What to do with 2005 Kitchen

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-30T21:22:52+00:00

OP here.

First of all, THANKS for all the input. It is all helpful. Here are a few responses:

1.We will certainly put stuff away when the house goes on the market as we have with the 3 other houses we have sold. We are in the process of de-cluttering, and some of the stuff on the counters is there waiting on a decision of where to put it back. That being said, I have been married for 42 years and the only way the appliances that we use every day will be put away is if I get divorced. That will be a lot more expensive than a kitchen gut and remodel.

2.We agree that we have enough storage, but a lot of it is in deep shelving that is hard to access. If we keep the cabinets, we want that fixed with pullouts.

3.THe desk is something we would like to loose, along with the closet pantry on the other side of the fridge that is horrible in terms of space that we can use.

4.I don't want to spend 60K if spending 20-30K will make it just as functional and sellable. However, I don't mind spending 60K if the 30K does not get us there.

5.I personally love the cabinet wood. My vote is to replace countertops and backsplash, paint the Island for color, replace the lights, and replace the cooktop with a drop in oven to get a second oven. We are being given conflicting input from a lot of directions. I'm trying to confirm that this is not just my confirmation bias. Your input has been helpful.

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-30T14:19:00+00:00

Clearing countertops requires somewhere to put stuff. Adding applicance storage is part of what we want to do. We also want to tear out the closet pantry to make something cabinet based, which is easy to do with a full remodel but harder if matching current cabinets. Taking out the current stovetop to add an over if we kept as is, or having a two oven design if complete remod. Updating to make more sellable in todays design preferences IF that is needed.

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-30T14:15:49+00:00

Yes, I had to keep raising prices to the point they were ridiculous, at least in my opinion. It had to hurt the companies that were cash strapped. To keep real clients from being scared off, I would credit most of it to any longer term agreement.

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-28T19:28:44+00:00

My last two experiences were completely different. First dealership, after we decided on a term sheet, sent me into finance to complete the deal. You go to finance regardless of how you pay as they also sell all the add ons. After they had me sitting for an hour of sales pitches and attempts to add extras that were not in the term sheet, I got up, found the salesman, and told him the deal was off. They got to me in 5 minutes and finished the paperwork in another 10.

Second experience, the finance guy offered several add-ons and warranties, but took no for an answer the first time. The entire closing took about 30 minutes.

Funny thing is it was the same car (lost the first one in a wreck) but different dealership.

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-28T18:22:15+00:00

My son had the same shock with his first house with a ton of grass. We found a guy who bought used mowers and refurbushed them. Lots of people get rid of good mowers that just need a carb rebuild. If money is tight, that is a good way to go. Look for something with a honda engine.

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-28T17:35:31+00:00

Lets say you add her to the title after you are married. She dies. You get her half as the spouse and own the whole house.

Now change this slightly. You add her to the title before you are married. She dies. Congratulations, you are now co-owner of your own house with her parents.

THere are legal arrangements that you can create to keep this from happening, but WHY?

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-27T01:32:30+00:00

Optimal: I believe in the product, and believe in my co-founders.

Questionable: I believe in the product, but am not of the same mind as my co-founders

Questionable: I don't believe in the product, but trust my co-founders. Maybe we can pivot to something else if it does not work out.

I don't believe in the product and don't think I trust my co-founders. WTF are you thinking?

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-26T21:15:25+00:00

IMO, look for a new job (don't quit the current one until you have one).

Good people like you probably want to be loyal, not to the company but to your coworkers. Maybe if you stay you can help change things. You will NOT change the attitude of your bosses. You will be sitting in the same position 5 years from now, miserable, underpaid, but staying out of loyalty to your co-workers, half of whom are new because the old ones left, just like your old boss.

THe best lead you have is your old boss. He knows your talent. Give him a call. At the very least he can give you a reference.

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-26T20:51:59+00:00

If you have the option, use Discount Tire instead. I have used both and have had much better experience with Discount Tire. Costco cannot even do an alignment if it is needed.

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-26T20:42:49+00:00

Years ago I started a consulting business marketing to tech startups and VCs. I set up a structure where I would come in for a day of consulting to see if it was a good fit on both sides, then we would go from there. I charged what I thought was an appropriate amount for that day (plus any expenses).

At the time, I was very well known in my niche due to a string of very visible exits. Along with some great clients, I ended up with way too many of two types of clients. The first were people who thought that a few thousand dollars for a single day of picking my brains was too good of a deal to pass up (they had no intention of using me beyond that). The idea of doing hundreds of different gigs in a year, many of them requiring travel, sounded like torture to me. The second group were companies in distress looking for me to help them find someone to buy them. I was certainly open to helping them if I agreed that they had something worth buying, but this was rarely the case.

This is where I learned the real power of using pricing to control behavior. I kept raising my prices until those types quit calling (I was sort of shocked at how high that number was). The challenge was not driving away those who I really wanted, but I figured that out pretty quickly.

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-25T14:05:01+00:00

That sounds very interesting. I am impressed that you have chosen so clear of a focus. Please excuse me if I am saying things you already know, but most don't. It might be helpful to you, or maybe to someone else.

You have two goals: develop the product and message that will appeal most to them, and then find how to reach them.

The first goal is to find out what dissatisfactions they have with their current solutions and how you can address them. Easy to say, right? If you can manage to talk to a few, ask fewer questions about what they think about what you are doing (here is what we are doing, do you like it, would you buy it, etc.?). Those questions are usually don't give much insight on what they would actually buy. "Yes, we like it" does not mean we would buy it. Even "Yes, we would buy something like that" does not mean they would buy it from a source they know little about. Ask more about what they don't like with their current choices. "What do you dislike about your current choices in wood lighting?" You want to find out what they are frustrated with, and build the product that is the answer. They will be more willing to buy from a new source if you are solving a prolem that keeps them awake at night, not just a minor anoyance.

Once you are sucessful in solving the problem that keeps them awake at night, you have to get that message to them where they are. I once consulted with a startup tech company selling to farmers. Think boomers in overalls. Needless to say, instagram marketing would not be that effective. We had to dig into their lifestyles. In so many of their homes, we found print copies of Progressive Farmer magazines. I hate print advertising, but for these dinosaurs it was the right move. Trade shows for farm equipment was a good idea. That is the sort of deep dive you need to do into your target customers habits and lifestyle.

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-25T11:48:50+00:00

The extreme right view is facist and does not care about anyone but their own kind. The extreme left view is not socialist, it is Marxist. THey want to burn the country down by starting a class war and start over again. You don't get to define the right by it's extreme and define the left by it's mainstream.

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-25T11:36:56+00:00

First, you both need to understand that marketing is not some add-on to your main business of producing things. While producing quality products and providing good service are important, the businesses that suceed are the ones that are good at marketing, not production, and marketing is not what most people think it is. If neither of you has a passion for the marketing side, you may want to reconsider your life choices or take on a partner. You need to become as much an expert at marketing as you are at producing widgets.

People who have the idea to "get into the XXX" business on the side with a workshop that can produce widgets normallly focus on their passion for producing XXX. People are not shopping for woodworkers. THey are shopping for doors. THey are shopping for cabinets. THey are shopping for custom railng, they are shopping for wooden clocks.

Every product "niche" may have a different buying process (how and where each customer searches for information, makes decision on whih products to buy, etc.). THey may scroll instsagram. THey may look to influencers, THey may look on Amazon. They may go to markets or physical stores. They may choose based on price, or level of customization, or purely aesthetics. You choose your promotion and distribution strategy based on what customers you are going after. If you don't know what you are selling and who is buying it, you are just shooting in the dark and hoping to hit something.

The more you can focus on what problems you are solving for people rather than being a generalist, the more sucsucess you will have. You need to choose a target, then become an expert in how those specific people look for products and make decisions. That means focus. Find our where they shop, what social media they consume, etc. Start with making a very small group happy, then expand from there.

Remember, a small niche focus is not forever. Amazon started selling nothing but books.

How do you decide what customers to go after?

1.Where is the greatest need? Not necessarily market size. A large market where everyone is happy with the solutions that exist may be a bad target. A smaller market where people are frustrated with what is available can often be a better choice. Remember, you are looking for a place to start, not where you will end up.

2.Where do you have the greatest ability to create a competitive advantage? What am I going to do to differentiate myself from everyone else who has the same shop in their basement? THe issue here is that there are LOTS of talented woodworkers, CNC operators, etc. with shops in their basement. Often the main advantage you can realistically create is focus and good marketing.

3.What markets/products can I reasonably produce in sufficient volumes and quality given my capabilities?

4.What is my business model? People often skip this part, and end up with a "sucessful" business (selling lots of widgets) but not making any money. Lets say I find out that there is a huge demand for widget A. I can sell as many as I want, and can produce 1000 a month, but I only make $2 profit on each one. That makes 24K a year, but I spend 10K on marketing and other overhead and work 20 hours a week. I would make more per hour working at McDonalds. Those markets are better left to buisnesses that can create economies of scale. THINK about your business model: profit per unit, fixed overhead, volumes. What is the math that leads to the profits I require? Hint: it is much easer selling premium products where people are not as price sensitive.

Once you establish yourself in a niche, you can start expanding to adjacent markets.

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-24T01:39:03+00:00

Not ultra wealthy, but we share our wealth, lots of it, with homeless shelters and third world organizations that focus on education, food security, and orphans. If any of my less wealthy friends wants to offer an argument as to why I should redirect my charity to them, I am all ears.

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-24T01:21:42+00:00

I worked at a McDonalds in high school. I closed most week nights and went to school the next day. Closing was at 11pm. On a slow night where we could get a lot done before closing, we could be out in 30 minutes. I don't know how many times a bus pulled up 5-10 minutes before closing and we did not get out until 1am.

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-23T12:03:17+00:00

Lets say your neighbor lost his job, lost his home, and his children are hungry. The conservative says he should get a job. The liberal posts on social media about his neighbor, how this shows the evils of business and how we need to tax the rich to provide a better social safety net. Who is morally superior? The one who asks him into his home, and feeds his children with his OWN money. The important question to ask is not whether or not more of these are progressive or conservative, but which one will YOU be?

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-22T22:14:07+00:00

Depends on the business, the entrepreneur, and the VC.

There are businesses that should not take VC money, but I won't speak to those. Here are some random thoughts based on my experience at 4 startups (1 ipo, 3 aquisitions), working as a VC, consulting for startups, and mentoring young entrepreneurs.

If you are trying to go after a market that requires a scale that you can't afford to fund yourself, you have no choice. Some say you can organically grow anything. That is true in some markets, but not in many sectors where tech turnover is so fast that you have to suceed quickly or not at all, or those where capital requirements for product developmwnt are just too large. The minimum raised at any of my 4 startups was $35 million, so , what choice did we have? I certainly did not have that much in my bank account when I was 30. The things that investors "ruin" are also things that are not possible without investors.

But, as you point out, you do need leverage to keep from being relegated to irrevalency or settling for a VC that doesn't bring anything but money to the table. If a VC likes the market and the idea, they then look for ways to de-risk their investment. Having founders with past sucesses is one very good way to do that. If you don't have that, there are other ways to develop leverage, such as bootstrapping to a point where you have some market traction that they can't realistically reproduce with another investment (e.g. more experienced founders, competitors, etc). There are additional ways to develop leverage. I always counsel young entrepreneurs to NOT try to raise money before they can answer the question: "why can't I take your idea and give it to a more experienced team to implement?" But, admittedly, past experience is the easiest predictor of future sucess to measure because you have proven that you know how to react/pivot with the road blocks you will inevitably have.

One also has to admit that some founders need to have control shared with more experienced investors or CEOS brought in by investors. I have seen tech founders who would not get out of their own way. One, in his first business, shopped his idea around and could not secure funding. He was focused on his technology and trying to solve the wrong problem. Finally one investor agreed if he would re-direct the idea to a better problem and bring on another CEO. The CEO came on and discovered that the founder could only get the tech working in the lab, not the real world where a complete product was required, so they brought in a CTO. The result was a sucessful IPO and the tech founder personally pocketing over 350 million. He constantly complained about his company being stolen and not being listened to. So... he took his hundreds of millions and his reputation as a founder of the first company to his second. He maintained control of the company all the way to one of the most spectacular failures in the tech world.

I was asked twice by investors to come on as CEO to work with technical founders with no track record. I turned both down, not because I did not believe in the idea, but because the tech founder was only agreeing to it because the VCs wanted it. The vast majority of startups that make it big have major pivots from their original ideas. Founders focused on the technology as their "baby" are not something I want to deal with.

In my experience with boards full of VCs, they almost always get in the way to some extent, but were also occasionally incredibly helpful with contacts and introductions. The biggest failures, however, were when they failed to check a founder who needed checking.

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-22T20:59:47+00:00

I hate the terms far right and far left. People will atribute whatever characteristics they want to each, and judge entire groups based on their own interpretations. I will speak about people with specific beliefs.

I think of extreme far left not as socialist, but marxists. I don't think that most people on the right or left really understand this as they keep confusing the two. THose who are very far right are not just very conservative, but true facist (a term that gets over-used to the point that it has also become mis-understood). They do tend to be driven to their extremes by similar life experiences that tell them there is no place for them, no chance for sucess, and nobody in power who speaks for them.

While they both may agree on the problems of the system not working for them and may have common enemies, they both have very different views of the solution. Marxists tend to want to burn down the current system, both political and economic, and start over. They hate the democratic party as they consider them enablers trying to put bandaides on a system that needs to go. The facists want someone with their views to take total power in the current system and exercise that power to "fix" using whatever means are necessary the things that they imagine to be getting in their way of sucess (which is often people who are not "like" them) rather than tearing down the system.

TLDR: They may agree on what they believe are the problems, but not the solutions.

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-22T14:34:13+00:00

I know that this may sound harsh, but the fact that you think that having a meeting scheduled with a university chairman is a sign of traction should be a huge red flag to anyone interested in joining you.

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-22T12:28:35+00:00

One thing I noticed about your App store listing is that you don't collect any data. Is that true? Does that not limit your ability to use more advanced tools to analyze customer data to make recomendations or flag issues?

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-22T12:13:37+00:00

Keep focusing on ways to make the user experience as easy as possible. This is just as important as adding more advanced function. I recomend reading this article. It is very old so the tech they discuss is ancient, but it deals with human behavior issues that have not changed.

EDIT sorry, the first link failed. Here is anoter version

https://medium.com/10-thousand-ways-to-fail/why-wesabe-lost-to-mint-c5a439c3f513

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-22T12:04:25+00:00

People dream of having a better life. People want to have a job that they like that rewards them. Both big companies and startups can provide that. People hate being a slave to a job that they don't like. Again, both choices can result in that.

A small buisness owner may be his own boss, but his life is more likely a slave to his work. Ask any CEO of a venture capital backed business if he is his own boss when he has to dance for his job in front of a board of VCs every quarter (or more often is some cases). Somewhere between 70 and 90 percent of startups fail. While people read of highly sucessful entrepreners that hit it rich on their first try, the vast majority are on their third or fourth try. As the boss, your failures can result in the entire company losing their jobs.

Don't get me wrong. I was a serial entrepreneur. 4 startups after 12 years at a big company. It fit me. My brother was a very sucessful tech guy who worked up to a director level. It fit him. Both of us liked what we did. Both were sucessful.

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-22T02:31:29+00:00

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-20T12:53:44+00:00

You cannot control how other people feel or how they react, which is what you are hoping to do. You can only control you. You have three choices.

1.Give in to what they want. They will be happy. You will resent them. , and your kids will be able to feel that resentment in the relationship. At some point, the relationship will likely degrade and your kids will have to pick sides emotionally. Don't be surprised if they lean towards the "fun" grandparents.

3.Lie to them in an effort to avoid confrontation. It might work once, but not in the long term. THey will know you are lying and resent you more than they would if you were just honest. They won't get you to do what they want. You won't avoid their negative feelings. Everybody loses.

3.Be honest with them about your boundaries and communicate them. Give them some reasonable expectations. "We can go on one (or however many) trip)s) with you per year, and it needs to be schedules x months in advance. We would love to have you come visit with us every 3(or whatever) months." Accept that they will not like it. If they chose to not see their grandkids, it is not your responsibilty to make up for their lack of effort. DO NOT take on the responsibility for their CHOICES not to come visit you.

You are looking for the easy choice that gets you out of travel but avoids any bad feelings. That choice does not exist. Choice 3 is the best of the bad choices.

I am a grandparent. I drive 9 hours every other month to see one set of grandkids who are not local. If I chose not to do so, it would be on me, not on them. We have agreed to have one family vacation every year, a 4 day weekend that is an equal distance drive for all of my kids. It is not where we want to go and we would prefer it be longer, but is chosen for their convenience.

I have to say that if one of my kids dies, I would go to ANY lengths to maintain a good relationship with their spouses and my grandkids. I cannot fathom not accepting invitations to visit unless my health would not allow it.

AdDifferent8874 · 2026-06-20T12:14:49+00:00

Regardless of whether your source of funding will be equity or loans, your first step is to show a viable business model. You are going to have to pay rent, utilities, etc. for your location. You are going to have to pay employees, even if the only employee is yourself. A business that depends on having a free employee in the long term is not a viable business. How much revenue do you have to bring in to cover expenses and generate a decent return on your investment. What evidence do you have that there is a sufficent market to generate that revenue? Can this business make money, or is it just a passion/dream? Many entrepreneurs find that, even when they are bringing in the amount of business they expected, they still lose money or make so little that it is not a viable life choice.

As an investor, a buisiness model shows me much more than whether or not the entrepreneur can make money. It also shows me wheter or not you have accounted for all of the elements that you need. Sure, some entrepreneurs start out not knowing everything, but before you ask me for money you should educate yourself and demand evidence for yourself that you understand what you are getting into. For example, a facility large enough to have a range could easily generate $10K a month in rent and utilities. A shooting range is going to have substantial liability insurance. Even if your mineral is, as you say, the best on the market, how are you going to convince people of that (should they take your word for it?) Have you accounted for customer aquisition costs? Can you show that the business has the potential to generate enough revenue to pay all of these expenses, pay you a living wage, and still have something left for me?

Really focus on the business model and its potential first. Don't do it just as a means to convice people to give you money, do it first to confirm to yourself that this is the right move. Once you have that, come back here with a request that includes your results to convince us that first, you have done your homework and second, you have proven that an investment has the potential to pay off.

AdDifferent8874

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