sore breasts. Leaf concoctions have been used as an expectorant, emetic and cathartic. Warning: All parts of the plant may contain some toxins and Foster & Duke warn that the juice can cause dermatitis and damage chromosomes.

[CJDave]

[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] Is THAT what the guy was singing about in the song about the POKE SALLY? I never could figure out what he was a-singin' about, and have absolutley no idea wut a poke salty is. Must be some wierd kind of thing from da deep south? [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img] In California we ate oranges, mostly. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Pat]

All people are or can easily become hungry.

Live to eat or eat to live, whichever suits you.

Essen oder fressen, there is a difference.

Pat

[egon]

Ach ya. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] Aber die das fressen leben nich ser gut. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[NSbound]

I'm glad you-all re-found this thread, it has sure gone in a few different directions. I's good to hear what everyone did what's "special" to their homes.

I can say, Pat, that I was a long-time reader and reviewer of your Oklahoma farmhouse series. Many great ideas and innovations there. I did like what you said about your shower, so I did somewhat similar, with it ending up around 4' X 7', no door, no curb, just slope, and a standard showerhead as well as the new rain tile from Kohler, which I do love. And you are sooooo right about how nice it is to step from the bedroom (with a warm floor) into a bathroom with a warm floor, into a warm shower, and out. I didn't do the tubing-in-the-walls part and haven't noticed any issues with coolness.

I did order a couple of wall niches for the shower as well as for the tub area upstairs. They had to be inserted in the walls, taped and then compounded over, before being tiled - with 2 openings in them for a shampoo bottle and for soap. These were internet purchases - no such thing in stores up here.

Top 8 best things I did, though, in no particular order :

1. I had the whole house wired for internet, sound, and satellite. The main can for it all is in the basement, with feeds everywhere - it's great.
2. Bought a set of dimmer switches (made by Lutron), called AURORA. These dimmers (they come as a set of 5, but you can add more) are connected to a main control panel that you can plug in anywhere in the house (mine is on a night table beside the bed), so you can leave all the lights in the house on, that are controlled by these dimmers, then hit a "Master Off" button to turn them all off after you get to bed. They also come with a remote control device like a garage door opener that you can hit when you drive up to your house at night, and turn them all on to either full brightness or to the level you had pre-set them to. Or of course the reverse, turn all the lights off or down after you get out to your car if you go out after dark. I LOVE this set-up and use it all the time. Plus, for filling out a survey after installing it, they sent me a second remote device and extended the warranty from 1 to 2 years - not bad. I bought this setup off e-Bay for about $400 - they retail up here for $750.
3. Had the wiring panel wired with a transfer switch for an emergency generator, which can plug in out at the garage, and also added a single whole-house surge protector. The main power feed come from the street to a pole, then down the pole and underground into the garage to a 200-amp panel, then feed underground to the house, with another 200-amp panel plus the transfer switch panel.
4. Had a remote furnace turn-on device added - it works by telephone. Until I retire, and since I live an hour and a half away in the city where I work (Halifax), I keep the radiant floor heat down around 11-12 degrees C - maybe 45-50 F through the week. It takes a few hours to warm up if I wait until I get there after work on Fridays for the weekend. So now I can phone my house mid-day Friday and turn the heat up so this way, it's warm when I get there. So far, a good idea!
5. Sounds a bit cheesy, but I put twin round stainless sinks in the kitchen. They are really unique, look great, are functional, and nobody who comes in has ever seen them anywhere else. They were in the display area at the kitchen place I used, and I liked them right away. And they were LESS expensive than the sink I had originally planned on!
6. I chose hickory engineered hardwood floors for almost the whole the main floor - kitchen, LR, DR, BR, closets. All but for the tile in the entry way, hallway and bathroom. The hickory was glued down because of the cement floor for the radiant heating system, and it too looks GREAT. The maple kitchen cabinets complement the hickory nicely.
7. I wasn't afraid to use some color on the interior walls. Blue walls in the kitchen-living room-dining room, white trim, and a reallllly light blue on the ceiling. The ceiling part had me a bit scared after it went on first, it looked REALLY blue, but when the walls were painted the darker blue, the ceilings look almost white. The master bedroom I made pumpkin with a light tan ceiling. Upstairs - a pale yellow bedroom, a sage green bedroom, and the bathroom is split with both those colors in it.
8. I had ceiling fans put in the master bedroom, and in the screen porch. No need in the winter, but they'll be useful on some of the warmer summer days. We don't get a lot of really hot weather in the summer, and I'm on the water, so central AC is not really common up here, nor really needed. I may get a little unit for the bedroom for the few nights in the summer it gets too hot to sleep. Or I could sleep in the basement!! (as yet unfinished).

I hope some of these ideas help you too, TroyBilt [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] . This board was a great source of ideas to me before, but I did what you said too - add inn details in every room that are yours, unique and not necessarily expensive, that make it a special home.

[Pat]

NSBound, I was counting tile just yesterday in the shower and it is just a little under 4x8 feet. Looks to have been 4x8 as rough stud walls.

The heated floor in the shower is at least half of the luxury and the heated walls supply more but not enough to be a big deal BUT if I had it to do over I would heat all the way up the walls and do the ceiling too.

The shower is larger than it has to be but I wouldn't want to lose much length as water might splash outside. It doesn't splash out at all now.

Your lights and remote t'stat control sound neat, especially since you are still away a lot during the day.

Pat

[NSbound]

HaHa, Pat, you mentioned counting tile. My tile guy was counting tile too - I think this job drove him cross-eyed. He was beefing that these were not meant to be used as wall tiles as well as floor tiles, so they took him a fair bit of time and work to get them "more-or-less" straight and even. They look good, though, plus I had him put a trim row around the doorway to the shower entrance.

[Pat]

We did our shower floor in 4x4 inch tile closely matched in color (but totally different manufacturer) to the 12x12 inch Wilie on the walls and ceiling. Our door is a bit wider (for good cause [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img] )

We have a horizontal trim stripe about 5 ft above the floor and some colored pictures of fish every so often in case you want to look for Nemo.

I counted tile as since I was in my birthday suit in the shower and I didn't have a pocket for a tape measure.

Pat

Pat

[Pat]

I took a picture of the bath entry. Here are the salient features:

1. no door or curtain
2. towel warmer to left of entry
3. missing baseboard and holes in wall (a little plumbing gliitch, fixed but baseboard not replaced yet.)
4. triangular seat in shower with sloping front so you can get your feet under your center of gravity to make it easy to stand up without using your hands.
5. thermostat (little white rectangle on left of entry)
6. humidistat (little white rectangle on right of entry, controls the ERV)
7. Bi-fold steel storm shutter (one of a pair, bath is included inside the safe room which is all of the master suite minus the sitting room. walls are 8 inches of steel reinforced concrete) Decorative cloth covers for the bi-fold doors are in the works but not bubbled to the top of the heap yet.

The thermostat controls the temperature of a sensor buried in the thinset of the tile shower wall. It is quite programmable as to various temps at various times as well as being a clock.

The humidistat senses the relative humidity next to the shower entry and controls the speed of the ERV. It has an adjustment knob and off/on switch. If the RH goes above the set point of this humidistat it puts the ERV in high speed and another humidistat we put in the exhaust duct going from the shower ceiling to the ERV, when triggered by excessive RH, will kick on a booster fan and really suck moist air out of the shower and the bathroom. You can hear the booster fan but it is quieter than the typical bathroom exhaust fan. We go sometimes weeks at a time without the booster coming on. When the ERV is in slow mode (we run it 24-7) it is virtually impossible to hear even with your ear cocked to the exhaust register. When it goes into high speed you can just barely hear it if you are standing next to an exhaust vent (there are 3 in the bathroom and one in the walk in closet.

There is no traditional type noisy exhaust fan in the bathroom. With continuous ventilation via the ERV the bathroom is always being exhausted and the removed air comes from the master bedroom. The incoming air to replace the exhausted air comes into the great room and is distributed around the house.

The master bath and walk-in closet have no air delivery registers so no A/C or heated air and no hydronics in the WIC. The air being continuously exhausted from the WIC pulls conditioined air through that space and since it is super insulated (5 inches of styrofoam) it never get all that much cooler or hotter than the master bedroom from which it gets its conditioned air.

The ERV takes less than an amp unless the master bath humidity tells it to run faster which is only when there is considerable showering or Jacuzzi use.

The bathroom color scheme is green for the sea, blue for the sky, and white for clouds. I let my wife pick. I just blended the paint and helped paint it.

Pat

[NSbound]

Yes, very nice! [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img] We must be happy with our bathrooms and showers! Is there a tub in this bathroom or is it elsewhere in the house??? I was worried a bit when my builder said "no bathroom fan necessary", but up here it's a code requirement to have the air circulation system with an inlet in every room, and it seems to work fine.