Home Appliances

[Huntn]

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I don’t like the TV hung above the fireplace and until I move it, I wanted something that blended in a bit better. I love the Art Mode and the picture is pretty darn good to my eyes. It is QLED, so it isn’t quite as good as OLED, but having the easy to us Art Mode makes up for it.

Over the fireplace is the only place to hang ours in our family room.

 

[DT]

I don’t like the TV hung above the fireplace and until I move it, I wanted something that blended in a bit better.

Mantel Mount!

Yeah, over the fireplace is generally just too high, though some people just don't like the aesthetic in general (not so much an issue with the height)

Over the fireplace is the only place to hang ours in our family room.

(One more time )

Mantel Mount

 

[tobefirst]

Mantel Mount!

Yeah, over the fireplace is generally just too high, though some people just don't like the aesthetic in general (not so much an issue with the height)



(One more time )

Mantel Mount

I've seen that before, but I'm not interested. The problem I foresee is the tv then just hanging in front of the fireplace most of the time (as I'd be too lazy to move it up and down each day) with the mount being visible above.

Do you have one? How do you like it?

 

[DT]

It's fantastic, if it wasn't for that product, our TV would not be over our mantel. Years ago when we went from our stand + TV (early, Sony bulky LCD), to a Plasma, we had it setup for a few months, but in a room that's:

Wall 1 Window
Wall 2 Fireplace
Wall 3 Solid
Wall 4 open ...

If you use a stand, there's only two places (Wall 1 and 3), and you need some wall space for seating, blocking the window is so-so.

I stumbled onto the MM (Mantel Mount) from the AVS forum, very early in the company's inception, when they were "working out of a garage", everything was scratch hand built, there were not model numbers because there was only one product, and it was ~$200. Since then they've added higher volume production, more than doubled the price, created a few tiers of products, some new options, even a fully automated version.

Anyway, it's been up since Dec 2013, on the 3rd TV to use it, with zero issues, always works as designed, allows for adjusting the counter balance, easily handled different weights, sizes, VESA specs.

Covers are available to cover the mounting bracket, and/or you can put it at about 80% down and the mechanism isn't visible.

 

[dogslobber]

I would buy the cheapest most basic refrigerator I could. I wouldn't buy a double doors one but a top freezer and bottom fridge as those are the cheapest. Fridges are destined to be replaced every 5-10 years as they're pieces of crap with expensive replacement parts. It required a technician to fix my POS LG a year back due to the condensate thingie being welded to the main fridge - a special tool. Ugh. Good job my fridge was 3 months under the warranty.

 

[SuperMatt]

I would buy the cheapest most basic refrigerator I could. I wouldn't buy a double doors one but a top freezer and bottom fridge as those are the cheapest. Fridges are destined to be replaced every 5-10 years as they're pieces of crap with expensive replacement parts. It required a technician to fix my POS LG a year back due to the condensate thingie being welded to the main fridge - a special tool. Ugh. Good job my fridge was 3 months under the warranty.

This is exactly what I did a few years ago and I’m very happy with the decision. Basic GE refrigerator, well under $1000, no frills, been working great.

 

[Clix Pix]

Basic fridge here, too -- both because I don't need a big, fancy one with lots of gewgaws and ice water coming out of the door, and because there is simply not much physical space in the kitchen in the allocated area for the device. Whatever is purchased needs to fit in that space. I live alone, don't need a huge freezer compartment, and don't use ice in my drinks so an ice maker is more of a nuisance than useful to me. My current fridge, a replacement for the original builder-installed one, has been working just fine, no problems. I hope that they never stop making smaller capacity, less fancy refrigerators!

I also have the same space allocation problem with the small closet in which the stackable washer and dryer are positioned. I dread the day when my beloved, trusty faithful Maytags decide to give up the ghost, as it looks to me as though all the current W/D are much larger in dimension than the ones from back in the 1990's, even the stackable ones. Some of my neighbors who have already had to replace their W/D have run into this issue and it's been a big problem.

 

[User.45]

I’ve had no issue with Samsung TVs, but when I started reading about their refrigerators, I backed away.

Haha, just ordered a side-door Samsung (1.3K) after we came home from vacation to a both literally and figuratively dead fridge.
I got to spend 3 hours reading up on fridge designs. I honestly don't get the love for french doors. Side-by-side works much better as long as you don't plan to store huge plates.

 

[Huntn]

Haha, just ordered a side-door Samsung (1.3K) after we came home from vacation to a both literally and figuratively dead fridge.
I got to spend 3 hours reading up on fridge designs. I honestly don't get the love for french doors. Side-by-side works much better as long as you don't plan to store huge plates.

As been noted, the side by side on the frozen side maybe hard to get some items in. Now that I have the full length side to side (bottom) freezer for a month, I prefer that. And the top part that is refrigerated feels more spacious. than the old fridge. Some of that might be psychological.

 

[Herdfan]

Had a Samsung Washer & Dryer. Junk. Will never buy another Samsung appliance. Their TV's are fine, but never again on the appliances.

Will also do my best to never purchase an appliance under the Whirlpool umbrella, but that will be much harder.

We have a very nice 42" KitchenAid built-in refrigerator/freezer. One day it just stopped working. So we called the dealer and they sent out a tech who said he would order the part and it should be about a week. Get a call the next day that the part is no longer available because the factory that produced it was destroyed in the tsunami in Japan. But that Whirlpool was helping customers out with a large discount on a new one. So I called and found out that what they were offering was to sell me a new one a dealer cost - about $7200.

That was totally unacceptable. If I am going to have to pay for a new one the least you can do is not make the same as if you sold it to a dealer. They needed to share some of the pain.

So as the wife was looking at Subzero's and Vikings (the rest of the kitchen is Viking, but we didn't like their refrigerators that well at the time), I was in youtube trying to figure out if it can be fixed. Sure enough, there is a cottage industry for fixing that particular board. So I had the option of sending my board in to be fixed, ordering a refurb one and getting a core charge refunded when I sent my old one back or they had instructions on how to fix it myself. It was just a small capacitor that needed replaced.

Two days later Amazon delivered the cap and a desoldering kit and 15 minutes later it was up and running and has been for 10 years or so.

But Whirlpool not being willing to accept a little pain means I will do my best to never buy another Whirlpool, KitchenAid, Amana, Maytag or JennAir. Limits my choices for sure, but there are still plenty of brands to choose from.

 

[DT]

Haha, just ordered a side-door Samsung (1.3K) after we came home from vacation to a both literally and figuratively dead fridge.
I got to spend 3 hours reading up on fridge designs. I honestly don't get the love for french doors. Side-by-side works much better as long as you don't plan to store huge plates.

Laugh all you want, F*** Samsung When we get our badass, craft ice LG ... it'll say hello

 

[User.45]

View attachment 8283


Laugh all you want, F*** Samsung When we get our badass, craft ice LG ... it'll say hello

Haha. Just got back from Europe. I'll let you in on a secret: people can live happy lives without $4K fridges
(This actually came up as a question: WTF do you guys need such huge fridges for?!)

 

[DT]

Haha. Just got back from Europe. I'll let you in on a secret: people can live happy lives without $4K fridges
(This actually came up as a question: WTF do you guys need such huge fridges for?!)

I was joking about the LG, we're switching over to this ...

 

[lizkat]

I was joking about the LG, we're switching over to this ...

View attachment 8285

Oh yeah, the double door model, very sought after...

I do remember the iceman showing up at my grandma's place. She and her cook were in seventh heaven when she got an electric refrigerator installed in her pantry in the mid 1940s. The women of her generation and the one before it were more excited about getting stuff like a gas or electric stove, a refrigerator and a washing machine than they would ever be later on about getting a dishwasher or a garbage disposal.

The amount of labor and tolerance of inconvenience to cook meals in summer on a wood or coal stove and to deal with an icebox as well was just phenomenal. I remember too my great grandma using cast flatirons heated atop her kitchen coal stove and then wrapped in towels to press shirts and other clothing items. Ugh!

 

[DT]

We have a cool bar/restaurant here called The Ice Plant, it's in a huge warehouse that used to distribute ice ...

The original “Ice Plant” building dates back to 1927, an experience like no other in Florida. It is complete with the original bridge crane on rails overhead the bar. The crane was used to pick up huge blocks of ice to then be broken down and sold to local customers and the shrimp boats. We wanted to restore the feeling of walking into an old factory.

Home - Ice Plant Bar

iceplantbar.com

Great food, exceptional drinks - and ice

 

[lizkat]

We have a cool bar/restaurant here called The Ice Plant, it's in a huge warehouse that used to distribute ice ...

Home - Ice Plant Bar

iceplantbar.com

Great food, exceptional drinks - and ice

We still have an ice harvest festival up here in Delaware County (NY) every year at the old Hanford Mills Museum. When they get done stashing it away with sawdust insulation, they leave it in storage until Fourth of July and then throw a big open house party to use the stuff up making ice cream! Hope climate change doesn't do away with this any time soon. Covid kinda took the party scene off it this year though, they did a virtual event last winter instead. Next date for the ice harvest is February 5, 2022 !!

 

[Herdfan]

Anyone's grandparents, or maybe even parents, call it an ice box? My grandmother always did.

 

[Thomas Veil]

Smaller appliance time. We’ve had Cuisinart coffee makers but they always started to leak a couple of years into ownership. OTOH we looked down snobbishly on Mr. Coffee (you know, your dad’s coffee maker?).

But when that brand was the only one that had features we wanted, we went with it. Its looks are clearly déclassé but we’ve been happy with it for years now. Live and learn.

Anyone's grandparents, or maybe even parents, call it an ice box? My grandmother always did.

No, that’s what my grandmother called her bedroom.

 

[lizkat]

No, that’s what my grandmother called her bedroom.

!! Not sure how to take that one ... but my upstairs can get pretty chilly in winter, since we elected not to demolish the plaster and lath in the bedrooms upstairs. We were sick and tired of renovating and the wallpaper still looked okay up there, so we did the open parts of the hallway and stairwell walls and called it good. That meant not adding modern insulation inside the exterior walls, and a lot of the old blown-in stuff had long since settled quite a bit.

Also when sheetrocking the ceilings downstairs, I consciously elected not to reinstall ceiling registers in the first floor to let heat up to the bedrooms. My theory is if you pile on enough quilts you don't need heat upstairs. Seems true enough after the first three minutes... although one of my cats used to wait ten minutes and then head up to see if I'd warmed the bed enough for her to condescend to snuggle in. The other cat never went upstairs in winter, just curled up in a corner of the couch and expected me to throw a cat quilt over her when I had called it a day and was getting ready to kill the lights and head on upstairs.

 

[Hrafn]

Smaller appliance time. We’ve had Cuisinart coffee makers but they always started to leak a couple of years into ownership. OTOH we looked down snobbishly on Mr. Coffee (you know, your dad’s coffee maker?).

But when that brand was the only one that had features we wanted, we went with it. Its looks are clearly déclassé but we’ve been happy with it for years now. Live and learn.


No, that’s what my grandmother called her bedroom.

We go back and forth between Mr Coffee and Cuisinart. Currently, ours is a programmable Cuisinart, but when I recommended it to a co-worker, he took it back because it leaks when you try to pour from a full carafe. We have that issue, but didn't worry about it. As I recall, our Mr Coffee's never did that.