Email ElizabethThe Best Kitchen Trash Can
For the past 3 years, I have not been thinking about acquiring the best kitchen trash can. I’ve just been annoyed with the one we have. Every time I try to pull a full bag of trash out of our kitchen trash can, the sides of the garbage bag swell and stick to the can. This is the kind of can with a metal square lever that lets you tuck the edges of the trash bag under it, but the sides of that poke holes in your trash bags.
So I dash to the garage, dangling the trash bag away from my person to prevent splashes from whatever. There’s got to be a better way, I decided. We don’t have enough room at our vacation house in Hawaii to install an under-the-sink option. Our trash can sits on the floor near the entrance to the kitchen.
What is the best kitchen trash can to buy? I Googled a few and then made a trip to Target. Yes, of all places, Target. That’s because they carry Simplehuman trash cans. I considered briefly the voice activated, but that involves batteries. I have enough work as it. Don’t need to be changing batteries, too.
Several features make this type of kitchen trash can perfect. One of the biggest benefits is the J-type garbage bags that are designed to fit inside the can and under the lid. Which means the trash bag holds it shape and position. When you toss a heavy item into the bag, it doesn’t cause the bag to collapse or slide down inside the trash can. It stays put.
What took them so long to design something like this? Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering how expensive are those designer trash bags that fit so neatly inside the can? They are about 30 cents each. As compared to, say, Glad trash bags for 13 gallon cans, run about 16 cents each. Or, you can figure two bags a week will cost $20 for 6 months. Twenty bucks buys 60 bags.
I chose the semi-round, 45-liter Simplehuman because it cost $99 and occupies a smaller footprint in the kitchen. But it’s not just the designer trash bags that make this the best kitchen trash can. For starters, it holds 3 times as much trash as our former trash can. The step-on pedal is easy to operate but a bit too complicated for a cat to try it. Plus, get this, it automatically soft-closes.
Just like my new MacBook Air, the Simplehuman trash cans come in an array of colors, even rose gold.
Target. It’s the place.
Update on Lowes Kona Kitchen Remodel
OK, so no surprise here that our Lowes Kona kitchen remodel is still not finished. Part of the problem is we bought our cabinets from Lowes in Kailua-Kona, the Shenandoah line, exclusive, it seems, to Lowes. In retrospect, if I had more time, it would have made more sense to order custom cabinets from any of the fine cabinet makers in Kona. But I had to get back to Sacramento to continue selling Sacramento real estate.
I placed the order for our Lowes Kona kitchen remodel in June, along with signing a contract with Lowes to buy most of the supplies from Lowes. However, Lowes did not do the remodel nor adequately oversee the job. Lowes hired a third-party contractor to do the work. So I probably would have been better off hiring my own contractor, but that is water under the bridge.
The cabinets arrived at the store in August but nobody inspected the cabinets until they were delivered to our house in November. At which point, they discovered a few of the cabinets were damaged and part of the order did not arrive. Were the missing pieces ordered in the first place? I dunno. It would have been better if Lowes had been equipped to inspect the delivery when the cabinets arrived instead of wasting 3 months, but no, the cabinets quietly sat damaged in storage.
If I had been aware they were to arrive and be delivered without inspection, I would have driven out to Lowe’s storage bay and unboxed them myself to check. As it is, all work came to a screeching halt in early December to wait for another shipment.
In early December, Lowes ordered replacement cabinets and they are arriving tomorrow, in early February. An unexpected twist — when I called Shenandoah directly, I was informed that Shenandoah had discontinued the cabinets in August and did not tell us.
Lowes had to go an outside vendor to get the replacement cabinets. If I hadn’t called Shenandoah, I would not have known this little fact.
Jacob at Shenandoah says he has worked there for 3 years. He said it takes 8 weeks to get the replacement cabinets because, although almost every cabinet they sell is made from maple, well, the cabinets are maple. He also said the glaze was, well, special. I don’t know how well they will match the other cabinets, but I will find out tomorrow. No amount of begging or bribery would deliver those cabinets any sooner.
Which means the finish work, depending on the condition of the replacement cabinets, will begin on Friday. It is possible the Lowes Kona kitchen remodel, which began in November, might be completed before Valentine’s Day.
Many Home Showings and No Offers, What is Wrong?
Not too long ago we closed on a property that had many home showings and no offers, and there was nothing wrong with the property itself. It had been priced too high. Once we brought the price in line with what the market would bear, the home sold. Without question. Nobody asked why has this been on the market for so long? They could see why.
It was also a difficult sale for the sellers. They had no mortgage, so apart from paying for utilities and property taxes, it didn’t cost much to keep the home on the market. As the listing agent, I wasn’t complaining, either. The home’s location was excellent and it made the phone ring with buyers for others homes. I will be as patient as my sellers.
However, usually when there are many home showings and no offers, it generally means there is something wrong with the property. The way to cure that problem is to figure out what is wrong and fix it. If you can’t fix it, then lower the price.
What could be wrong, you might ask? It could be condition. Some homes without updates or the wrong kinds of updates will get passed over by today’s discriminating millennials. Buyers dislike oak cabinets, white ceramic counters or white appliances. In those instances, you have two remedies. Paint the cabinets, install quartz and replace the appliances. Or, substantially reduce the price. What first-time home buyers want today is very different from buying trends in the 20th Century.
It could be location. Some homes built in front of major freeways (what were they thinking??) are challenging locations to sell. Moreover, if you can see a school when standing in the front yard, that’s a bad location. In those situations, sellers have only one remedy. Make that house the cheapest home within a 1/2 mile radius. Same principle applies to a bad layout. It is generally too expensive to change the layout, which means the price needs to account for the configuration deficit.
Many home showings and no offers? Perhaps the home looks differently online than the photographs reflect. Once inside, buyers could decide it doesn’t meet their list of requirements. If the home could use a little TLC, it is OK to market it that way. Let buyers know what they are getting into, and they will be better prepared to view the home. When hopes are dashed the minute they step inside the home, that is not a good buying experience.
Sometimes it can be the season, typically the months of December through February can be slow. You also can’t count open house traffic because those people are not necessarily buyers. Those are people who like to attend open houses, or people walking and driving by.
Of course, the bottom line solution in just about any situation in which you have many home showings and no offers is a price reduction. But before automatically slashing the price, be sure to consider other factors first.
Are You a Buyer Who Wants to See Homes Outside Your Price Range?
Is it smart to look at homes outside your price range? At first blush, sometimes buyers think, oh, what can it hurt? Maybe the homes are overpriced and the owners will eventually lower the price to my price range? Or, maybe the seller is severally distressed and needs an immediate sale so she will take less.
Looking at homes outside your price range is likely to do one of three things. All three of them can be damaging.
1) You may find yourself falling in love with a home that is so far out of your price range you’ll do practically anything, liquidate any asset, to possess it. When emotions run away with you, that’s how people often end up in financial trouble.
2) You could fall into a great pit of depression. Quite logically, you may ascertain this is not a property you can afford, maybe not ever, and that makes you sad. It’s the opposite reaction you expected. There is little joy in drooling over a commodity you cannot afford as all it does it elevate your expectations to a level you might never achieve. And that’s a terribly negative place to be.
3) You could lose out on an opportunity that is well within your price range because you are spending too much time looking at homes outside your price range. When that window of opportunity opens, you’re already behind closed doors elsewhere. And that’s a shame.
It truly makes more logical sense to look at homes within a range you can afford to buy. Let’s say you are preapproved for $525,000 and want to buy a modest home in the leafy Sacramento neighborhood, Land Park. The first thing I would tell you is look somewhere else or raise your price point. Many of the homes for sale in that price range are near noise, some other detriment or incredibly small.
You could instead look at Southside Park, which is a perfectly nice neighborhood in the same ZIP code as Land Park but it is not Land Park. It is more urban, like Midtown. I would also encourage you to check out 2214 Davini Lane near Southside Park. It is a tri-level built in 2007, which features all the bells and whistles. For sale at $489,000.
By focusing on your price range and not looking outside your price range, you’ll have a better chance of buying a home you love for the long run. It’s a lot of work to go through buying a home. Why repeat the experience due to a mistake? You can get it right the first time around by talking about your price ranges with your agent and making sure your parameters for a property search are returning results you can live with.
One of the Movies About Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Because I haven’t been to the movies for a while, it seemed fitting to see one of the movies about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, On the Basis of Sex. I was using the Regal app on my phone to check out the shows at a specific theater in Kona, and that movie was not on the list. On a hunch, I tried the Fandago app, and sure enough, the movie was playing at the Regal Theater. So I bought my ticket on Fandango instead of through Regal. That was a weird thing,
Ruth Bader Ginsburg has always been my hero for as long as I can remember. She is a true crusader of women’s rights, and we need more people like her. The United States still has not managed to pass the ERA, giving everybody equal rights, you know. Our advances haven’t quite yet made up for the distance we still need to go.
In case you think we don’t need women’s rights, and I know there are some people who, for whatever reason, do not understand why we do, here is a good example. This weekend a carpenter came over to make some much needed repairs that the other contractors managed to mess up. As we chatted, he mentioned that he and his girlfriend live up the hill. He actually said, “I would have you over to see our house but my girlfriend is a terrible housekeeper.”
Do I keep quiet when people say things like that? Don’t see how I can. Keeping quiet is complacency at best and conveys a message that one agrees or at least tolerates, and I will do neither. I gave him a piece of mind by reminding that women were not put on the earth to clean house, and he should be equally as responsible for keeping his house tidy.
Also, in the movie, we see Ruth Bader Ginsburg as an overachiever, which she was, but also a bit of a nervous klutz. They make up stuff in movies for dramatic effect as I doubt RBG was nervous. She strikes me as a woman who would have been so well prepared and organized that there would be no room for anxiety, much less wearing anxiety on her sleeve.
Being a smart women, RBG won a landmark tax case (co-presented with her supportive tax lawyer husband) that would not allow a man to be considered a caregiver for tax purposes because he was not a woman and unmarried. It made perfect sense to show a man was discriminated against on the basis of his gender when you’re dealing with other men.
An unexpected part I thoroughly enjoyed was when the real Ruth Bader Ginsburg walked up the steps of the Supreme Court dressed in a blue suit, the same color blue she wore when attending Harvard Law as one of 9 women. Oh, and the closing song: Here Comes the Change, by Kesha. Loved it. Will probably be nominated for an Oscar.
Two thumbs up for the movie, On the Basis of Sex.
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