would you rather...

Would you rather have a hideous air duct on top of your roof  or...

...have a huge air duct go through your kitchen?  (sorry for the very grainy photo on top...it's from google earth and the picture does not do justice to the hideousness of the airducts on top of the roof-just ask our neighbors! oh, and please forgive the messy kitchen in the picture below.)

This was our dilema as of late.  We finally decided it was time to re-roof our house.  The house had a tar and gravel roof and we wanted to convert it to shingles-no problem.  The A/C-Heating unit is on top of our house and unless we spent a ton of money that is where it had to stay.  We already had to buy a new unit since ours appeared to be out of the stone age and was not working properly anymore.  (with me being pregnant during the upcoming summer, I got two votes to say we needed a new A/C unit!).  So while we were doing the roof, we just decided to take those ugly ducts from the top of the house that was only servicing one room (living room) anyway and put a duct from a bedroom vent through the kitchen and into our living room.  In my mind I had visualized a much smaller vent going through the kitchen and being flush against the white beam so as not to be seen from this view.  However, once the A/C guys started working on it (and the outside ducts were already at the  dump) they told me in order to get the correct air flow to the living room, the duct had to be that big.  I had a bit of buyers remorse at that point.  I called Wes at work in a panic.  I called my mom, my sister, and anyone else that would listen to see what I should do.  The truth of it is, there is not much I can do with it at this point.  I've been searching online for pictures of kitchens with exposed ducts.  We are going to have to totally remodel and make it a very modern kitchen, which we were planning on doing anyway but not for a few more years-yikes!  I have some ideas that I think will make it all work (at least I'm crossing my fingers that it will!).  On a positive note, now that the roof is shingled and air-duct free it looks a bazillion times better from the outside.

We also had some sky lights installed which are amazing.  Once they are completed from the inside, I'll take pictures and post.