I would place a beverage from coffee shop in front of me, like I was drinking it. I often do this at Starbucks now because I don’t like their tea anymore and can’t always justify a $12 drink to hang out with friends. It’s a wasted drink, but $2 plus tip to rent my chair.
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I don’t think it’s rude or will be noticeable IF the other people in your group do buy things. If none of you buy things, the staff might be annoyed and/or ask you guys to free up seats for customers (based on my experience working in a coffee shop).
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Yup. I’d buy a plain black coffee or whatever, as rent for my butt. shrugs It’s a real estate transaction at that point. The food–> be sneaky and not rude. 
But I doubt you’d be rude.
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Some of my friends and I have switched to meeting in the public lounge areas of libraries (several branches here have pretty decent sized areas intended for talking at normal volume) to avoid the seat rental dilemma.
As long as you’ve at least bought something I don’t think it’s an issue especially if not overly crowded.
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I have the Philips sunrise lamp and I love it. I’ve had it for 4-5 years at this point and it’s still going strong. I had a cheap one in college that sucked and I debated whether to buy this one but I’m glad I went for it.
Things that I specifically like about it:
- The sunset feature. I have trouble quieting my brain at night so the 10-20 minute gradual sunset helps and I don’t panic when it’s bedtime anymore. It used to be “Ok, lights out! Time to sleep! Sleep now! Do it!”
- The display uses red lights which is way less disturbing than blue lights for sleep. Plus, they dim when there’s no movement in front of the clock so it gets super dark at night which I need to sleep
- The sunrise feature (obviously!) it’s such a nice gradual increase, but I do usually wake up gently before it’s fully on and the alarm starts. That doesn’t mean I love mornings. I’m still sleepy. But it’s better
- The noise settings. I use the bird chirps which actually sound natural and then I use my phone for a blaring alarm when I actually need to be out of bed.
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Thank you thank you thank you 
I will be either ordering one or hunting one down in person this weekend.
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Starting a week today I will be renovating the home that I intend to stay in until I have to go to a nursing home. I have a decent budget, but not an infinite one. My focus is largely going to be the kitchen and the bathroom. What things do I cheap out on, and what is worth the $$$?
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I would get at least mid-grade cabinets because you don’t want to have to replace those. Countertops are much easier to replace, so if your budget only allows a laminate top now you can replace that in 5-10 years if you want to. Quartz is great but pricey.
Anything more permanent wants to be a better quality than the easy to replace things in my opinion.
Also I would absolutely spend money to make the layout better. Like paying to move plumbing or electrical so sink and stove are in better locations.
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I am not a professional and this is going off of being almost two years after renoing our kitchen -
Storage that works for you. Not sure if that means pull out drawers or baskets within cabinets. In our case we got a lazy susan built-in for a previously useless corner, it’s amazing how much stuff we have in there now and we can actually get at it all. (Side note, is there a better term than “lazy susan”?)
Hardware is pretty common so finding a general style that works for you (handles instead of pulls) is easy and then you can probably shop around online to get a cheaper version per piece.
Enough counter space to get everything you need for a recipe out at once, then being able to put it all away at once. We only had small chopped up areas of counter space before and I didn’t realize how low-level frustrating it was to deal with multiple times a day. Having seen your floor plan this might be tricky but maybe the hivemind here can help once you are able to get measurements.
Our oven has the coil built in so it’s a smooth surface on the bottom and easy to wipe clean. This is a “nice to have” but I had no idea it existed prior to appliance shopping so thought I’d mention it.
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If the fixtures currently take inefficient bulb types (halogens for example) it’s worth upgrading because you’ll make your money back over time. Anything to mitigate mold in wet areas is worthwhile. Upgrading the shut off valves throughout the house to a 90 degree ball valve will save you tons of headaches down the road.
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Agreeing with meerkat that all lower or tall pantry cabinets should have accessories in them that make your life easier. Pullout shelves, large drawers, etc.
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For bathroom I’d personally focus more on ease of maintenance than style, like consider as smooth a shower liner as you can find versus one with lots of seams. We have an acrylic surround with a fake subway tile pattern and the fake tile seams are a massive PITA to clean if you don’t like using strong chemicals.
Kitchen, I’d personally worry less about material quality and more whether there are any significant changes to layout or lighting that would increase usability, but layout changes can get pricey fast.
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Can you work with a kitchen designer so that the layout is optimized for how your health needs may change? I second the vote for nice cabinets (and this was how I was able to work with a kitchen designer for the layout). Between baths/kitchen/other rooms, is one in particular more important to you (e.g. you spend more time there or have specific wants/needs)? If so, do that first.
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There are really nice ones on ball bearings that are called Super Susans, but no one will know what you’re talking about…
I know they’re kind of pricey, so this might be more of a down the line thing, but we switched from a glass top electric stove to an induction stove and it’s a million times easier to clean because nothing gets burned onto it since it only heats the pans.
This might also be a really good idea for @Smacky - I’m not sure how your condition impacts reflexes and coordination, but induction will turn off itself if you take the pan off the burner and while the surface is very WARM (i.e. don’t set your hand down and keep it against burner right after boiling water) it will not burn body parts that touch recently used (or even still on but recently exposed by moving a pan) burners like an electric stove would. It’s a splurge but if your condition makes you more likely to brush into burners or not notice you’re touching one, it could be well worth it.
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Check out “Make your House do your Housework”! This excellent book is full of great ideas for how to build the house including kitchen and bathroom to be easy to maintain. Half the ideas they say are genius are pretty ugly or so dated you couldn’t get them now, but the others are basically life changing. It has good ideas if you’re not renovating, but a lot of them are things that it would be really helpful to have in mind before starting renovations.
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Induction is one of my wants for when we redo the kitchen. Either a new slide-in or a cooktop if we change layouts considerably.
Thanks guys! I’m not doing individual replies because I’m on my phone.
Some of the cabinet places do kitchen design if you buy their stuff. One in particular sells only plywood cabinets (vs the more normal particleboard) so I will talk to them. My other option is my friend’s contractor, who specializes in full kitchen renovations.
If I be the project manager I will hire different labour and trades as needed and source all the materials. If I hire this guy I hand him the keys and come back for the big HGTV style reveal. I assume the latter option costs a lot more, but depending on the quote it might make my life wonderfully easy.
I’m bad at wonderfully easy.
Induction sounds sweet, and I’ll price it out. At the very least I’m doing smooth top. I had a glass top stove before and I loved it.
I have a week to go and am slightly losing my mind.
This belongs in my housing journal…
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Oh I definitely second induction. I miss our induction range so much. It’s a driving factor in us wanting to buy a house again. Also, SirB is strongly pro induction for safety, and that’s his Thing professionally, so I take that as a strong recommendation.
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I highly recommend the GE profile induction range! We tried a few of our neighbors and the controls were awful (Bosch!). You had to press the buttons repeatedly to raise and lower the power. The GE I just slide my finger around what looks like a knob and it acts as though I was turning a knob. I LOVE IT.
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We had the Samsung with normal stove style knobs, I really liked it. Found it super easy to use.
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