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You are here: Home / Archives for Home and Lifestyle / Home Renovation

The round underground house

September 21, 2007 by Tricia

Have you heard of underground houses? My sisters ex-boyfriend actually grew up in an underground house. Different eh?

The other day Chris was watching television and he had on some documentary. I don’t know if the whole show was about this house or just part of it, but they showed this really cool underground home.

Everything was curved and round. I didn’t see the bedroom but I wouldn’t be surprised in the bed was rounded too!

The kitchen was fabulous! It had a long curved central workspace. It was like one of those very ornate reception desks. Within the curved kitchen counterspace there was a fridge.

It was specially created for this round house. It was round. It came up out of the counter and you could turn it like a lazy susan! The coolest thing was that the fridge was super energy efficient. You know when you open a fridge door and all the cold air starts to come out? Well cold air drops to the ground right? Well since this fridge came up out of the counter the cold air would drop back down into the hole that the fridge came out of, so that when the fridge was closed again it wouldn’t have lost very much cold air at all.

I love seeing great inventions like that.





Filed Under: Entertainment, Home and Lifestyle, Home Decor, Home Renovation, Recreation, Television Tagged With: bedroom, Chris, cold, cool, door, eat, home, house, invention, kitchen, Open, round fridge, show, sister, special, Television, underground home, underground house, watch, watching

Granite and Marble counter tops from All Granite and Marble Corp

August 24, 2007 by Tricia

allgranite.jpg

As many of you know I’m living in a house that my husband and I are, for the most part, renovating ourselves. Over the past year you’ve heard about ongoing renovation projects and plans for the as yet unfinished or not yet begun remodeling jobs.

One of the areas of our house that I’d most like to renovate is our kitchen. I don’t think we’ll begin that project until sometime next year, but I’ve been making plans and looking at materials and decor while I wait.

I’ve been searching the internet for remodeling ideas and bookmarking the sites with either fantastic products, services or great renovation information. When we’re ready to begin our kitchen reno I’ll go back to these site and order materials or use the information on the websites to help me complete our project.

If you’re thinking of remodeling your kitchen you might want to take a look at All Granite and Marble Corp. This company specializes in not only the installation of natural stone countertops, but they also import their own stones and use a very high tech fabrication process to create custom counter tops for their clients.

They are actually a unique company because there are very few companies in the US that fabricate marble and granite counter tops from raw natural stone to finished product. Just look at how beautiful their countertops are:

The website has a number of videos and photos of their completed projects. They also have a video of their production process if you are interested in seeing how they use their CNC machinery to cut and polish the stone.

All Granite and Marble Corp was actually only the third shop in the United States to implement the use of Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) machinery. The fact that they use such high tech machinery to create a high quality product means that they are able to keep production expenses down. As you might already know the only other way to create a high quality granite countertop is to cut and polish it by hand which is a tedious and time consuming task that would likely require more crafts mens and would raise the cost of the final product substantially.

All Granite and Marble Corp services the New Jersey, South New York, West Connecticut and East Pennsylvania. They also have two showrooms in NJ and one in PA. If you are remodeling and happen to live near one of the showrooms you should visit and take a look at their finished products.

So what about the actual countertops you say?

Well, I can tell you that they have an extensive color selection. In fact it’s the largest color selection in all of the USA with over 1000 colors in stock. As I said they import their own natural stone from the most renowned quarries in the world and have over 100,000 stone slabs in stock. If you were to visit one of their showrooms you could actually see the full stone slabs that would be used to make a counter top.

Each stone is unique and being able to choose the slab that will eventually become your counter top would be a wonderful experience. As you know granite and marble have patterns and veins in them. By picking your own slab and being able to see the polished stone before it’s cut to fit your counter you can decide exactly which parts of the stone are used and how they’ll be aligned. Try getting service like that at Home Depot or any other home improvement center.

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You can save a substantial amount of money when you purchase a countertop from All Granite and Marble Corp. They import their own stones and have an extraordinary amount of slabs in stock so there’s no middleman. As I said they also cut and polish the stone slabs themselves using innovative machinery which also keeps the price of each counter top down.

The website says that their turnaround time from creating templates of your counter tops to their installation is only three days. Isn’t that amazing? You either visit their showroom and discuss your project and all the details such as measurements and so on, or you can visit the website and begin discussing your project with their staff online or if you already have a good idea of what you need you can get an initial quote. Once you’ve finalized the details for your new counters and counter tops they say the process only takes three days. That’s amazingly fast!

The more I look at this site the more amazed I become. I’ve never actually come across a company with such a high level of choice and service. The site is very extensive. In fact there’s so much information on the site that if I were to try to tell you about each feature this would be a massively long post.

You’ll find FAQ’s, client testimonials, videos, articles, photos of their marble and granite kitchen counter tops, bathroom vanity tops, fireplace surrounds, Jacuzzi surrounds, bar tops and if that weren’t enough you can also use the 2D or 3D showrooms to design and create the room you’ve been dreaming of for so long. There’s also a section called 3D edges where you’ll be able to view all of the different styles of finishing edges for kitchen counter tops, bathroom vanity tops and fireplaces. Just click on any edge and it will be rendered for you in 3D.

I haven’t dealt with this company, but their website is a dream since it has reams of information, and I’m left with the feeling that the quality of their product and service must match the quality of their site. Visit the site yourself so you can see why I’m just blown away by the vast amount of information and all the choices that one can make when purchasing a new granite or marble counter top for their home.

Filed Under: Decor, Home and Garden, Home and Lifestyle, Home Decor, Home Renovation, Services, Shopping Tagged With: 1000 colors, 100000 stone slabs, 2d showroom, 3d showroom, All Granite and Marble Corp, articles, bar tops, bathroom, bathroom vanity tops, client testimonials, CNC machinery, Computer Numerically Controlled, counter template, counter tops, Countertops, create, CT, cut, design, East Pennsylvania, edges, estimate, fabricate, fabrication, FAQs, fireplace surrounds, fireplaces, granite, granite colors, high tech, in stock, installation, jacuzzi, Jacuzzi surrounds, kitchen, kitchen counter tops, low prices, marble, natural stone, New Jersey, NJ, no middleman, NY, PA, pattern, photos, polish, polished, prices, Product, project, quality, quote, remodel, remodeling, reno, renovate, renovation, service, showroom, South New York, stone slaps, style, Technology, three day turnaround, Unique, vanity tops, vein, videos, West Connecticut

They’re going to sell!

August 17, 2007 by Tricia

Yesterday I awoke to the sound of tapping on my bedroom wall.

It was the neighbors.

As the day passed I don’t think there was a wall adjoining our house that was tapped,banged or hammered.

What on earth were the neighbors doing?

Chris happened to see our neighbor outside when he walked to the corner store in the early evening and he found out that they’d spent the day doing minor repairs to their home. We’d already figured as much, but it was nice to confirm the source of all the tap tap tapping.

Their real estate agent had given them a list of suggestions for repairs.

So yeeaaaaahhhhh it looks like the neighbors will soon be putting their house up on the market!

I’m not surprised that they had at least some minor repairs to do. Since they moved in five and half years ago they’d never done a thing to the house and I think it was badly in need of repairs. I’m sure there’s more that they haven’t got to yet and might not do.

Believe it or not the constant tapping throughout the day was no where near as irritating as the loud guitar, tuba or karaoke that we’re subject to from time to time. In fact the tapping didn’t even really bother me at all. Perhaps that’s just because I knew it might mean that our Karaoke neighbors would soon be moving on.

Filed Under: Home and Lifestyle, Home Renovation, Moving or Organizing, The Neighborhood, Toronto Tagged With: bedroom, Chris, constant, guitar, home, house, house repairs, irritating, karaoke, karaoke neighbors, moving, neighbor, Real Estate, repairs, selling house, tapping, tuba

Oh yeah we’re going to have a home theater room

August 10, 2007 by Tricia

When we renovate our basement we are definitely purchasing home theater seating. Our basement is going to be a deluxe rec room!

We’ve got a 50 inch DLP TV and a great theater sound system so why not create a nice home theater room with proper seating?

Of course I think I also want to try to have a spare bedroom in the basement as well. Hmmm does home theater seating come as a pull out couch? LOL well if it does … I could kill two birds with one stone so to speak, couldn’t I?

I’m actually quite tired of all the renovations that we’ve been doing. I just want them done. Is anyone else going through the renovation blues?

Filed Under: Entertainment, Great Sites, Home and Lifestyle, Home Decor, Home Renovation, Movies, Recreation, Television, Video Tagged With: basement, bedroom, Blues, couch, home, home theater seating, home theater system, rec room, renovate, renovation

We need to get our renovation projects finished!

August 9, 2007 by Tricia

I keep longing for our home renovation to be finished. Yes we’re still working on our living room. Chris is hoping that we might be able to talk his brother into helping up put the tin ceiling up while he’s visiting. That’s be cool if we could get him to help but when the two of them are together it’s usually just one big party so who knows if it will happen or not.

Once we’re done the living room we have the basement, the upstairs bathroom and the kitchen to refinish. I hope that we can get them all done over the next two years or so. The house will look magnificent once it’s all done.

I have it almost all planned in my head. Each room will have style but will be extremely functional.

I think the kitchen reno is what I’m most looking forward to though. I don’t like our current cupboards or counter top and I want to move where both the fridge and stove are located. My idea kitchen would have granite countertops, hardwood cupboards, a hardwood floor and one of those nice storage cabinets on wheels that I could move to the center of the kitchen when I’m busy preparing a meal and cooking to make it just a little easier.

Our bathroom might be a big reno job. We have the worlds smallest bathroom right now. What I’d like to do is move the bathroom into the tiny spare bedroom that’s currently beside the upstairs bathroom. If we moved the location of the bathroom we’d have a decent sized washroom that we could have a bath and shower in and make very luxurious if we wanted.

What room of your house would you like to renovate and what would it look like when you’re done?

Filed Under: Home and Lifestyle, Home Renovation, Shopping Tagged With: basement, basement renovation, bathroom renovation, Chris, cooking, granite countertops, hardwood cupboards, hardwood floors, home, Home Renovation, house, idea, Job, kitchen, kitchen renovation, remodeling, renovate, renovation

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