The Joy of Cooking

Okay, maybe not really. But I do love that cookbook! And I love the changes in my kitchen. 'Twas  a full day's work on Thursday, a perfect job for a drippy day.

I started with the pantry. It was originally full of food, but there were just a few things that kind of drove me crazy. For one thing, the doors were always standing open, either with a teen or two standing in front moaning, "there is nothing to eat in this house...", or with suspicious-looking crumbs of said "nothing" trailing away from it.

Don't you think this is a big improvement?

What's that? Where is the food? Well, who needs to eat? You can just open that pantry and feast on the beauty, the order, the symmetry... Okay, the HS and the kids didn't buy that either.

I switched the cabinets on the far wall to food-bearing rather than dish- and glassware-bearing. It makes more sense anyway. Now the food is where I need it. Why didn't I think of that before? The far right cabinet has boxes and cans, as does the cabinet over the stove and the one over the microwave. Duplicates and extras got moved to the basement shelves. Lots of things got repackaged into canning jars - my  new favorite storage containers.

Coffee, tea, drinks, etc. I know it is a little strange to be so delighted with organized cabinets. Some of you will not get this, and will be confirmed in your opinion that I am one egg short of a dozen. But some of you are kindreds, and these pics are for you. (Yes, I know. If you come to my house in a month and open my cabinets, they will not look exactly like this. But let me live in my dream world for a few blissful days.)

Baking supplies and ingredients. HS hung these lovely little strips for my measuring stuff. I love this, although we all need to learn to open the cabinet with a little less...enthusiasm. It's rather a cacophony at times otherwise.

And, below and to the right is this great lazy susan cabinet, with the rest of the baking ingredients.

And I love this - I am actually able to find my spices!

The thing that caused the most anxiety (those who know my family will get this) - where is the cereal??? There are NO CEREAL BOXES!!! WHAT??????

But look how lovely:

Who needs cereal boxes? Bags removed from boxes fit beautifully in baskets (yes, we've been studying Old English alliterative poetry). So do bags of bread, and bags of snacks. I've had these baskets forever. In fact, everything I did in here was repurposing. I love that too. Cheap and free - two of my favorite words! But getting back to the protest; it's blowing over and the new normal is settling in. You just have to be willing to brave the storm sometimes. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.

One final view of the kitchen. And I'll see you at Thanksgiving! Perhaps the kitchen will get painted by then.

Why yes, that book on the counter  is entitled "Heal Your Own Back". I wonder why that was out.

Autumn Break

So, I didn't quite keep my promise to post some kitchen shots "in a few days". Here's my excuse.

Summer came. A few little projects seemed to commandeer every waking moment - a book to finish writing and a homeschool academy to get off the ground, nothing major really. Then, summer ended and school started way before we were even close to ready - commence running breathlessly through the next six weeks. And then, along came our much-anticipated and much-needed Autumn Break (ahem...some genius insisted on breaks every six weeks in our academy...thank you, O wise one!)

Auspiciously, the beginning of Autumn Break coincided with the town tag sale. HS, who also happens to be a garage-sale guru (man of many talents!), scored a bunch of great items dirt cheap, which sparked a girl bedroom and schoolroom reorganization. I had already planned to use break for a kitchen reorganization. Of course, it never occurred to me to take "before" pics, as I was so totally focused on the work at hand. But when I was all done, I decided it would be nice to take some pics before...well, you know. We do live here.

On to the girl room.

Here is the fab dresser we found at the tag sale for $35. Two drawers were off the tracks, and it did suffer a little mishap on the way home (some unnamed woman driver took a corner a bit too fast and one of those off-track drawers became an off-truck drawer until I she had to circle the block and re-truck and re-track it.) However, HS fixed all of that up in a jif, and here it is (sock on floor courtesy of teen daughter, just to keep things real):

Notice the CLEAN room. Daughter did clean her room and have it mostly ready for us to do some moving and organizing in there. We "finished" the cleaning and then moved a few things around while she was off doing her barista gig at the local college. HS had painted her room a couple of months ago, but we never got around to hanging the Ikea paper lantern and the bulletin board until now. A few more shots:

The bamboo shades were another tag sale find. I got four of them (two for the boys' room), along with two bar chairs from a kind neighbor for a total of $15. You can see the very edge of one of those bar chairs through the door below. Things that were already in place: the small paper lanterns from $5 Below, the wavy mirror and peg rack from Ikea, the closet doors painted with whiteboard paint - very fun!, and the bedspreads from WalMart. The gorgeous twin beds were inherited from HS's parents when they moved from their townhouse to their retirement community years ago.

I love this room. So glad daughter has a place to read and dream and enjoy being sixteen. And sleep (being who she is). 

Moving on to the schoolroom...a much-needed cleaning/reorganizing there was on my very long summer to-do list, but it got moved to the very long summer not-done list. That was my number one break priority, since it was seriously hampering our academic life. My high need for order (the kind name my sweet and tactful friend Karen calls my obsessive compulsive neat-freakness) was causing me some unrest (code for unable to focus, concentrate, or function). Again, tag sale to the rescue! Here's the tour:

Coming up the stairs (the schoolroom is between the two upstairs bedrooms), it looks cozy and inviting. At least I think so. My kids don't use words like "cozy" and "inviting" when talking about school. But I digress.

The chair was $5. Yes, 5. It has a few stains, and you can't turn the cushion around unless you like big pink spots on your beige chairs, but it's very comfy, just the right size, and it gives the room a nice library feel. And did I mention it was five bucks? (BTW, those bookcases are Ikea, and we've had them for years, but they fit in that little nook at the top of the stairs like they were custom made for the space!)

Three desks for students: on either side of the window, 15 yo boy on left, 12 yo boy on right. In the middle is dear daughter. Mostly outfitted by Ikea over the years, and repurposed often. We still need to paint, and I have some more things to hang on the walls once we get that done. (Clearly, no school was happening this week - dead giveaways: no overflowing trashcans, no eraser crumbs on the floor, no books and unfiled papers strewn about, and no dirty glasses filling up the desks. That is all coming to an end, but at least I have these pics to remember the clean by.

 The "community" table that we can use when we work together on something is a repurposed (or multi-purpose) cutting table, hence the need for bar stools. The table can be pulled out into the middle of the room and extended if we need the space. Beyond the table is my own little office nook, which we converted to an office. Ahhh...so inviting. I am sure that everyone will agree when we hit the books again tomorrow.

The window seat you can see on the stairs has a cushion now - just needs to be painted (that's a theme; this is the winter of painting, right HS?) and I need to sew a cover for the cushion. Boys' room and upstairs bath are on the docket as well. Thanksgiving Break is coming.

Okay, this is  long enough - kitchen update will have to come in a separate post. 

Come Sit a Spell...

...as my Southwestern VA grandma used to say. My "new" glider - for just that purpose. It's dreamy. You really should come sit a spell. I can make you some sweet tea. Strong and sweet, like Southern women.

We inherited this very sturdy glider when we moved here. In other words, it was free. I love free. It was just in need of a new coat of paint. Here it is in the yard, where it HAD been tucked under a lovely pine tree near a metal firepit. That is, until this other very lovely huge pine tree fell over in the really rainy spring last year. Said lovely, huge pine tree swiped all of the branches off of said lovely pine tree under which the glider was tucked. So both pine trees had to go. This all happened just before we moved in, so pine tree removal was one of the first things on our list last summer.

We did a little research to see what this baby may have looked like when it was new - with the help of Pinterest - and loved the idea of the bright blue paint. I was crazy about the idea of painting the basketweave part white, which is authentic. The HS was less so. But Mother's Day is coming, and my birthday month was three months ago, so he humored me. Isn't it swell?

Here's a bit more of the back porch. A couple of things we (as in the HS and his serfs) have done: removed porch railings, moved some plants to cover where railings were removed, built center stairs, put down a stamped concrete patio (more on that some other day), and painted the porch floor. Twice. First, we just painted it the original porch blue, which I loved. But the constant stream of kids and critters were leaving muddy footprints constantly, which I did not love. So, if you can't beat 'em, you join 'em. We painted the porch floor the color of dried mud. Just kidding; it's really called "Covered Bridge" from Valspar.

Oh, and he also swapped a ceiling light on the back porch for a ceiling fan. But the porch was too low for my 6'4" man - he didn't want to get a haircut everytime he walks across the porch. I thought it sounded  convenient and frugal, but he's rather persnickety like that. Anyway, he had the brilliant idea of hanging party lights across the back porch to replace the porch light. AND, we can now operate them from a switch inside the house, thanks to our excellent electrician. They are deLIGHTful. They look festive, year-round.

And because these are night pictures, you can see our also-inherited torches. They do keep the mosquitoes and gnats away!

And of course, torches and boys go together like...well, like torches and boys.

My Front Porch Looking In...

Love country music...and love my new front door.

Some before and after - last spring when we bought the house - we loved the front full screen and storm door, and we really liked the white door with windows in it. The door had to be replaced, though, as it had been scratched up pretty badly by the renter's dogs...

 

The door dude really tried to convince us to go with fiberglass - lasts forever, "looks" like wood, wood will rot eventually... He was probably right, but this house just seems to call for the real thing, and we could not get the 12-light door in fiberglass. That extra row of windows gives so much light. Very glad we chose the wood door.

We primed it right away, but kept going back and forth on the color. Plus we had just a few other things to distract us inside the house...

 

...but we finally decided on this rich red - color is called Sly Fox by Behr  (Home Depot). The HS had it completely painted and scraped in a couple of hours last Saturday. What a guy!

The finished door on a beautiful breezy spring day.

 

And the roof has been power-washed, so it's all looking so spiffy. 

As I write this, the HS is working in the kitchen, so we may have some new kitchen pics up in a few days. 

Blog Fail...but Renovation Win!

So, my grand plans of regular updates got lost in the dust and confusion, but the dust is clearing, the power tools are silent, and the crowd is gone...we still have much work to do, but we have made much progress. So here is a quick tour of how things stand at this moment....

...beginning with the new front door. Primed, but we are planning to paint it a nice barn red. 

Front entry - bathroom and closet doors closed up, drywall done, and just waiting for paint. (This "waiting for paint" is a theme throughout this post. One of our grown & gone sons walked in on Sunday and actually asked, "Mom, what's up with Dad? Why isn't the painting done?" Good thing for him the HS wasn't nearby or he would have found himself with a paintbrush in his hand while the rest of us enjoyed Easter dinner...)

Looking from the front door into the living room. Second disclaimer - pictures and other things have not yet found their true home - lots of things are still just parked where they landed as I unpacked. For this space, I have a few thoughts. I'd like to find a small reading stand to sit on the shelf inside the front door to hold our fabulous dictionary. This also seems to me to be the perfect place to hang the Moravian star I've always wanted. In time.

Also, yes, we plan to do something about the vent...but it has to be cheap, easy, and beautiful. It will come to us. Still looking for ideas. Cheap ideas. Oh yes, I did say that already, didn't I?

My favorite angle. Just pretend the almost-empty orange juice glass isn't there. And I won't tell you how disgusting the contents were. Apparently it had been there (or more likely, hidden someplace else) a while. Hmmmm. Well, it's gone now, anyway.

Floor still needs to be fixed where the wall was removed. We're hoping to make it less noticeable, but refinishing the entire floor is a bit out of reach right now, on many levels.

Bookcases are filled, and it feels more like home. History and biography to the left of the fireplace; theology and poetry to the right - that pairing just seemed fitting.

And front hall bookcases - encyclopedias, literature, and books on education. The small bookcase on the stairs houses the best of the best in children's lit. Ah....books....

And notice the light coming down the stairs - you'll see why in a minute.

Into the dining room - "new" chandelier purchased at auction by my lovely mother-in-law, painted by the HS, and fitted with new globes from the Re-Store. Grand total before light bulbs: $7.

And another angle:

Looking from the living room into the kitchen - obviously still needs work, but the kitchen is fully functional, and I am loving it!

Yep - need to work on what goes on those shelves to the right of the sink. Right now, it's purely what I need to be able to grab quickly (trays) and my sweet little collection of Hadleyware. Those things are there in self-defense because when I left them empty in order to wait for the flash of inspiration, the HS took matters into his own hands and put our two (outside only!) orange 5 gallon drink containers up there just to see how I would react. He pretty much nailed it...

Cabinet doors are actually painted and rehung now, but I haven't taken pics yet.

Looking into the living room. Loving the light from the new kitchen fifteen-pane door.

And just a few more kitchen shots:

 

Upstairs - a view of the window we added on the stairs. It adds tons of light to the upstairs schoolroom and down into the entry and even into the living room. Because there was kind of a double wall there, the frame is deep, and it has quickly become a window seat for the kids to read and/or do their online classes. Needs painting, and we may put some recessed bookshelves below it (aka steps to the window seat), and a big cushion to make it more comfy.

And, my little office cubby - I love this! It was a very nice-sized closet, and we converted it, keeping the top shelf. The sliding doors are still there, and we painted them with white board paint -  love, love, love this! When they are both closed, we have a mega-whiteboard.

 And the view from inside my office cubby - and out through the window. It's perfectly lovely - trees and sky.

New back door to the kitchen from the back porch. Needs painting and scraping.

And just a few lovely yard shots. Every time I go outside, I am grateful to Brian & Susie for the lovely yard we inherited. The maple tree next to the kitchen is budding, and the graceful spirea drapes over the fence. My favorite old-fashioned plants and trees - dogwoods and forsythia bushes, lilacs and lilies, daffodils and peonies, and so much more. It is truly a little bit of heaven.

Finally, our Easter posies - gathered from our bountiful yard (for which I can truly take NO credit!). Cherry blossoms from beside the driveway, azaleas from the south side of the front, periwinkle and wisteria from the north side of the front, and a bit of spirea from the back fence. Perfectly lovely, as long as they remained in one place, undisturbed...

"The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places..." Psalm 16:6