Blog By Knight
Maureen’s Kitchen

Years ago, and I mean years ago, when our kids were around 4 or 5 years old ( they are now all in their twenties) , I met Maureen who was a good friend of my old friend, and I mean old, friend Claudia’s. (just kidding Claudia…). So fast forward to 2008 when Maureen responded to an e-mail I sent out about a vent hood that I had for sale. In our conversation she told me she wanted to redo their kitchen but someone told her it would be 60,000 and so she was going to have to wait a while.

I knew Maureen did not live in Buckhead and was not a high-end kind of person (that is a compliment in my book by the way) and although I had never been to her house I knew that I could get that kitchen built for less than 60 K. She invited me over to take a look and I did and I knew that her kitchen was a 20,000 job. And yippee, now I am doing it. I love saving people money and giving them a great product. And I am the master of the “bang for the buck”. I have great taste and really great resources. Maureen will have a great kitchen in her price range.

My sister Linda does design in Tampa, but she and her husband Steve, who is a builder, do all high-end renovations. She works with people who buy 40,000 pool tables. Tell you the truth, I couldn’t work with those people. I could no more buy a 40,000 pool table than do a pole dance. NO, NO, NO!

I think people that spend an enormous amount of money for things like wine cellars and 40,000 pool tables have it somewhere in their imaginations that if they build this wine cellar or buy that pool table then they will be able to invite important people over to have wine tastings and play pool who will be impressed and think they are really fantastic and will be their best friend and then they will have a lot of prestige and be very popular. Not true.

I know this mindset because I once moved to a larger house and we did not have couches that went in the space nor the money to buy them for a while. I just noticed at that time how I kept thinking about those couches and how my life would look if I had those couches. It always went to being able to have more friends over to sit on them and how it would improve what was already a fine life. It was CRAZY. I just noticed this and tried to be realistic that my friends really didn’t need to sit on special couches that we all hung out in the kitchen anyway. No it was compulsive thinking and I was a slave to marketing hype.

This past weekend when I was at the Scott Antique Market, I was walking around and several times I scoped out something interesting and the vendor said, Sorry, That was just bought for Nicole Kidman’s Nashville house. I could get into buying for Nicole Kidman. That would be a great gig. And let me add that they were not buying 40,000 pool tables. And maybe Nicole Kidman has one already but that is okay I would still work for her. But right now Nicole, I am busy doing Maureen’s kitchen so you’ll have to get in line.

Maureen and I went to Ikea today to order her “yellow brown” Nexus kitchen cabinets. Yellow brown sounds very horrible, but it is really a nice lighter brown, flat front, full overlay, wood veneered cabinet and it rocks. While we were there we also saw that Ikea now has a professional type 36″, five burner, gas range for $1,900. Maureen’s husband Ray is a chef and he really wanted a 36″ range with five or six burners with high btu’s and this price fit right into our budget- so we snagged that sucker - for Ray. He will love it and he will cook for Maureen and maybe, just maybe he will not need a 40,000 pool table to be happy.

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