Kitchen face-lift {part ten} - Cabinets

The bulk of our cabinets arrived and were installed a couple of weeks ago,  In fact, it was the day before the ice storm that shut our entire area down for the remainder of the week. 

It’s funny that it had just been this big expansive and empty space for so long that once the cabinets began to arrive, we said it felt so small in comparison.  We joked that the space was starting to close in on us (which is only funny if you realize how big the space really is even with the cabinets in there).

They are maple cabinets and we are so pleased with the quality of the workmanship.  The old cabinets that were falling apart were mostly particle board.  Not these.  They are solid.  And we love them.

I love that we used a custom cabinet maker for several reasons.  One of those reasons is the custom hutch that he built for me.  I designed it and he built it.

He took this:

And made this:

  He did such a perfect job on it that I almost cried.  There is something really wild about seeing a picture you’ve drawn and conceptualized be there in 3D. 

In my opinion, custom cabinets are the way to go.  I can not wait until they are stained and finished and we can move our stuff into them.

But wait, I must. 

One of the challenges of working with independent sub contractors is that they can sometimes be a little… well… flaky.  One sub that was going to do all the stain work on the cabinets just up and left the country.  Not sure why.  The other has had a little bit of a scheduling problem.

So we were delayed by ice and snow and now just by people.  It will get done, but we’re just having to wait.  And if waiting on my cabinets to be stained is the only problem I have right now, then I think I’m doing okay. 

Don’t you?

Kitchen face-lift {part nine} - Tile

Picking out tile is hard.  Just hard.

We picked out a tile that I really liked when we thought we were just going to paint our existing cabinets and keep the existing countertops.  But all that changed.  And we realized that our choice of tile needed to change as well.

And I was very set on having tile.  I’m one of those who just doesn’t really get with wood floors in the kitchen.

We looked at a lot of tile to find the one we would get.  That is some difficult decision making right there.  We had to realize at one point that the floor was not going to be the showpiece of the room and that we needed something that would go with the rest of the room, but not draw a lot of attention to itself.

We finally settled on a brushed marble we both loved and it was installed actually a couple of weeks ago (before the ice and snow). 

Before they actually started laying the tile, he came in with a big grinder to even out and level the floor even more.  Then they painted on a moisture barrier that will help protect the tile.  To my surprise, this moisture barrier was RED.

 

And it made all the walls and ceiling look pink.

After two days to lay the tile and one day to grout, they were done.  It makes me want to sigh with contentment.

It is a natural stone so every single tile is different.  And while there is a little bit of uniformity to the color across the entire floor, there is a lot of variation from tile to tile which makes it very interesting to look at.  And since it is a brushed marble instead of a highly polished one, it has this wonderful texture that makes my feet so happy.

We understand it to be a soft stone and we will have to seal it every year.  But I really loved it too much to care about any extra maintenance. 

An ice storm and unusually cold weather here in North Texas caused us to delay having the tile sealed by a week or so.  We didn’t want them to have to drive with the icy streets and we didn’t want to have to walk outside in 18 degree weather just to get from one side of the house to the other so that we didn’t walk on the freshly sealed tile. 

But now it is all sealed and we look at it every day and love it more and more.  We believe it accomplishes perfectly our goal of having a beautiful floor that will also not greatly compete with other decorative elements in the room.

We interrupt this kitchen remodel with… ICE and SNOW

Last week was fairly unprecedented weather-wise. 

Tuesday morning I was awakened at about 4 am.  Not by a geriatric dog that needed to go do business outside or get a drink.  Not by a kid with a sore throat.  No.  But I was awakened by the wind howling and causing a crepe myrtle to slam against the house and sleet popping against my bedroom window. 

It had rained most of the night and then the temperature dropped leaving us with a layer of ice across every street making them impassable. 

And when I say the temperature dropped, it wasn’t to a normal 30 degrees F.  No.  Our high was about 30 degrees  early Tuesday morning (it was already less than 30 when I woke up at 4 am) and it just went down from there.  WAY down.  We had a low temperature Tuesday night/Wednesday morning of around 12 degrees and the wind chill was –4.  NEGATIVE FOUR, y’all.  And the temperature didn’t really get above 20 until Friday.  When it snowed about 3-4 inches on us.

So we had a layer of ice on Tuesday morning that never did have a chance to thaw and then several inches of snow on Friday.  That means four things:

1.  The kids had no school Tuesday – Friday.  It was an odd and unexpected winter break.  It was nice, but if we had known ahead of time, we’d have packed up and gone to Colorado to go skiing.

2.  It was a regular sled-a-palooza around our house and we had a ball.  We went sledding on sleet and ice on Tuesday and Wednesday which as I’ve said in several settings was wicked-fast and pretty wicked-awesome, too.

And we went sledding on powdery snow.  It was much slower, but a lot prettier for sure.  Later that day, the hill was packed powder like a ski run would be.  It was the best sledding I’ve ever experienced. 

3.  Work on my kitchen came to a screeching halt.  That’s about all I can say about that.

4. The next project on this house HAS GOT to be replacing the windows because, oh my stars how the cold poured in around our poorly sealed windows.

And you know…. while we’re at it….

Kitchen face-lift {part eight} – Where the kitchen at?

Every once in a while, Mike and I break out into the beginning of the hit song, “Swagger Wagon.”

“Where my kids at? Where my kids at? Where my kids at? Where my kids at?” 

“No, seriously, honey, where are the kids?”

“They’re right there, see.”

And then we crack up.  Obviously, we’re easily entertained.

These days, I thought it an appropriate question in reference to my kitchen.  And a question worth answering.

Since ripping out the cabinets and tile in early January, I have been reduced to this for a kitchen.

A microwave, a coffee maker and sometimes a precariously perched toaster in my laundry / extra bathroom.

What you can’t see off-camera to the left is a shower and a toilet.  In my make-shift kitchen.

I have had to institute a no-going-potty-in-the-make-shift-kitchen rule.

I’m sure you understand.

As for the contents of my regular kitchen… well…

Check my dining room…

(ugh.  what a mess.)

And our extra bedroom…

And the middle of my living room…

There’s nothing like seeing a refrigerator in the middle of your living room next to your piano.  Nothing like it.

Except maybe a toilet and a shower.

My stuff needs a home.

Desperately.

Kitchen face-lift {part seven} – Firm foundation

We have been involved with several building projects both at church and at school. One of the most precious times is always when we have met after the foundation was poured but before the finishes were put in to write scriptures, prayers and blessings on that foundation.

We decided to do this very thing on the foundation of our own home in our kitchen before things started being rebuilt.

Imagine that. We have demolished just about everything to be demolished and are writing scripture on our foundation so that things can be rebuilt. Much the same way that at times, our lives get demolished and the Lord just wants to write his Word upon the foundation of our hearts before he rebuilds upon it.

But I digress.

We had been through the whole process of chipping up the old ceramic tile which was messy and a little painful and ultimately required some professional help to finish chipping up all the thin-set. But it was good because they also leveled the floor and we also decided to just have them install the new tile.

But before they started the process of installing the new tile, we all sat down in the middle of the kitchen floor and wrote out verses of scriptures on it.

So, what scriptures did we choose?

This was a very meaningful experience for me and hopefully for the rest of my family. In his book Family Driven Faith, Voddie Baucham talks at one point about making our faith a multisensory experience in the home. This was part of that process for me as we engaged the sense of touch and sight.

We want for our home to honor the Lord. I pray that my children will long remember writing their own chosen scriptures on the foundation of this house as we marked it as God’s territory through these simple scriptures written on the foundation.

How have you marked your home as God’s territory? How are you bringing your faith to life in a multisensory way for your children?

You can view a list of all my kitchen updates here.

Kitchen face-lift {part six} - A Tale of Three Mikes

We have been working hard on the kitchen. 

And by we, you understand I mean Mike. 

There has been demolition, electrical wiring and drywall hanging and a few moments that will be remembered forever.

There are a few shows that we watch on tv.  We don’t watch a lot, but there are a few shows that we like.  Two of them each have a host named Mike. And we happen to think that both of them might be interested in what we’ve got going on around our house these days.

First is Mike Holmes HGTV.

We keep finding things that we think would send Mike Holmes into a conniption fit.  Like this little surprise that we found inside of the wall behind the sink after tearing out the drywall. A little gift from the guys who originally built the house over 30 years ago.

That right there is the old-school style pop top Budweiser can, my friends.

There have also been things that have led Mike to wonder aloud, “Did the plumbers do all the wiring in this house?!? Mike Holmes would have a field day with this.”

And then there’s Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs. 

There is a lot about kitchen remodeling that is dirty.  Chipping up ceramic tile definitely is.  It also causes some unfortunate fashion choices out of necessity.

Yes, that’s me under there.

Removing said chipped up tile from your garage is also quite the dirty job.  I think Nathan would make Mike Rowe proud with this.

So, as Mike works on getting his part of the project done, we can’t help but continually think of the other two Mikes.  We hope we are making them proud.

Kitchen face-lift {part five} – One step at a time

I had a request on Twitter this weekend for more pictures. More blogging through the kitchen madness that is ensuing at our house. So this week I will try to post several short updates.

I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but our fridge quit a couple of weeks before Christmas. Yeah. Awesome, right?

This caused my husband to start looking around for a new one. Which took him to the website of a store that sell appliances that had a problem “out of the box” and this guy fixes them and sell them. And in the process of looking for said fridge, he found a range. And not just any range.

This range and fridge became my Christmas, Anniversary, Valentines, Mother’s Day and Birthday presents for the next five years.

And might I say it’s totally worth it.

It was this turn of events that took this simple kitchen facelift into the level of remodeling that has us… well… down to the studs. You see, the original kitchen layout was not made for a range, just a cook top. So, since we were going to have to do some work on the cabinets and counter tops anyways, we eventually decided that it all just needed to go rather than trying to salvage cabinets that were falling apart anyways.

The last time I posted, we had only taken out a couple of the cabinets. Not long after that, we really got serious and removed the rest of the cabinets and chipped up the ugly, gross, disgusting, 6x6 inch red “looks like it belongs in a public subway bathroom” tile with the huge 1/2” grout lines.

No. I don’t have a serious opinion about that tile. At all.

We’ve gone down to the studs. When I said that this thing had taken a turn for the ridiculous, I wasn’t kidding.

We’ve been designing new cabinets, picking out various finishes and re-wiring a lot. We have spent a bit of time with the kitchen looking exactly like this.

Mike finally drove to Austin to pick up the fridge and range and we were thrilled to finally have a functioning refrigerator in the space again.

And this is the range of my dreams.

Isn’t she beautiful?

So now they are both here at our house. Just waiting for the kitchen to be ready for them to really be at home.

One step at a time, right?

(You can see a list of all the kitchen update posts here.)

You can’t argue with cute

This morning I was getting ready to go to Bible study and couldn’t decide which shoes to wear.  Mike had already left to take Sarah to school, so the only counsel I had in the house was Nathan.  Being a 5 year old boy, he’s not normally the person I would go to for shoe advice, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

I went to his room with both shoes on (technically one shoe and one boot) and this is how the conversation went…

~~~~~~

Me: Nathan, which shoes should I wear?

Nathan: (Takes one look.) The black ones.

Me: (Surprised because my son loves him some boots.) So you think the black ones instead of boots?

Nathan: Yeah.

Me: Why?

Nathan: Because the black ones are better and they are really cute.

~~~~~~

Lesson: You can't argue with cute.

Or a five year old boy with an opinion about shoes.

Who knew?

BBA Challenge #27 – Portuguese Sweet Bread

Just a point of clarification.  This is actually sweet yeast bread.  Not sweetbread. 

Ever since I discovered quite a few years ago that people were not referring to a type of bread when they talked of sweetbread, I’ve been leery of the term and always like to clarify.

So, now that we have that necessary item of business out of the way…

First you mix together the sponge and let it sit for 60 – 90 minutes.

Then the process almost becomes more like mixing a cake or cookie.  First you mix together the sugar, salt, powdered milk, butter and shortening and it looks something like this.

Then you add in the eggs and flavor extracts and it looks like this.

You don’t add in the sponge and flour until the end, which seems a little backwards from most breads that we have made to this point.  Most of the time, we have added the flour and then the water and wet ingredients.  I just find it interesting that this one is done in reverse.

To get a nice round shape, I used pie plates for my baking vessels.

   

A little egg wash just before baking…

 

I tell you what, that is a gorgeous crust on this bread. 

    

And do you know what?  It makes some gooo-oood french toast.

Coat the pieces in the egg & milk then let them sit for a few minutes to really soak it in.

Of course you must butter your griddle.

Side 1…

Side 2…

 

Mmmmmmmmmm……

 

To see my other Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge blog posts and to read about the challenge, go here.

BBA Challenge # 26 – Poolish Baguettes

Honestly, I don’t remember much about making this bread.  I can tell you that I made it in May of 2010.  And I can tell you that because of the date stamps on the pictures.

But I guess that won’t do for a blog post about it, huh?

Let me dig deep back in the recesses of my brain and see what we come up with…

This formula calls for sifting the whole-wheat flour to remove the bran and approximate what is known as “clear flour.”  I sifted several times and each time removed some larger pieces each time, but never such that the post-sifted flour looked much different from the pre-sifted. 

If I remember correctly, I ended up using some combination of whole-wheat flour and regular bread flour along with my wheat wild yeast starter in place of the poolish.

    

 

If my memory serves me correctly (highly unlikely), this version of a baguette was okay, but not our favorite.  I think some of the previous versions may have been better.

To see my other Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge blog posts and to read about the challenge, go here.