Household item plans website(s)?

[Scott Winners]

The wife and I (plus the cat) are vacating the 5 bedroom house we raised kids in. This way the various trades can come in and do their thing without having to work around occupants. We are hoping to list in Jan/Feb 2024. We are downsizing into an apartment. It is a nice place, but the landlord is very much a stickler about me drilling holes into things he owns. Our old place is walking distance to a good elementary school and there is no good reason for us to keep it.

I am looking for things like a countertop paper towel holder. I am going to have to build a freestanding knifeblock. While I am building the new one I will update the old one that mounts under the cabinets above the countertop.

This sort of thing. Where can we hang our hard earned degrees within our temporary home? What about the various candid snapshots we have of us and our friends on various adventures? Do I really need to build a credenza with a panel of French cleats above it to hang picture frames on?

It is an unfamiliar season, but we should end up in a 'pretty good house' that meets our needs for aging in place.

Thanks.

[David Buchhauser]

https://freewoodworkingplan.com/popu...-towel-holder/

fwp.jpg

[Jim Becker]

Scott, our countertop paper towel holder is pretty simple...a flat round base with a vertical pole that holds the roll. While ours happens to be made of marble as it was upcycled from my parent's apartment a few years ago, they are common in wood and you can make them quickly and easily.

For hanging things non-destructively on the wall...3M Command strips. Our daughter's apartment has the same situation. Everything is hung with the 3M product.

Knife blocks are kind of a personal thing for the person or persons who use the knives. I personally don't like them for multiple reasons including they are hard to keep clean over time and have knife storage in a drawer.

BTW, what your are doing is a pretty incredible way to insure that your pre-sale renovations can happen with less disruption to both you and the contractors. You are fortunate you can handle things that way...many folks can't do that. It also gives you "immediate practice" relative to living smaller since you can get on with the decluttering and donations right away...because you have to.

[Lee Schierer]

3M command strips come in heavy duty style as well. A single heavy duty strip will hold up to pounds. You could use them for hanging your paper towel holder with no holes required.

[Brian Runau]

We downsized in 2005, bought our last fixer upper. Actually did the landscape and windows first. Landscape takes longer to mature, and inside changes are quicker. Smaller yard, smaller house, lower taxes, less to clean, lower utilities, etc.. Last project is new wood floors in living room we put off due to covid. Good luck. Brian

[Bruce Wrenn]

For the knife block, I would look at local thrift stores. Can't buy the materials for what you can buy already made. Another option is a magnetic knife strip, attached with "Command Strips." Mine came from HF, as a tool rack. Of course, some SS knives, and ceramic knives don't adhere to magnets.

[Scott Winners]

TLDR: My wife and I are divorcing the big house rather than each other.

Appreciate the input so far. We kind of came at this backwards. The wife and I took advantage of a "weekend getaway" at a big hotel downtown with a discounted rate for locals. We know where the good restaurants are, and we were tourists in our hometown for a couple days. In the elevator to check out Sunday morning, neither of us wanted to go home, so we got a smaller less expensive room in the same hotel for a few days, 3 days I think.

In that timeframe we found an airBNB about the same size as we think we want to build. We checked out of the hotel, into the ABNB, and came up with a written list of things we wanted from the big house (like enough clothing to last for one week instead of one weekend). We made a pact to not visit the big house for 7 days. We collected the things on the written list. We stayed in the ABNB. We started looking for apartments.

Now we are in an apartment and it is kinda small. But letting go of stuff and things I am really never going to actually take advantage of feels pretty good. Today I threw away, in three pickup truck loads, the blueprints for five different boats I am never going to build. One saving grace for us is our four children would much rather go to California or Boston or Montreal rather than come home on major holidays, with their +1s and children, to our big house.

One downside to every home I have ever occupied is the lack of utility room. I too can fit a face cord of cleaning products under the kitchen sink, but there is no place, in most middle class USA homes, to put away the broom, the vacuum, the mop, the long handled tools, close the door; and live in a home that doesn't look like a disheveled work in progress.

We talked about all the furniture in the big house using the hate-dislike-like-love scale. We own three sticks of furniture both of us at least "like," and I made all three of them in my shop space with my own hands. There is a group of things about which we as a couple have mixed emotions, but the largest group in the big house is furniture neither one of us like. All that stuff neither of us like is going to the dump or charitable organizations as soon as the house is under contract.

[Scott Winners]

FWIW I don't need help with the knifeblock. I am going to build a thing that can sit on the countertop now, be mounted under a hanging cabinet later with minimal modification, and I will post it in the projects section here when it is done. I built my first knife block around 1990 or so. I have no problem and no pride tied up in claiming to be one of the top 100 home cooks in Fairbanks with a reasonable shot at being in the top 25. This one I got.

The paper towel holder is a caution. If I had some scrap marble and a stone saw, I like the idea. Water resistant on the countertop, and heavy enough to not slide around when I advance the roll and try to snap one towel off at the perf line. There are any number of den leaders going to be providing adult supervision to a group of 8 year old Cub Scouts this weekend while the cubs drill and countersink holes in plywood scraps, and the end grain of beefy dowels, before driving a drywall screw for dear old mom.

I don't want the screwhead messing up my landlord's counter top. I don't want the fool thing sliding around when I am trying to snap off one towel at the perf line. I don't want it to rot on damp surfaces. I do have some marine plywood. I have seen some spring loaded thingamajigs that keep the roll tight for snapping and prevent unwinding. I shall keep looking.

Between us my wife and I use 4-6 rolls (no kids at home) of paper towels per year. We lean heavily on cloth kitchen towels.

My wife and I are both shoe people. I am going to build his and hers shoe cabinet/shelving units deep enough for us to hang our degrees on the sidewalls, and clean up the floor in the master closet at the same time. Personally I have 5 pairs of cowboy boots I am keeping, one pair of eXtraTuffs, brown casual slip on loafers, black lace up wingtips, a pair Tevas, fuzzy slippers in hair on beaver with hair on fox trim, blah blah and my wife might need two similar units for her various similar items, but we can drive nails or screws in the sides of those to keep the landlord smiling. Plus there is our winter foot wear to consider...

Thanks for this much already.

[Scott Winners]

I ordered some bumper feet from Lee Valley. They are blah blah elastomer blah blah, 'superior to rubber feet in every way.' I almost bought something with 'Veritas' laser engraved in the side to get the free shipping, but was able to resist this time.

[George Yetka]

My plan for knifeblock is to use Magnets. 40440.jpgNot sure of design. but its clean

[Alan Lightstone]

Scott, will you be able to do woodworking in your apartment? A separate workshop space?

[Roger Feeley]

My wife and I downsized (sort of ) seven years ago. Our living space went from 2400 sq feet to 970. But my basement shop went from about 500 sq ft to 1200. We had 4 bedrooms and are down to one. We had separate kitchen and dining rooms and now we have a very open great room.

But…
Our house is on the same property as our daughter (only child), son-in-law and 4 grandchildren. So if we have guests, they can stay next door. We don’t store much because the main house has a cellar.

[Scott Winners]

Scott, will you be able to do woodworking in your apartment? A separate workshop space?

Alan, yes, sorry to leave you hanging for 11 days. We are pretty well living in the apartment. Our plan moving out of the 2400sqft house was to live in our 600sqft apartment for a couple years, and then our planned 1200sqft forever home would feel spacious. Today I think we shoulda got a bigger apartment, but who knows what I will think when we end up in 1200sqft.

Shop space yes. Mine all mine for woodworking, 12x24 floor with 10 foot ceilings. It will be lovely. I am giving up one shelf area 2x3x4 feet for the pressure canner, the cauldron, and the associated propane burners, but no canning jars. There is a 2x2 foot chase for the HRV ductwork in part of the ceiling.

Right now I am done using tools inside the old big house. I have a new woodshed going up in the backyard at the old place tomorrow with a hired helper. My moving filister planes are at the apartment in the living room. I can't roll my jointer out of the garage at the old place until a bunch of the lumber on the garage floor gets turned into a woodshed. My truck is currently storage for my tool belt, circular saw, basic mechanic's set, my favorite drill, and three squares. When I turn right, the three squares - 2 Aluminum and 1 steel - ring against each other and play the song "Scott you are too old for this."

Downsizing is brutal. We have both spent the last month either carrying something with us every time we walk anywhere, or have had to recognize that walking empty handed is prolonging the process. Once we are out of the old place and have all of our keep stuff in the apartment, and all the maybe stuff in climate controlled storage, we are taking two weeks off. Some place where Guinness is on tap right on the beach. Then I will get to build into my new shop space when I come home rested, to make furniture we both at least like.

There is that light at the end of the tunnel, but this is not an easy path.

[Scott Winners]

My wife and I downsized (sort of ) seven years ago.

I am going to start keeping an eye out for the downsizing threads. This is hard.

[Scott Winners]

We downsized in 2005, bought our last fixer upper. Actually did the landscape and windows first. Landscape takes longer to mature, and inside changes are quicker. Smaller yard, smaller house, lower taxes, less to clean, lower utilities, etc.. Last project is new wood floors in living room we put off due to covid. Good luck. Brian

Thanks Brian. Once the trades are out and we are listed we will start looking at properties again. At my age I am personally not in the mood for a fixer upper. I am at about 65 degrees North latitude. I am willing to look at properties up to 10, maybe 15 years old. And empty lots. Most of the housing stock in Fairbanks was built between 1975 and 1985, or earlier. From the PGH - Pretty Good House - perspective, exterior water management in Fairbanks leaves a lot to be desired, and as our winters up here get more and more mild, the shortcoming becomes glaring. I haven't seen -40dF on the sign at the bank morning after morning on my AM commute since some time in the pandemic.

If we end up with an empty buildable lot we are going to camp on it, repeatedly, to figure out where we want the master bedroom to be. Then we will bring in some foundation contractors to be sure we aren't being stupid, and then plant the berry bushes before we break ground.