How about not using the pair, but just one? I have used one, very large old, vintage crystal lamp on my DR buffet, and like the look. I've also used another large vintage lamp, on the 6' antique cabinet in the foyer.

As for your question, my double oven~i've only used them both at Christmas. May be good for re-sale, tho. ;o)

I have pictures that I loved and bought, but am having a hard time using. So I'm thinking of doing grouping them all together and making sort of a collage look on the stair wall. We also installed a new faucet and stainless steel sink in the kitchen only to replace them two years later. We're going to use them instead in a utility space we're going to stall in our walk in pantry / utility room. Most of our stuff though like replacement doors and old cabinetry we're going to pass on to Habitat for Humanity.

For me, it was the Hafele toekick stepstool. It sounded like the GREATEST idea - it's a stepstool that folds into part of a toekick panel so can be stowed out of sight in the toekick, ostensibly a convenient location. What a waste of my dollars! The stool only adds about a foot to my height, and I am short, so it still doesn't enable me to reach the top shelves, so I still need to pull out another stepstool. Furthermore, it is very stiff to fold and unfold, so you have to do battle to pull it open and shut it. And the cost! It was about $175 just for the stool and the bracket; add to that the toekick panel that I had to buy from my cabinet manufacturer, plus my contractor's time to cut a space in my toekick to install it. Plus I still had to buy a taller stepstool from Target (about $35-40 BTW, and what I should have bought in the first place).

Here is a link that might be useful: Hafele Toekick Stepstool - Don't Buy It

akchicago- I hadn't heard any negatives about that one before. That was on my list of possibles at one point- I'm glad I didn't get it!

An appliance garage (part of our cabinets) was to sit under the cabs on the counter but it hid our tile design and took up too much room. Now it sits in my garage waiting to be installed in a laundry room-- maybe or just thrown away to the tune of $600.00. It made sense on the cabinet layout at first

Wow akchicago, really surprised at that one. I don't have it but wanted it and didn't get it. As it turns out, I rarely need a high reach.

I bet mine will shock as well: self closing drawers. I don't know why, but I hate them. I've removed them from everything except the trash and recycle pull outs. They work perfectly 98% of the time, but that small 2% drove me nuts. Plus, I just really like the fast, smooth "sliiiiiide clunk!" when the drawers close.

My soap dispenser and Never MT. They never worked well, and now I think I want to plug up the hole, or use an instahot there...

Maybe I got a bum one, so I am jaded, but it seems I need to press it like 10 times before any soap dribbles out (even after I watered down the soap).

pirula: I thought I was the only one. I don't have my new kitchen yet, but I really don't want the self-closing drawers. I am far too impatient to wait for something to do its job "slowly."

I have 4 stained glass ceiling fan shades sitting in my basement that will never get used. We made the mistake of ordering them from the catalog. They looked brown, but in RL were really purple, and a very lavendar purple at that. They were supposed to be for DH's office. Needless to say, he didn't want them. I tried to get DD to use them in her purple and black room, but they didn't fit her "vision", so she wouldn't use them either. I guess one day I'll sell them at a yard sale for $5. Too bad they were $50 apiece.

And I think they are soon to be joined by the 42 inch round ottoman that, while I really like it, doesn't work at all in my family room. I told DH just this morning that I'd really like to finish the family room but I'm afraid to buy anything else for fear of making anymore costly mistakes.

Totally Confused

Hmm.. we aren't done yet but we have an extra lamp fixture and an extra over the refrigerator cabinet because we had to change that space after the fact.

I wonder about the self closing drawers. My husband was really liking them but I notice that they have to be pretty close to the cabinet before they close. Of course ours are empty right now since we aren't done enough to start moving back in...

Thanks for the step stool review, akchicago. I was also considering that.

I had a kitchen desk. I'd always wanted one and had one put in when we built this house 16 years ago. For me, it quickly became a clutter/junk magnet for the whole family. I like my things organized and this area did not have the storage, etc. I needed to keep it that way. It was pretty . . . and pretty useless! I finally decided to turn it into a baking center, as the lower counter height was good for that. Another mistake, as I really don't like to bake. I hardly ever used it ;^D
It was still a clutter magnet! So, when we had the entire kitchen redone a couple years ago, I had the desk area redone and put in a tall pantry cab. I love it and don't miss the desk at all!
Lynn

Appliance garages. Bought two, used one, and finally took that out as well. Much happier with open corners - the frig hides one of the corners anyway, so I can have my food processor, KA mixer, and blender out and readily available without others being able to see them.

let's see.
vacuum, cleaning supplies, broom. shall i go on?

I bought a ORB faucet that looks a lot like an old fashioned pump spout. I thought I wanted it for hard water and the regular faucet for soft water. I don't think I will use it. One less hole in my counter. If anyone needs hard water and can't drink soft water they'll have to go outside to the hydrant for it! I live on a farm and there are plenty of outdoor places to get hard water. I'm starting a small collection of things I don't like any more, were a bad idea, found something better.

Popcorn ceiling.

I don't have self-closing drawers; my cabinets predate them. I think it would be frustrating, though to have something you can't slam when you're angry.

You had to have a popcorn ceiling, riverspots? Just curious as to why you'd feel that's a gottahaveit.

riverspots-I know what you mean about slamming the drawers. If I'm mad enough to slam them, I want to hear the bang. But DH wanted soft-close drawers, so we got them in the kitchen. Now I give the bathroom drawers a little tap and look at them wondering why they won't close themselves. How quickly we get used to things.

Totally Confused

Ohhhhh, this is NOT a good thread to be reading when one is on the verge of making choices, from the standpoint of going into paralysis with second-guessing. (DH is the same way only worse. It leaves us rarely making decisions until the last minute.) OTOH, it is a good thing from the perspective of learning of a few things to rule out, like soft-close drawers. I'll save some $ on those.

It's the big-ticket items that really get me. We were convinced we were getting a particular fridge, but found a site that had 26 pages of negative reviews on it. When I entered some of the other brands, 22 pages was the fewest any had. Most were up in the 70s. So what do you do... pick the one with the lowest number of pages? Sometimes you just have to decide what you can live with because very few things will be absolutely perfect.

I was also captivated by all the bells and whistles available now in kitchen organization, but for the most part, I think we're sticking with plain and simple. I think.

jsweenc- I found the same thing when it cames to refrigerators when I had to buy a new one 2 1/2 years ago. We ended up just getting a GE, becuase it had the features I wanted, and I got a brand new one at a REALLY good discount. I am counting on it not lasting for more than 7-8 years. If I had to buy a new one today, I would probably spend the extra money and get a Leibherr.

andyman -- I hope you can see this. Don't give up the soap dispenser yet! A couple of months ago, I was searching a place to buy the Never MT and came to an old thread about home-made Never MT (can't find the thread now), I followed the steps and it worked! Here is what I did:

1) Find a long flexible tubing (from LOWS or Home Depot) that fits your dispenser really tight, and put it on the dispenser tube;

2) Drill a hole on the soap bottle cap and stick the other end of the tubing through the cap into the dish soap bottle and use duck tape to tape around the cap and the tubing.

That's it!

I just happend to have a bottle of Down dish soap then and didn't dilute the soap. I have been using this for over two months now, it works great! I never have to pump more than once. Actually I was able to test it without the soap bottle cap on, just stick the tube into the soap bottle and it worked right away. Give this a try, hope it will work for you as it did for me.

DH was lamenting that the first refrigerator that we owned together (his before we met) that looks awful but is out in our garage still running strong will probably outlast the one we buy now.

Do you mean "soft-close" or "self-close"?

Self-close just means the drawer is pulled shut at the end...usually w/the solid "thunk" Pirula likes. Soft-close, OTOH, catches the drawer toward the end of the close and gently closes it...no "thunk" and less sliding around of items in the drawer. And, yes, the "gadget" factor plays a part...my DH loved it so much we bought dampers for the cabinet doors & installed them ourselves so now all our cabinet doors are soft-close as well!

"...wait for something to do its job "slowly."..."

I'm curious, why do you wait? I just close and walk away...the drawer doesn't need me to oversee its closing. Mine also work perfectly 100% of the time...

The only time I see soft-close as a negative is if you have Roll Out Tray Shelves (ROTS) (a.k.a., pull out shelves). With ROTS, you do have to wait for them to close b/f you can close the cabinet door(s).

We ordered a valance to connect the cabinets on either side of the window. The contractor and I agree that it's superfluous. It hides the nice light.

We have a left over 12" cabinet and a 6" spice cabinet when plans changed. Hoping to use them elsewhere - maybe a workshop. There is a whopping re-stocking fee with KM, not to mention the energy of re-packaging and carting them to HD.

We have an extra sink base for a farm sink but it was free with the order. We found we didn't like farm sinks so ordered another sink base that we had to pay for. KM was not interested in taking the other back and replacing it with a regular sink base.

We bought a light that was 15" in diameter which was huge for the space. We were able to return that one though because they stocked it at the lighting store. Found an 11" diameter light at Lowes that I love. I have found that things like lights are very large and it is hard to judge by a picture even though they tell you the measurements. Everyone else has a mansion who could actually use them. Our other lights are Hinkley and Kitchler. They are big but look OK. We have an extra $5 light we bought on clearance for the lavette in the interim for when we found one we liked. Then we found one very soon after. It's really a mini chandelier that we took the chain off to 1 link. It's adorable with the glass crystals. The lavette is kind of victorian looking. We have an extra wall sconce that was for the hall way but it is really too big. We'll re-purpose that for the floor to ceiling chimney that already has an outlet for a sconce. We were going to rebrick but it looks good there.

By and large we don't have much bought but not used stuff. We do have lots of extra boards and micellaneous stuff that the designer had us purchase but were unnecessary for the remodel. Where his mind was at I cannot tell you. We will wait for the end of install and take it all back to HD and INSIST that we get full price back for all the design errors.

We have soft-close drawers and love them.

forgottensong- try selling your leftovers on EBay or Craigslist. I am using some of my parents KM leftovers (we are painting everything, so don't need to worry about matching colors). There is probably someone out there looking for a bargain!

I had an oops a few years ago with a chadelier- loved it, until it came out of the box- it was huge! I used it anyway for about 5-6 years, and now I have it ready to go to the consignment shop.

I should start a thread, "what displaced stuff did you sell/consign/Ebay" to make room for new stuff/fund your kitchen account"...I've been doing alot of that lately it seems...

I'm with andyman. Exact same situation. My Blanco soap dispenser never worked with the Never MT so we removed it. But I still have to pump about 10 times to get the soap out. I think the dispenser can't hold the soap at the top of the tube, it seems to fall back into the bottle each time.