On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 08:26:05 -0600, Swingman wrote:

On 2/21/2013 7:10 AM, Existential Angst wrote:

The Q is how to sift thru all of this.
Oh, yeah, a bit of a hard sell to the Wife.... LOL
Thoughts, idears, experiences?

The ONLY person who must be totally happy is the lady of the house ...
her approval is mandatory, upfront.

I respectfully disagree, whoever does the cooking is who needs to be
happy. In our case that's both of us. However we hate each others
preferred weapons of destruction. I'm a gas and cast iron skillet
guy, she's a froo froo stainless on an electric stove kind of a gal.
I make traditional 3-5 course meat and potatoes kind of fare, she
prepares exotic dishes that have unpronounceable names. I'll tell you
how it was worked out in a minute.

Build houses, and the kitchens that go in them.

Here is an excellent resource that will keep any lady busy for hours
with regard to kitchens and other remodeling plans/possibilities:

http://www.houzz.com/

Nice, thanks!

(if you/she has an iPad, even better ... Houzz has an outstanding IOS app)

In the interest of your pocketbook, I find this calculator to be very
accurate, as it coincides with my own, home rolled Excel spreadsheet
which is based on my actual costs for the past decade of kitchen
building/remodeling:

http://www.finehomebuilding.com/page...s-countertops/

That's a big help too.

And now for the rest of the story... so we made a deal. We built her
the kitchen she wanted, which also meant she had to do most all of the
cooking. We raised seven kids. My cast iron cookware had been in a
storage unit for about 20 years when the light bulb came on. I'll
build me a man kitchen on a new 2nd floor deck! So I built the deck
12' x 16' off of the dining room, opposite her kitchen, seperated by
glass french doors. Our family lives in the kitchen and dining room.
This was a perfect extension thereof.

I won't list everything I've got out there, but this is my favorite
web site: http://amazingribs.com/ What can I say, Meathead is a God.
And if you practice some of the recipes there, your wife will think
you are too. Plus it's the perfect place for the "guys" to go hang
out while the "girls" yak up their girly stuff. Just shut the french
doors. It's a beautiful thing. We live in the middle of 1,500 acres
of commercial timber property, nobody else around, it's peaceful and
that deck is a great place to enjoy it, smell the BBQ going, and BS
with your buddies.

One thing that kind of troubled me when I was searching for ideas
about outdoor kitchens was they all looked so cold and sterile and
tried to mask the fact that it wasn't really inside. Yuk. Mine is
open with a canopy to keep the bird **** off the burgers and has
restaurant grade stuff like the gas grill, and familiar stuff like the
Weber BBQ and Treager smoker and beer fridge and everything is laid
out intuitively. Anyone can go out there and cook up a feast whether
they prefer gas, charcoal, hardwood smoked, pellet smoker or whatever
new toy I'm playing with at the time. Nirvana.

Her 25 year old kitchen now needs a facelift and that's a project for
this Summer. Thanks to the sites you posted, she'll have a blast
perusing them for ideas and prices. Plus mine is fully functional so
I'll cook during the remodeling phase.

And everyone lived happily ever after. The End.

Good luck to the OP too.

Jrmthd