probably because it was my first one
2 favorites:

1) On Cooking: This was my culinary school textbook, and it’s a great resource for pretty much anything you want to know about cooking. I like it more than the New Professional Chef (CIA textbook), it seems more in-depth.

2) Taste, by David Rosengarten: This book doesn’t have all that many recipes for its size, but each recipe it has is very in-depth and well researched. I’ve read it through countless times, and it’s excellent each time.
i have an old better homes and gardens cookbook. it has some good recipes
I don’t use cookbooks

But if I had to guess, my favorite would actually be I use them often if I want something different.
Joy of Cooking my mother gave me when I moved.

(not gay)

they are so great – a lot of recipes take wayyyy too much time to prep but in they end they are always right – for some of their recipes without the science and the comparisons check out America’s Test Kitchen:

My Joy got a lot of use when I was starting out as well – entertaining read too if you ever need to know how to stuff a wild boar’s head

edit – I made ATK’s lasagna a couple of weeks ago – absolutely the best I’ve ever had and used no boil noodles which I’d been extremely leery of using – i used a combo of 1/2 lb ground round and 1/2lb italian sausage:

Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen

His first book, and it teaches you the basics of the finest food in all the world.

Sounds cool. i’ll check it out.
On Cooking, and The Professional Chef, 7th Edition. Two great books.

I’m using my dad’s which he got from his mom- it’s like an ancient tome

although I’m liking a lot of the recipies I’m finding on here- even if they don’t break it down into a step-by-step how to do it form.
bump…

Any others?

I just ordered “The Best Recipe” and subscribed to America’s Test Kitchen

Used to be S.O.A.R.

Real nice grouping also, for taste or styles.
Still searching for a decent one, let alone my favourite. I find 90% of cookbooks are of no help unless you’ve had that dish before. (ie. cookbooks that resemble textbooks with no pictures)

Some books are too artsy. They’re more about the pretty photos than the recipe.

Too many ‘quick and easy’ cookbooks and other dumbed down recipes. If I wanted quick, I’d eat ramen. I want quality. Time shouldn’t matter.

I hate cookbooks that resemble scrapbooks.

That’s my cousin.
i have subscriptions to southern living, better homes and gardens, taste of home, and womans day…i cut out all the recipes i like (and write on index cards recipes i have collected from friends and family) and tape them on printer paper according to what kind of recipe it is and now i have the best cookbook evar…its got all the good stuff i want and none of the stuff i dont…i also like southern livings annual cookbook…i have several of them!

that’s a good idea, I have a big 3 ring binder with things I’ve cut out – I put them in plastic sheet savers then the recipes don’t get lost if something spills

a lot of the recipe web sites offer printing options for 3 x5 or 4 x 6 cards – if you print them out on card stock you can file them right away in the recipe box

/martha

Excellent site. As for actual books, I dig my New York Times Cookbook.
I have an international cookbook at home; it has some great stuff in there! If only i could cook :’(
I prefer online recipe sites because you can read user reviews, which I find extremely helpful in deciding whether to make or alter a recipe. My three favorite are:

no shit???

Those are all excellent, but unless you’ve got a lot of relatively obscure/expensive ingredients on hand, epicurious? Meh.

EDIT: This page is MINE. Sorry, had to.

Some of the recipes on epicurious are more of the fancy-schmancy variety, but most of them are actually pretty down to earth (it really all depends on what type of food you are looking to make). I like epicurious because it has a huge variety, is well designed, has a great rating/review system, is easy to navigate both by browsing and by using their very detailed search feature, and has a lot of delicious recipes… Sure, if you’re the type of cook who thinks an herb sage is a specialty item, then it wouldn’t be for you, but for most exeperienced or semi-experienced cooks its a great site.
internet: , epicurious.com, foodtv.ca, americastestkitchen.com

books: I’d rather list authors because anything by these chefs is golden: rick bayless (mexican!) nigella lawson(book- how to be a domestic goddess), marc bittman.

When picking out cookbooks i judge the book by its cover, table of contents, pictures, size of index and the little headnotes before the recipe. I love those little notes, they are great to read.
Yep, On Cooking is a very good book… i actually saw it on sale at Barnes and Noble

for some gourmet food though, you might want to try The French Laundry by Thomas Keller, or anything by Charlie Trotter
“The Three ingredient” cookbook, always gets me out of bind when needed

Ju
If you’re interested in an Australian flavour try

Always a reliable source for me… chow
For good french bistro food, Anthony Bourdain’s new book “Les Halles Cookbook” is great.

Aussie cuisine being?

Me != money

eh, it’s only $20 or so on amazon, vs $35 in the bookstores.

Like I have $20 to spend willy nilly.
Joy of cooking is a must have for me as well.
Also really enjoy Rick Bayless’ Mexico: One plate at a time
I just received the new best recipe and the quick recipe – i’m sure there’s some overlap but they were a good deal when purchased together and a summary of all the magazines… such good reading…. so many new things to try

The Fanny Farmer Cookbook (original version). Can find a better little cookbook than that one. Lots of basic stuff…a bible for those who cook.
I flip through “The French Laundry” cook book by that thomas keller guy. tons of interesting stuff

Great book, but does the average person even have half the ingredients required to cook a meal from there?

> yuo

“The soul of a Chef” by Michael Ruhlman, u go to culinary school…..do urself a favor and read this book..
The New Professional Chef
Not really a cookbook, but Cuisine at home magazine. No ads, just cooking. Their back issue volumes come bound like a book, so essentially they are a cookbook.
bump

I ordered New Joy of Cooking and New Best Recipe yesterday.
Here’s why I don’t like epicurious:

Sorry, no results found for Chicken

3037 results for:
chicken

dunno what you’re doing that results in no results…
havent gotten internet hooked up at home so i use the James Beard American Cookery. its a 600+ pg book.. and JB is a GOD.

only problem is that it has no “prep time” and no “serve” count… but most of his recipes are 4-person

the joy of cooking or southern living cookbooks
Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, Marcella Hazan. Some fantasic recipes in there, not too insanely complicated, just good classic Italian.

Joy of Cooking for the basics.

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Started with a 3/4 lb cut of sashimi grade ahi
cut into two pieces
made a mixture of coarse ground pepper, seasoned pepper, sesame seeds and sea salt
2 tbsp of olive oil in a skillet
heated the skillet until the olive oil started to smoke
coated both sides of the tuna with the spice mix

fried for 45-60 seconds, flipped, did the same with the other side.
cut into thin slices, served fanned on plate with a spicy soy sauce (didn’t have any wasabi, so I made a mix of soy and Schezuan sauces)
Where do you but the meat and how fresh does it need to be for sushi?

I want to make this for my boyfriend
I went to our local butcher. I’m sure any decent seafood shop would work too. Make sure it’s Ahi (yellowfin) tuna. It should be a nice red color, not gray or brown.

Red not gray or brown

Thanks!

That’s not cool.
A lot of times you can tell a sushi restaurant by their tuna, if they have nice perfectly rectangle cuts of tuna like so:

Then you can bet your ass off that the tuna they’re using are these types of tunas.

The best color is almost a deep fluorescent red like so , never ever really dark or brown. Another way to tell if the tuna is bad is to just simply smell it, if it has a fishy smell, then its gone bad.

Nice, I usually sear mine for about 3 minutes a side on the grill. I also throw some snap peas and sliced squash in a tinfoil pouch and cook it on the grill a few minutes before putting the fish on.
Actually it’s hard to tell the freshness of tuna by color anymore because a lot of fish sales places treat the tuna with carbon monoxide, which gives it a good red color without guaranteeing it’s freshness. Just rely on your nose more than anything else.
or just go to an organic fish market. I guess they might be hard to find other places but this supermarket near my work called berkeley bowl usually has a few different kinds of sushi grade fish on hand. and most of the time its super fresh and tastes really good. some of the best salmon I’ve ever had I got from berkeley bowl and made nigiri with it. they get good tuna as well. it helps to ask when they get their shippments and go on the same day.

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I call em “Blackies”

I think the lower acidity of the dutched chocolate changed the texture though. They’re more cake-like than brownie-like.
What is the recipe you used? I’ve never made “real” brownies before, only boxed ones.
Wisk 4 eggs til their light and fluffy. Wisk in one cup of brown and one cup of regular sugar, 1.25 cups of NATURAL cocoa (that’s the part where I used dutch processed), 1/2 cup flour, 2 sticks of melted butter, 2 tsp vanilla extract, and a big pinch of salt (no additive salt… so kosher, sea, etc… not table salt). If you can, sift all that while you add it. Pour in a greased pan (a good way to do this is to cover the bottom and sides of the dish with butter, then dust that liberally with flour) and bake 45 minutes at 300 degrees.

It’s not a hard recipe. And you can really do a lot of junk with it… add roasted nuts if you want… or chocolate chips or bits of those Andes mint chocolates would be good (just thought of that one… sounds good). The other day I thought about heating up some peanut butter to a more liquid consistancy, and stripe the brownies with it. I haven’t tried that yet, but it’s an idea that I think might be good

AWESOME boxed mix brownies.

They’re way better than most “from scratch” brownies.
meh, sounds good to me. I could go for a brownie right now…with some milk . the best brownies I made were when I used scharfenberger baking chocolate, they were pot brownies but still tasted better than any brownie I’ve ever had. I think the kind of chocolate you use has a huge impact on flavor. though you pay for what you get, it was an $8 chunk of chocolate.

lol, it probably tasted so good b/c of the pot

well that all depends, I’ve had batches that came out pretty bitter, I tried to make a butter cream frosting out of some pretty strong pot butter and it ended up making people sick, I mean it tasted bad but I think it was just too strong (people would eat one cupcake or one peace of cake and end up missing work the next day). the stronger it is the more bitter it tastes, sugar can help this but it only goes so far. I use clippings, leaves and some smaller stems ground up in a food processer (I filter out the butter before I cook with it) but that tends to make it more bitter in the end than using bud (which is a waste of money to cook with anyway).

I’ve never eaten (or smoked) pot, but if I ever decide to, I’ll keep these tips in mind

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Preheat oven to 350F. Cut the ends off of the onion, then in half. Mix bread crumbs with olive oil just enough for them to get mangled up. Add ogreano. Then mix it until firm. Put some butter on the onions, then the bread crumbs. Then put some paramesen cheese on top. Bake for 30-45 mins.
Slice the onions, cook on low heat in olive oil until they carmelize. Toss in a dash of rice wine vinegar and some salt and pepper. Chop up a cup of fresh cranberries and saute those too. Let that cool a bit, then mix it up with some grated romano or mozza cheese. Spoon all this onto melba toast (or your choice of crackers) and bake under a broiler until the cheese bubbles.

Tasty, easy, deviously fancy or-doovres.
Bloomin Onion

What this requires is a sharp knife and a steady hand. Use a LARGE onion, it is easier. Peel the onion, and slice enough off of one end so that it will stay upright by itself. Now, slice the onion vertically in a series of 1/4 – 3/8" parallel slices, stopping 1/2" shy of the bottom. Rotate the onion 90 degrees, and repeat. Place the onion in ice water, and let sit for at least 1 hour. (This causes the ‘bloom’ to open up.) Mix 1/4 c flour with one egg and 1 T milk. Remove the onion from the ice water and drain very well. Coat with the batter, and fry in very hot oil until golden brown.
french onion soup. seriously, it’ll decimate that bag of onions, and it’s definately worth it.

gonna try that for dinner.

didn’t even think of that. when I finish off this lot of beef, I’ll make some beef stock for soup
One recipe I found on a bbq forum I follow is this:

Videlia onions are now in season. These are the world’s sweetest onion, acccept no pretenders from Texas or Washington as a substitute. When purchasing sweet onion, the bigger the onion the sweeter, that’s why the big ones sometimes get a premium price. Flat ones are sweeter than round ones of the same weight, don’t ask me why. The name is registered, there are imposters, llok for the real thing.
Obtain a suitable amount of onions, one per person. Peel. Slice off the stalk end to make a flat surface about the size of a half dollar. Place on a piece of aluminum foil large enough to wrap onion. For ease, I use the sandwich wraps. If the onions are big it will take two, but its still easier than messing with a roll. Shake on black pepper to taste. Spalsh or two of worchesteshire sauce (you kow what I mean). Put a bouillon cube on top. I find that beef tends to be a little too salty, chicken is o.k., I use vegetable if I can find it. Also look for it loose in a jar, in which case use 1/2 teaspoon –jar is easier than unpeeling all those cubes. Top with a generous pat of real butter. Trust me this is one recipe where "You really can believe this isn’t butter"
Wrap tightly in aluminmum foil, put on smoker for about 2 hours. Time isn’t really critical, as they can be eaten when the butter melts. Basically, they’re done like a potato — when a skewer will a-l-m-o-s-t go through.

I was going to try it this weekend but was futzing around with a windy day and a smoker that would either be to hot or to cold. So instead I did grilled corn.

did you check the thread date?

hence the
they mellow out so much when cooked; you could probably just double them up in any recipe

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im not sure it’s that important what type of wood you use. like i said, we used pine and even now 10 years later, it looks like new and it would heat up to 80 degrees C in about an hour and hold the heat for about 4 hours.

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I do have money saved up, but I’m trying to go about this in a smart manner, so I don’t have $500 to be spending on a couch and another $500 to be spending on a bed.

Do you guys have any suggestions that might help me out…I’m coming up dry

qft
IKEA for retail.
Overstock.com has some good stuff for cheap also.

Garage Sales or Secondhand furniture stores are good too, just watch the mattresses… ya never know what they’ve done on ‘em.

freecycyle kicks ass. Gotten rid of alot of stuff on there
Look around for discount furniture stores. There’s one around here called Payless Furniture that had queen beds for $130. I got a foam mattress topper to put on it and it’s really comfortable. If you really want to be cheap for a couch you can check by apartment dumpsters. Some people throw out some pretty good stuff because they just don’t want to mess with selling it.

Much like how a mullet is business in the front and party in the back?
i’d be very suspect of buying any upholstered furniture used – smells, bugs, phantom stains that show up later

beg from family, buy cheap from ikea or whatever and upgrade as you can afford it

don’t be the guy with a $3000 tv and a moth eaten couch

cb2.com is pretty cheap and of reasonable quality (just better than ikea). Do you have Plummer’s out in FL?

If you do get a futon, get a good one cause a cheap ones padding disappears

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it really is personal preference…i don’t go overboard when i cook with wine but i will generally use a decent pinot grigio for most of my white wine cooking needs…nothing ridiculous but nothing too cheap…clos du bois has been doing it for me lately…

I use a Sutter Home Pinot Grigio, $8 bucks at local store.

yep

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I’m not going to post the layout pictures as they are really hard to see. The layout was sprayed in orange and the sun was bright.

Enjoy.

Excavation…

Plumbing, rebar, and electrical…Not all of the equipment is there yet. We are missing the heater and heat pump.

Gunite…

Coping, tile, and decking will be the next step. That should be done next week. We have to water the gunite a few times a day for 5 days to let it cure before anything else can be done.
Will do. They did this in a week and a half, so I figure it’ll be about 2 more weeks before we can swim. It’s a good thing I live in TX because I still have a couple more months that it will be warm and will be able to jump in a cool off. We will be able to swim in the winter as well since the heater will heat the pool and spa.
Nice! I just had my pool re-plastered…so it started out like yours is right now. Just a few more days until the chlorine levels are perfect.
What color plaster did you go with? White, light grey, dark grey? Got any pics?

Si! I can’t wait to jump in it. All I can do right now is walk around in it while I water the gunite.
Thanks! We are so ready for the watering stage to be over with. It took me 45 minutes to water the gunite last night. It just kept soaking the water up, but I guess when it is 100+ degrees outside that’ll happen.

I got white – I’m in northern california and my pool is almost completely unshaded…full sun. In the summer months, the water temp gets to the high 80′s – which is very borderline "too warm"…if I had selected a darker plaster, it would have heated the water even further. So if you’re in a cooler state, or have shade, then go for a colored plaster. Also, I hear the dark grey is hard to maintain…get calcium deposits, cracks show up white, etc.

I do have pics…just have to put them together. Will post soon (if I remember!).
Well, we don’t have much shade and I am in North Texas. It’s been in the 100′s this week. We are going with a Midnight Blue Pebble finish so I know it will get pretty warm. We are going to have the pool and waterfall running during the middle of the day to keep the water circulating and help the temperature from rising too much. I know it will get pretty warm, but I wanted this color of Pebble Tec so I will just have to deal with the warm water.
Tile and coping will be done this afternoon so I should have more pics this evening. Looks like the pool may be completed early next week.
I can’t wait to see more picture…looks like it will be an amazing backyard retreat. Plus, I guess I have never seen a pool install….so it’s quite informative
Well, I wasn’t able to get pictures of the tile and coping yesterday. Our design consultant forgot to tell the guys what color mortor and coping we wanted. So…they will be out today to do it all.

Hopefully, I’ll have pics up tonight.
Wow its very interesting to see the process of making a pool. I guess I better put away my shovel and dreams of creating my own pool
Hey, you can do it on your own. Many people have. They went the owner/builder route. It’s much cheaper. You will still want an excavation company to come out. It’ll be thousands cheaper than going with a pool company.
Tile and coping pictures. They will be back tomorrow to do the waterfall and finish up the tiling.

Mind telling us how expensive this was? Maybe a quick detailed breakdown? It looks AWESOME! Why’d you choose gunite? I believe I saw part of a black lab in picture one – did you go with gunite so your dog could swim with you? What was the total elapsed time on this?
Is gunite what we see them spraying? Or is that cement? What do you mean tile – are you putting down tiles in the pool? Sorry if these are stupid questions.
looking good so far if/when you have kids, having a pool is priceless! our pool is going to need some re-finishing soon i think its more than ten years old now…

It was in the 30′s. Would have been in the 40′s, but we haggled them and we were getting quotes from other pool builders. They came down to what another builder quoted. It was between the two of them and we liked the this one best.

I don’t have the detailed breakdown of it. Base pool started at 19k and we added stuff from there. Flagstone coping, upgraded tile, Pebble Tec, spa, waterfall, etc.

I went with gunite because of the peeble textured walls and floor that I wanted. Pebble Tec. Oh…and a liner pool would have been ripped by the dogs nails, and the fiberglass one was more than the gunite.

The dog is a Border Collie. She loves to swim.

Total elapsed time so far is just shy of 3 weeks.

Yes, that is gunite. It is a cement mixture. Another name for it is shotcrete.

No, the tile is for the what right under the coping. It’s the blue/tan/etc tile going around the pool up top on the inside. Flagstone is the coping or ledge if you want to call it that.

Thanks!

You should check out Pebble Tec, Pebble Fina, Crystalstones, etc. It is so nice and smooth.

Labor Day weekend.

wouldnt those be a lot more expensive than just re doing whatever finish it had? (im guessing its cement or whatever they used 10 years or so ago)
Yes, but they last a lot longer than a plaster finish.

Cement/gunite is under the plaster (the finish you are needing redone). They would only be redoing your plaster unless you had cracks in the gunite.
i think they maybe just need to re-finish the plaster then? I dont think there are any cracks, its just starting to wear Ill ask them about quotes for those other finishes too I dont have any detailed pics of the pool, but its very old school-like :

best i could find

Ooo…I love the mosiacs and the doggah. If we weren’t going with such a dark pebble finish, we would get mosiacs. They just won’t show up well.

Yeah, that’s plaster. Hey, I’ll take an older pool over not having a pool anyday. At least you didn’t have to incur the costs of having one put in. Oh…and you can just get the plaster painted, but that won’t last very long at all.
Yeah those are two beta fish (japanese fighting fish?) and yeah it came with the house thankfully.

my boss put in a pool recently and it fucking rocks IMO, i love the materials, and i think the finish inside is some type of pebble like you mentioned. check these out (nevermind the goofballs inside it, those are some co-workers)

i just love the tile and the "deck" materials…
Having seen the project completed, do you think you could have done any/all of the work yourself? Forgive my ignorance here… But, if you let border collie in the pool, won’t the chlorine upset it’s skin? Do you need to use a special chemical?

Can you post some pics of your house? Are you planning on completing any additional lanscaping projects in your back yard?
dogs are ok as long as you hose them down with fresh water afterwards or if theyre extra sensitive , bathing them after, and drying out their ears.

their skin isnt any more sensitive than humans , AFAIk.

I probably could have done the design, layout, dug the trenches for the plumbing, setup the equipment, and do the tile, coping, and decking. Oh…and the waterfall too. I wouldn’t have been able to do the excavation, gunite, or the pebble finish.

Dogs are fine. As someone else has said, their skin is like ours. They will get rinsed afterwards though.

We will be doing tons of landscaping. Palm trees, tropical plants, etc.

Here are a couple pics of the waterfall they finished today. Sorry…these are a little big.

And yes…those are dead bushes. They used to be shaded by a Bradford Pear and a Live Oak, but those had to go for the pool to fit. Now they are baked by the sun and dying. I never really like the bushes anyway.
wow that looks awesome. Keep taking pics of the progress.
Thanks! They will be forming the deck today and hopefully pouring it tomorrow. I’ll probably have more pics tonight or tomorrow.
I’ve got more! Only of the decking being formed though. Our heater being on backorder has delayed us some. They said it weighs 400 lbs so they wanted to get it in place before pouring the deck.

Oh…and ignore the dogs that look high in these pics. Don’t know what they’ve been smokin.

the dogs look fine to me.

So I guess you can sell the lawnmower now. Your yard is almost all concrete!

fill the remaining grass area with perennial plants/shrubbery and low maintenance ground cover

pretty pool – hope you get to enjoy it soon

Yeah, there won’t be much left after this is all done. Too bad we still have the front yard.

I would so do that if we didn’t have the dogs. Around the pool, I will be planting perennials and tropicalisque plants. I’ll leave that little bit of grass you see by the pool equipment for the pottying.
They delivered it on Saturday. I was going to go out yesterday and take pics, but it rained, and it’s been raining all day today. Good news is we will have our deck completed tomorrow, Pebble finish on Wednesday, acid wash on Thursday, and fill on Friday. So…it’ll be ready for labor day weekend!

Oh, and the heater is HUGE!!!!! We also found out that it will heat and cool the pool. So…in these 100+ degree days, I can cool the water so it won’t feel like I am in a huge bath tub.

ha! cool. I never knew you could cool the water. Of course I know absolutely nothing about pools.
the thing i dont understand though is why are they using sand as a subbase for the concrete? especially since it doesn’t even look like it’s been compacted down at all.

Hey, I didn’t know they could do that either.

It has been compacted down, just not in those pics. We had to soak it with soaker hoses for a few days before they would do the concrete and compact it.

I’m pretty sure they use sand for a lot of decking around here. We had a pavestone patio put in and they used sand. We soaked it, then it was compacted.

Oh…there is also rebar and mesh in their too.
More pics! The deck has been poured. We will be filling the pool either today or tomorrow. Oh, and the color is not done on the deck yet. They will do that next week when they seal it.

awesome! I would imagine if you’re just filling it, you cant actually go swimming in it for Labor Day? The chemicals have to get balanced out or something?
make sure the first person in it does a huge cannonball
That looks really nice! I like the look of modern pools, mine is plain and blue.

I just emptied and filled mine a couple weeks ago, other than taking 24 hours for the garden hose to fill it and tossing in some chlorine the chemical balance was really close right away. I cant imagine why the pool couldnt be used by this weekend.

No….you can swim in it. Just won’t be any chemicals in it until pool school. Oh…and it looks like we got set back to Wednesday. It rained last weekend and Monday so everyone got pushed back. No swimming at all this weekend. Not until Wednesday. If they get a cancellation they’ll come out.

I plan to be in it as it fills. I will get out and do a cannonball though.
Pool is complete and full of water! The color for the deck is coming next week. They like to wait until everything is completed before they do that last step.

Sorry about the pics not being in order. My photobucket has issues with moving things around. So…you can start in the middle…move to the top…and then go to the bottom of the post to see the pics in order.

Wash cloth at the end of the hose. Keeps the metal part of the house from scratching the surface of the pool and it also looks like it keeps rust from the end of the hose out of the pool and onto the cloth.

Thanks! It’s great. I’ve been swimming for a couple of days now and boy did I miss being able to swim whenever I wanted to.
I almost forgot to come back and check this thread. Your pool looks BEAUTIFUL!
what was the total cost for something like that? around 20k?
Thanks everyone. Total cost was about 33k. Would have been around 40k, but we got all the pool equipment free. Plus, they gave us a gift card in the amount of $1,500 to Sunnyland Patio Furniture store. That $1,500 didn’t go far, but it helped. You can actually see the furniture we bought with it in some of the pics.

Oh…and the pool is a lot bluer now that the chemicals are in and balanced. I’ll have to take more pics when we do our landscaping.
looks awesome! that pebble finish looks nice. I’d almost want to throw some koi in there
Thanks! We love the pebble finish. Feels nice on the feet too.

If I ever decide that I don’t want to swim in it anymore, I just may do that.
Wow man, that looks really nice! Any reason you didn’t make the hot tub part a little bit bigger? Or are the pictures just a little decieving?
Thanks! We didn’t want a huge spa. It seats 6 and is 7ft ?" long and 4 feet wide. The pictures are a little deceiving, but it is still small compared to most. It’s only the two of us so, we didn’t want to go too large.
wow man have to say im very jealous, looks awesome! just need a little landscaping around it and it will be totally pimp
Thanks! We are going to start planting some flowering shrubs this week (azaleas). We will have to wait for most of the landscaping to be done in spring. We are in Texas, but it does get below freezing in the winter and if we plant certain things now that aren’t trees or shrubs, they will die. So…I think I’ll have to bring this thread back to life next year when that is done.

Forgot to mention…the pool is more blue now that we have all the chemicals in. I’ll have to take some more pics for you guys and gals.

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My question has to do with some other modifications I want to do, and how they’ll affect the value of the home. We have a three week old son, and I figure we’ll have another child here in a few years, then stay a few years past that.

The basement is quite large, about 40% finished. It’s broken up into three ‘rooms’, and only one of them is finished. Does it add any value for me to finish one of the other rooms? Right now it’s a home gym…wouldn’t take much for me to put down a raised floor, and throw some studs/drywall up to make it a finished room. The third room has the boiler and some storage.

The previous owner had a horse and two goats (1.5 acres). The backyard isn’t all that big, but there’s a two-stall barn and a large riding ring for the horse. I’ve always wanted a home with a tennis court/sport court type thing. I’d like to have it paved and put basketball hoops up, and have it lined for street hockey/basketball/tennis and suck. Chain link surrounding it. Does this increase or decrease value? This will have to wait a couple years as it’s not a cheap project, but right now the riding ring has an electric fence and just takes up a bunch of the otherwise-wooded backyard. I know that the sport court would be AWESOME for my children and I (I’m still an athletic kid at heart), but I don’t want it to make it tough to sell in 6-7 years.

Lastly, security systems. The home is in a rural area and though the street is busy, none of my neighbors can see me. There have been some recent daytime breakins, and if someone were to get into my backyard, they’d have 9 hours during a normal weekday to do whatever they please. They could even walk through the woods to the power lines to escape with all my shit. Wifey wants an ADT bad, I’m coming around. I’ll likely do this regardless…but curious if it adds a small amount of value.

Thanks for the help, sorry ’bout the rambling.
Here are some pics to make this a bit more interesting. These were when we went to look at the house (previous owners were friends of ours)

I’m curious.. .where is this house and how much did you pay?

I’ll go more into depth on the renovations when i have some time.
It’s in NH, a suburb of Manchester. We paid $320,000. We bought about five months ago after it was appraised for $340,000, but the housing market is dipping here. We’re perfectly fine with riding it out. Previous owners were friends of ours who had to move to TX relatively quickly.

Looks like a really nice house. I’m trying to move out of Texas relatively quickly…maybe they’re just taking my spot.

As for the answer to your questions. Check with your realtor about the basement. If you’re "finishing" anything, to make it more attractive then yes, it should add some selling value but not necessarily house value. Always good for eye candy. About the sport court… this could be a plus. Look around the neighborhood and see what kind of stuff they have. I think a sport court would awesome but since you guys aren’t planning to stay there for say 8-10+ years, it might not be a worthy investment. All depends on the demographics of the area. I would prefer an ice rink but that would cost too much. roller hockey is a good alternative.

Security system is a must! If anyone tries to tamper with the home, they will notify you or your wife. As far as adding value…it gives the buyers a sense of security. I hate shopping for homes. Our house is for sale and now its time to shop again for a bit of a smaller house. Best of luck!
Well, now I know what town you live in, what your house looks like, and that you don’t have a security system. Plus you gave instructions on how to escape. Good job.

I also have a Rottie, a gun, and an ADT appointment this Friday. See you when you get here.

perfect response, lol

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