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Show JUNE 13, 2001 B7 WASATCH COUNTY COURIER Paes 4& = Fending om Decision Fatigue decisions. It wasn't even two weeks into a date by which you'll give the builder your final choices and decisions. But be realistic. Leave enough time before each The goes for electrical fixtures, Internet; you'll also have to leave time for which are supplied by hidden wiring roughed in before the drywall goes up. A late location change for a ceiling fan ‘materials to get delivered. You should be able to tackle light fixtures, cabinet accessories, stock tile and trim over sev- same due date to do some research in maga- zines and showrooms and on the the project when, as Crawford was mulling over hinges, handles and drawer pulls for the cabinets she had chosen, You'll notice the list breaks out into two can mean and rein- eral evenings at large home centers. But her contractor called. He couldn't even general stall wallboard. And while adding a garbage disposer in the kitchen might big-ticket stock products such as windows, doors, cabinets, appliances and sinks can take two weeks of comparison shopping. And custom cabinets, countertops and other special-order items can take months to finish and deliver. order the cabinets until he had a location approval on the appliances. And he needed her final choices on flooring and lighting fixtures and their location. As the decisions piled up, Crawford began dreading the prospect of looking through another showroom or catalog. Crawford was fighting off ‘‘decision fatigue,'' a common reaction in home- owners new to the remodeling process who underestimate the pace and sheer number of decisions required of them in the design and product-selection stages. Any building or remodeling job requires dozens of crucial decisions that set the pace for a small army of workers and craftsmen. Slacken the pace, and you lose momentum and end up paying for downtime. Make snap decisions, and you could live with expensive mistakes for years to come. The key to avoiding decision fatigue is knowing which decisions you need to make and when to make them. Then coordinate as many of those decisions ucts. categories: Design design decisions and prod- include appli- ance location, skylight and window placement, heating duct or baseboard locations, door placement and swing direction, the number and location of outlets and lighting plans. Product decisions concern the type and size of items such as cabinets, kitchen and bath sinks, shower stalls, toilets, appliances, flooring, tile, windows, doors and elec- trical fixtures, along with their features. Nearly all of these decisions are interdependent and have far-reaching impact. For example, skylights must be chosen long before the other windows, because they can significantly affect framing done at the start of the job. A kitchen range hood could require either custom framing or dedicated electrical circuits. And floor joists beneath a large bathtub might have to be reinforced during initial framing. Even late installations demand early decisions on design and product. For instance, while a shower stall is one of seem having to remove like a minor detail, it could require an extra 20-amp circuit that's tough to rough in after drywall and cabinets have been installed. The result is an expensive change order. | KNOW WHAT'S COMING Early in the planning stage, ask your contractor or architect to work up a complete room-by-room, item-by-item list of decisions your project involves. the last fixtures to go into a bathroom, which you choose affects plumbing rough-in locations and the framing plan, both of which affect the floor-tile pattern and how much drywall is needed. | Pa Homeowner Helen Crawford, of Grand Rapids, Mich., had no idea her kitchen remodel would involve so many — as possible with your project manager and the various subcontractors before the remodel starts. Use a loose-leaf binder with subject dividers for each major decision area. CREATE A CALENDAR Once you have your list of decisions, work with your builder to organize them procedurally around the steps of the job.. For instance, what decisions must be made before demolition? Be sure you can afford that breezeway between the kitchen door and garage before the demo crew cuts the hole, or you could end up with an unsightly patch after you refigure your budget. If you plan to reuse an existing garage door, inform your builder before the demo starts. And be sure to finalize window placement before wall framing begins, because larger windows can dramatically affect the structure and cost of a wall. _For each decision on your list, assign Fill it with notes, business cards, | ONLINE brochures, paint chips, fabric swatches and other information. And organize each decision area according to its due ia HOMEOWNER date. Then stick to those dates. Your builder will be working from the same calendar and scheduling daily tasks accordingly. If you say you'll approve the map for the tile pattern in the kitchen by June 23, the builder will tell the tiler he can bid those plans on June 24. If you know that you won't have all the particulars of, for instance, the cab- inets worked out by the agreed-upon date, alert your contractor early on and see if you can supply justa partial list of cabinet features and sizes. | TODAY'S or KEVIN BRENNER & KATE KELLY Live Well, Avoid Progeny SPECIAL TO THE COURIER the stock market, 9.8% a year, in 40 years / you will have $1,800,000. That will pay Editor’s note: The following is a guest for a very nice life in early retirement. column and does not necessarily reflect If you don’t have two kids, you can the views of the Courier. invest $20,000 a year, have a secure, comfortable retirement, and still have t is graduation time again, the $20,000 a year to spend on yourself— you can live the good life. I time of year when grownups give If you don’t have kids, you can retire when you are young enough to enjoy it. advice to young people setting out No work, no obligations, just you doing into the adult world, Young people, - whatever you feel like doing whenever you feel like doing it. If you have kids, whether you are recent or pending you might never retire. graduate or not, remember this as If you have kids, you will have to take your family vacations on school breaks, long as you live: the single best decision you can ever make in your life is DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN. Young ladies, take a look at the mothers of Wasatch County, or mothers anywhere for that matter. The more children they bear, the older and more worn out they are. If you want to die before your time, either take up smoking or have kids. Young men, is that what you want to do the love of your life, kill her off by turning her into a breeding machine? Young people, everv kid you spawn will cost you at least $250,000 to raise. A lot more if you send it to good college. ices, they are ripping off other taxpayers decent retirement or a good vacation, and there is no way out, what are you going to do? You will do the same thing parents have always done— lie to yourself and to everybody else about how wonderful it is to have children. This is the true “sins of the father” of to pay for most of their kids’ education. You want to see selfish? That is what is which the Bible speaks— brainwash- ing your children into making the same stupid mistake you made. expensive Eavesdrop on some parents talking times to travel. No kids means low off season rates and no crowds. Now you have heard your parents, your aunts and uncles, your neighbors sometime when they think you are not around. You will not find them talking about how wonderful it is having children. They only use that on people who have not yet joined in their stupidity. When they talk privately among themselves, all they do is complain, complain, complain about all the problems and heartaches their children cause. If you are smart enough not to breed, sooner or later one of those mentally ill the most crowded, most and others, extoll how wonderful it is to have children. Don’t you believe it! They are lying to you. Maybe not lying on purpose because they want to believe this lie is true, but they are in that case, mentally ill. Freud said that people use a variety of mental defense mechanisms to keep from going bonkers, one of which is Reaction Formation. Reaction Formation is when the human mind, in That’s a cool million for four kids, and this order to avoid facing a very unpleasant reality, fools itself into believing the is after taxes money. opposite of what is true. To spend $250,000 are broke, will never be able to afford a Very few par- logically deal with these has three kids from his STITH 100,000,000 sperm, he has a no propagation rate of 99.9999999%. To up that by .0000001% to no kids is so trivial that itis no different is selfish not to have children.” Now that you know what Reaction Formation is, space worm asleep on Saturn, and you you will recognize this for what it is, an irrational effort trying to justify their stupid, uncorrectable, mistake. aren’t really here?” Now that you are educated, get smart. Do not have children. You will The fact is, it is having children that | | people because, if they were capable of rational thought, they would never have had kids or said this in the first place. Fact | is, you are here. End of discussion. You might say to them that if a man than having three kids. Or reply to their irrational comment in kind— “What if we are really having ‘this conversation in the dream of giant breeders will come up with this line, “It | selfish—parents forcing others to pay for their mistake. That is legalized robbery by selfish, immoral parents. You will also hear the non sequitur “What if your parents did not have you?” This irrational statement, contrary to logic, is again the product of the mentally ill parental mind. You cannot love it. _ Ca OPINION BY KEITH BAKER raising a kid, you will have to earn more than $300,000 before taxes. The average wage paid in Wasatch Co. is less than $20,000 a year, so if you stay here, you will have to work full time for at least 15 years _ just to pay for a kid. Three kids means working 45-50 years with nothing for yourself. There goes your life. On the other hand, if you take that $20,000 a year you save by not having a kid and invest it at the average return of is selfish. It is environmentally selfish, as bad as polluting the air or waters _ with poison. There are already too. many people in the world, and anybody ents have the mental strength to admit. who adds to the population burden is that having kids was a big mistake immoral. It may not be a major sin, but because they are stuck with the unpleashaving children is something decent ant, costly consequences of their mispeople do not do. Selfish, uncaring, take for at least 18 years. Once in, there self-centered people have children. is no way out. Understandably, they The average Utah family has three can’t admit their stupidity to themchildren and earns about $35,000 a year selves, so they constantly preach how and would pay about $990 in state wonderful it is being a parent, not so income tax, almost of all of which goes much to persuade others, but to perto pay for Utah’s schools. Utah spends suade themselves that they weren’t realabout $4,500 a year on each students’ ly as stupid as they in fact were. schooling, about half of which comes You will do the same thing if you have from the state income tax, $2,250 for kids. Rather than face the truth that you each student, or $6,750 for three kids. ruined your life, shortened your life Since the parents of three kids only pay expectancy, have no time for yourself, $990 for receiving $6,750 in school serv- |