This Girl’s House

I’m just taking a break in the middle of painting the last wall in the kitchen.  Graceful Gray is the color of choice.  I just love how the color contrasts with the new expresso color of the kitceh cabinet.  But painting is a lot of work.  The kitchen has 3 walls and I had already painted 2 of the walls.  The last wall was the longest wall.  All 35 feet of it. With taping off cabinets, trim and windows and cutting in, the first coat took almost 5 hours.  I’m almost tempted to save the second coat for tomorrow, but I want to get the job over with.  Anyway, while I was cleaning the walls and then painting, I noticed a little cracking of the sheetrock around the windows.  It’s been almost 6 years since I built the house so it’s not unexpected.  I didn’t bother to slow down.  I figured it would be a waste of time.  I plan to change out the trim around the windows, perhaps even replace the windows further down the road.  it would have have been a waste of time.  I really like the color.  It echoes the gray skies of typical Washington weather out the windows, and the grey of the Bay Lake beyond the walls.  Interesting contrasts.

Tonight, This Old House had an episode about painting Kitchen Cabinets.  They went into detail about the process.  Geeze, I wished I had seen this episode sometime last summer before I started painting my kitchen cabinets.  It would  have saved me some time and money.  On the other hand, in the end, I pretty much did what they did, but I used a different kind of paint, and I’m satisfied with the job.  However, if you’re going to be painting your kitchen cabinets, this episode is a must see.  They recommended 5 coats (1 primer, 2 coats of acrylic and 2 coats of water based polyurethane), the home owner ended up doing 6 coats (1 primer, 3 coats of acrylic and 2 coats of water based polyurethane).  The home owner also used foam rollers, just as I did. 

With 7 to 10 loads of laundry a week, we go through a lot of fabric softener.  I have an older washer and dryer, so that means that I do a wash, and then after the wash has been completed, I run a rinse with fabric softener.  So basically the wash runs 1.5 times.  And then last November, I saw the Bounce Fabric Softener bar.  Just attach it to the inside of your dryer, and it lasts between 2 to 4 months.  I bought the bar at my local grocery store for $8 and figured why not, it was worth a try.  I fastened the bar to the inside of my dryer and said ”sayonara” to the liquid fabric softener that I loaded into the washing machine and the fabric softener sheets I placed in my dryer.  Sure enough, it was still going strong in January.  I was still smelling the fresh smell of fabric softener every time I opened my dryer, and my clothes felt good and smelled fresh.  So I figured this was the way to go.  You don’t know how much time and water has been saved with the fabric softener bar.  And then when I went looking for replacement bars, I found out that they don’t sell replacement bars.  You have to buy the whole kit.  That was a little disappointing.  I hate the idea of having to purchase a kit again and again, but then once I realized that the the adhesive container isn’t really that much plastic, and when I compared that little piece of plastic to the amount of time, money and water that the bar saved, I thought it hands down worth it.  There are a variety of opinions on this product however.  Here, read some.  http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2557111/bounce_dryer_bar_review_fabric_softener.html?image=902987&cat=46.  I also found a great deal on this bar at Amazon.  With prime shipping, the replacement bars costs me only $6.07 a piece.  However, a few days later found a better price at Amazon for $2.78 a piece with Amazon Prime, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002BH4TTI/ref=cm_cr_mts_prod_img.   the used up bar looks like a used up bar of soap.  One reviewer stated that she puts the bars in her glove box to keep her car smelling fresh.  That sounded like a good idea to me.

To replace what’s  I need without touching the greatroom carpet, I’m looking at 200 square feet.  Looking at Lisbon Cork Dali color, http://www.lumberliquidators.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=5188&categoryId=448&sectionId=2&subCategoryId=11.  Current price is $3.69.

I’m knee deep into the job of painting the kitchen cabinets.  Hope we have the job done by Thansgiving.  Right now I’m doing the most painting in the garage, even as cold as it is.  I misplaced my camera but I’ll post pictures later.  We’re painting the standard builder’s grade cabinets, bittersweet chocolate.  I’ve seen this same Expresso color on cabinets throughout the home stores lately.  Lessons I’ve learned from doing this job include:

• Do a really good sanding job before you start painting.  Don’t just rough them up.  The underlying finish can prevent the paint from sticking and it will later chip off.  I’d rather  have the paint wear off as opposed to chip off, if it’s eventually going to come off. 
• Tape off the areas adjacent to where you will be painting.
• Apparently 3 coats does the job.  In between coats, I use a fine steel wool and buff the paint in and take the shine off.
• Diagram your cabinets on a piece of paper and assign each cabinet a code.  As you take off the doors of each cabinet and pull out the drawers, mark the doors and drawers with the same code.  You can put the code in the hole left by the door hardware. 
• And yes, remove the door hardware and place that in a little baggy marked with the door code.

I’m looking around for a few good pot lid and pot rack ideas.  Here are a few on my list.

Where to Store Pot Lids

Organize Pot Lids Using Curtain Rods

Pot Lid Organizer

DIY Kitchen Potrack

Wall Mounted Potrack

Inside the Mind of a Monkey

One of the items on my fall list is to complete wiring of the garage.  This is the attached garage that I’m talking about which is basically where I hang out, keep my tools and do my thing, as opposed to the detached garage that Stevie does work in.  When the house was built, they put one outlet in the entire space.  I’m adding 6 outlets and I’m putting in a lot of additional lighting, because that’s the second thing I hate; how dark it is with the garage door closed, and very little lighting.

Anyway, for those ladies who are scared of wiring, I have this to say to you.  A lot of things in life are a whole lot scarier.  For example, it was a lot scarier having a baby, learning how to drive, building a home, or changing jobs.  Wiring is a lot like beading.  There’s a lot of wire twisting, making sure you use the right wires, and put the right wires in the right areas.  If you take care, you can get the job done.  The first thing you need is a little knowledge.  I have a lot of great books on doing wiring, but my very favorite is the Sunset You Can Build Wiring.  It comes equipped with step by step instructions, pictures and diagrams.  Then you need the right tools, the right size wire, and extra supplies.  I also like to take pictures before I make changes, so it will help me remember how things were hooked up just in case I have to back out of a change.

Today, I installed 2 outlets on one side of the garage.  I had an outlet in the smallest bedroom that I used to start my middle receptacles, but because of where I was installing the 2 outlets, I needed to remove the bedroom outlet, pull the wire from the backside into the garage, run the wire to the first outlet, then run wire from that outlet back to the bedroom outlet, and then from that outlet I ran it to another outlet 4 feet over, and then ran the wire from there.  For middle run receptacles I used pigatils and wire nuts. 

The two receptacles in the garage were both installed as single location gfci’s, 4 feet above the floor.  There is a picture of that diagram here.  It took me about 4 hours.  I had a lot of twisting of wires to do, and some work on my knees, but in the end, I was really satisfied with the result.  I still need to cleanup.  And I need to repair the sheetrock after inspection, but I’ll do that once I have all the outlets done.  I’ll insist on having my wiring inspected because it’s the law and because I want that extra insurance that my work was OK. 

Anyway, while I tested to make sure that the gfci’s were working properly and the electricity was flowing ok, I’m going to wait until Stevie gets home to verify that everything looks ok, before I turn back on the circuit on that panel permanently.  

So I’ve started staining the shingles.  I really wanted to do as much pre-work as possible before putting these shingles up. There is generally 110 shingles per bundle and I coated my first bundle a week ago.  Then I started hearing stories about how to seal shingles. 

The first story came from a recent episode of The Handy Guys, where they talk about a 3 coat seal on shingles.  In this episode Brian mentions that he coats his siding every two years, and I just cringed inside when I heard that.  He was trying to protect his #3 coat though so maybe the job can be stretched to every 4 or 5 years.  I’m 2 seconds from 50, and I can just see myself climbing scaffolding to stain siding that begins 16 feet off of the ground.  Oh well.   I hope to keep it’s natural color for the next 10 to 15 years, and after that, we’re looking at a paint job.  Then there is the issue of how to seal the individual shingles themselves.  There are all sorts of opinions on the issue, the consensus is to give each shingle at least one doublesided coat of sealant to prevent cupping.  Here are some more links to articles about staining and sealing cedar shakes.

 The Perils of Installing Shakes with Stain - http://www.soundhome.com/qa/siding/treating-shake-and-shingle-siding
The Stain Decision - http://www.oldhousejournal.com/magazine/2002/july/stain.shtml
Why You’d Want To Stain The Back - http://rochester.ynn.com/content/top_stories/?RegionCookie=2134&ArId=352559

So yesterday I was really feeling lousy.  I’d been dodging sickness for a week or two, and it finally said, feed me medicine.  After sleeping most of the day, I got up, shook the sleep out of my eyes and headed to Home Depot, my favorite spot when I’m looking for air conditioning.  After picking up some paint supplies, I headed over to the contractor area where I shopped shingles.  Let me tell you, custom shingles are expensive.  They start out at about $15 a square foot as opposed to the standard shingle (premier) at $1.79 a square foot.  I plopped my money down for bundles of the standard shingle and had the truck loaded and ready to go.  We’re going to shingle the peaks of the garage.  Can’t wait to see it.

Today, I picked up 2 yards of garden soil from the local gravel pit at a cost of $66.  Hard to believe that dirt costs that much.  I must admit I prefer getting in dribs and drabs as opposed to having a truck dump a load and that’s because I can unload it and distribute it in piles to places that it needs to go as I have time instead of having this big pile of dirt that I need to get rid of.  Of course, it helps to have a boyfriend that has his own excavator.  Still Stevie can’t deliver dirt to my garden using that excavator.  That would be overkill.  So I move dirt into there using the wheelbarrel, the garden cart, and a 5 gallon bucket. 

I dumped a bunch of dirt over my potatoes.  Key to growing more of them is heaping more dirt onto potato plants.  I just love my potato plants, particularly those purple potatoes.  I’m also putting more potato plants in tires that line the pathways.

We will putting more plants into the ground this summer.  Have started with pole beans.  The tomatoes have exploded.  I have to be prepared to can and freeze by September.  Seems like everyone has a garden.  I spent yesterday’s appt at the dentist discussing gardening secrets with my dental hygienist.  She had a lot of good tips and she loves purple potatoes too.

We just finished the sheetrock job.  We had removed the little small pantry and that mean, we had to repair one wall.  We closed off an opening between the dining room and the kitchen with framing.  And then we also did some rewiring in the kitchen.  This is one of those jobs that is essential before we installed the rest of the cabinets, put in new flooring and finished the painting.

 Let me begin by saying that while we installed the sheetrock ourselves, we had a professional do the taping, mudding and sanding.  This is money well spent at about $500 (It took about 4 trips for the guy to get the walls just right) and neither one of us are experienced in this area.  I thought about trying to find some way to shield the area from the rest of the house so I could limit the dust that would fly, but this job was in the great room and there were three walls involved with a twelve foot height.  At the time, I thought there might be no way to prevent dust from getting everywhere, but now that I’m knee deep in cleaning up from that job, I’m thinking I could have tried to find a better way.  I will have dust for weeks to clean up starting with the electronics and working to the kitchen.  Also, even after I clean one area, you come back a week later and still find dust settling.   This is an area where a little time spent preparing for the job would have made a big difference with the cleanup afterwards.

The other thing I had to worry about was the texture on the wall.  In general, the walls were lightly textured when the house was built.  If you look at the picture below in the article on wine glass storage you can see the degree of texture on the wall.  I prefer smooth walls and the guy who did the drywall did the walls, but he just sprayed with drywall primer.  I don’t have any experience doing texture and acquiring the texture tools is a large investment for such a small space.  I was able to address this problem by buying a texturizer 9 inch roller.  I bought my roller at Home Depot for about $8.  Here’s a site that has pictures of what a Goop Loop roller looks like.  Using Primer, I used the roller over the non-textured areas.  I was suprised by how well this roller mimic’d the texture.  And in fact, key to success in this area is that lighter is better.  If you miss a spot or find that your texture is too lightly applied, you can always wait till it dries and go back over it.  For those areas that were too small for the roller, you can mimic the technique with a small brush.  Here’s a great reference for how to achieve this effect with a brush.

I have always wanted to add under cabinet wine glass storage.  It would be perfect if I could locate the storage under the cabinet over the dishwasher.  One of the recent storage magazines mentioned a stemware storage rack from the Container Store for $30.  I was thinking of going for it when I spied a stemware rack for $6.95 at Lowes.  I picked up two and they were a snap to install.  Quick Tip:  Test the location of your racks with a wine glass inserted to make sure that the rack and it’s contents will not interfere with anything else going on your counter.  Mark and pre-drill the screw holes before screwing the rack to the underside of your cabinet. 

So I know I promised to bring you news about the Pantry.  One  of my summer projects has been to deal with the kitchen situation.  We lack storage space in the kitchen.  Part of the problem was the layout and after a year of messing around with the issue, I think I’ve got the design worked out.  We removed the box like pantry that was in the kitchen.  The box like pantry simply jutted out into the greatroom, and cut off flow between one room and the next.  There was a doorway leading from the kitchen to the dining room (a room we never used as a dining room because that’s now how we rock), so we always used that doorway as a walkway.  We closed off that wall (finally got the sheet rock done this past week), we removed the pantry closet from the great room, and we changed the coat closet from a general catch all to a pantry.  I started off with 3 large pantry like cabinets in the kitchen but I didn’t like how they boxed off the space, so I’m replacing them with a base kitchen cabinet and upper level cabinet, and I was really lucky to pick up the same exact cabinets as the one’s that are already in the kitchen (I got the both of them for $290). 

 So here’s what the new pantry has replaced.  It has replaced the 3 long pantry cabinets that were in the kitchen,

the two buffets that were in the dining room and that were just used for storage (which we plan to move to the garage later).

and this one

and some odd ends we had stored in different closets throughout the house. 

Here is the new pantry.  It went from a coat closet,

To a 8 foot pantry.

With narrow one foot shelves on the left,

and large 2 foot deep shelves in front of you and on the right.

I still have some more things to do.  I have to build one more cube for the top of the large shelves, and I have stain and finish it, but right now, it’s working for me.  I have the rest of my life to finish it, and it’s doing a great job.  Now some people might wonder why  a modern family needs a pantry in addition to all of the kitchen cabinets and island that we have.

Here’s why we need one.  We live in the country.  I wouldn’t even call it suburbs because the nearest Safeway or Albertson is half an hour drive away.  I drive to town on average once or twice a week.  It’s not that we can’t afford the gas.  I just don’t believe in spending money and gas like I used so I combine my trips.  I go in one day of week to the office and then after work I’ll go grocery shopping.  Otherwise I work at home, we have a garden and I plan on canning.  When I shop, we shop at big box stores or take advantage of sales and coupons, and when you do that, you buy in bulk.  When you buy in bulk, you have to have a place to store stuff.  We have 2 dogs, 2 cats and they go through a lot of food.  I have a lot of dishes and pots, quite of few special purpose or single use.  When Steve and I first started courting, he’d give me a frying pan or a pot, why I have no clue because it’s not like did a lot of cooking.  I would just look to these items with amusement and put them away.  It’s only been the last year or so that I’ve taken them out of their hiding place and started to figure how to use them.  Anyway, I’m the kind of person that could have used a butler’s pantry, but this is what I’ve been able to carve out for myself.  Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m real big on storage.  Finally, I read a really good book recently, on the history of the Pantry.  Check it out of your local library.

Steve and I have lived together for 3 years now, and it looks like it will be forever.  Our roles have largely gone down the line of traditional male and female roles when it comes to distribution of work in the house.  While it’s an extreme change for me, I can live with it.  I’m not exactly an expert when it comes to cooking and cleaning, and I’m not afraid to get some help in here when I need it, so that’s OK.  But then there’s the subject of our home projects.  There are the projects that we work on together, then Stevie projects and Teresa projects. 

Now the Stevie projects go ok.  I let him do his thing.  The Together projects are slightly rambuctious.  Stevie likes to do things very exactly, and if he’s off by an 1/8″ he gets upset with himself and he wants us to do everything over.  On the other hand, I look at the project and say, will being 1/8″ off affect performance, or is this some asthetic issue.  If it’s an asthetic issue, then I say do I have time to do it over, or do I need to use this time for something else. 

So it is, with my current project (which I plan to provide more details on later).  I’m building a pantry in a large closet next to kitchen that we’ve used as a dumping ground for coats we rarely wore.  I’m cutting out the wood panels and I did a dry fit, but I didn’t quite plan how I would fit the cabinets into the closets after I screwed and glued the boxes together.  Anyway, Steve didn’t like the way the cabinets were put together.  On one side, the back side mind you, I was off by an 1/8 inch.  I told him it was a pantry and the shelves would always contain cans and boxes of cereal.  no one would notice that problem, and if they did, I wouldn’t care.  My major concern …..  Is the cabinet strong enough to hold all these cans, and what do I need to do to secure the cabinets to the walls.  I told him that Stevie that he needed to let me make my  own mistakes.  He hemmed and hawed for a day or so and then he helped me put a long length of heavy wood on my saw horses, so I could cut them out with my circular saw.  Did I tell you that he bought me that circular saw and he also taught me how to use it?  Isn’t he a lovely partner?

So the garden has been bountiful.  We have rarely had to buy lettuce since April, maybe 2 heads.  We eat lettuce, spinach, cauliflower, chives and collard greens and now I’m starting to harvest the zuchini.

My pumpkins are the size of bowling balls.

I’m looking at my zuchini recipes.  zuchini chips, zuchiniu bread, zuchini and spinach with basil.

This weekend, I spent the time pulling Arrowhead weed around the dock and front of the lawn, at least 20 feet into the lake. 

It was back breaking work, and to tell the truth I would not have been doing it except my neighbor expressed concern about it, and I try to be a good neighbor.  Steve was laughing about it, thought I was crazy because it’s just going to come back, but you do what think you have to do.  Arrowhead weed grows about 5 to 6 feet tall and it has these tall sharp blades with little flowers at the end. 

The real issue is the root system.  It has these bulbous tubers that grow in a root system that resembles more of a carpet than anything I’ve ever seen. 

We tried pulling them out with a potato rake for about half hour.  I found that to be a little frustration.  Luckily, I had bought my large pick axe with me in the wheel barrel so I told Darlene to hand me that and began methodically chopping away at the undergrowth.  You basically had to whack whack away at the weed, and then reach down under the water with your hand and feel around until you got underneath the root system and then start slowly pulling until you got a good grip under it, and then start rocking back and forth using your weight as leverage until you’ve yanked a hunk out. 

Imagine I’m out in the lake 20 foot out, bending down with my face just above the surface of the water, standing there in a dripping t-shirt and shorts wearing my rubber boots that have half a foot of water in the soles.  Once you got the hunk torn out, I had to drag it to the bank and heave it up as far as I could.  Laden with water, the root hunks weigh between 30 and 50 pounds.  Once on the bank, the roots will dry out and hopefully I can add them to the compost pile.  I read last night that the Indians used to eat the roots and that they contain a lot of carbohydrates, which is just great.  Another food source.  Anyway, I’m pooped.

You know it’s one thing to say, I’m going to do a garden to feed my family, and it’s another issue to get real live results from that commitment.  We have 6 garden beds, one large half wine barrel, several long green planters, and 16 tires that I’m using to grow stuff in.  You’d be amazed at how much space plants take, and at this time, I’m not getting enough out of the garden to feed me and Stevie let alone a family. 

No doubt, it’a learning experience and I’ll get better at the task the more years I put into it.  For example, let me tell you all about my broccoli. 

I planted the brocolli in March and it’s the end of May and I had nothing more than a couple of week sticks of broccoli.  Certainly not the volume that I was looking for.  First off, I only planted two rows.  That’s nothing enough to feed two people the amount of broccoli we like to eat.  I did read that we could use the leaves, but I’m looking for real broccoli heads.  Second, I waited too long to harvest what little broccoli I grew.  When the floret begin to sprout little yellow flowers, it was a bad sign.  I was like, well, what do I do now.  Do I just off the leaves and hope that it will regrow again, or do I start all over.  Well, I found my answer in this book called Rodale’s Vegetable Garden Problem Solver that I checked out of the library.  First, brocolli is harvested in one shot.  Whatever you’re going to get, you’ll get within 60 days of planting unless you expect a cool summer (less than 80 degrees).  Some people suggest that you pull the plant out when you’re ready to harvest, but I found a great video on YouTube that tells you how to extend your harvest to get the side shoots.  When you eventually pull the plant, it is ready for the compost pile.  And I’m definitely going to need more than 2 rows of brocolli.  I’m going to have to stagger the plantings.

I found some good recipes for homemade cleaners at TipNut.com. There are dozens of recipes here. My favorite seems to be the Lemon Air Freshener.

It was a very wet wet winter and spring this past year. This next week we are almost guaranteed a full week of sun, and accompanied with the three day weekend, Teresa has decided to use this time to get out the camping gear and work on the 5th wheel. Now, did I tell you about the very very wet winter we had. Well in one particularly wet week, we had a solid downpour for maybe 3 or 4 days. The gutters could not keep up, and water just dumped off the roof and went down into the crawlspace. After the deluge, there was 2 or 3 feet of water in the crawlspace. With the help of the pump and some good luck, that water disisipated in a day or two, but it left it’s mark. We keep all of our camping gear, all of our outdoor furniture in the crawlspace and it was time to take a look at the damage. With some work, we hauled everything out. The camp gear was stored in these 2 feet tall by 5 feet long rubber bins, and when we picked them up it was clear that they also contained water. Our sleeping bags were wet and smelled of mildew. I laid them out on the ground to dry out for a day, and then one by one, ran through the washing machine, a couple of times using a solution of tide, baking soda and vinegar. Followed by a rinse of something sweet smelling. It did the trick. The 5 wheel is getting a vinegar and bleach spray and wash and Stevie is replacing the roof. Not sure it will be ready for our first week of camping, but we will using it this summer.

I read the most interesting blog post tonight about this subject at Casaubon’s Book blog. The gal makes some interesting points. I too have come to the conclusion that I have more land than I need, and for many of the reasons she mentions, I note. I bought the land for the same reasons she and her family bought theirs. My garden is 20 feet from my front door and I have the well pump right by the garden fence. The only thing I really lack is actual gardening experience, which I am in the process of gaining. I too have a lot of potatoes, but I think I need more.