Finishing Touches

Sorry for the glare. Here's one of the kitchen finishing touches. I love this poster! It's a faux vintage poster for a California winery. They have an entire series of vintage-style posters.

Kitchen Progress: Backsplash is Tiled!

Yes, it's done. The kitchen backsplash is tiled. Project started on Friday and finished on Saturday. Really, I'm just so pleased! And it was so easy, really.

All I had to do was send an email to a local tiling company. They had time because a big job had cancelled, so they fit me in right away. A reasonable fee, quick & professional work, and happy us.

Isn't it great?

Back to those cookbooks

I'm having a hard time letting go of the excess cookbooks. I'm not sure why, can't yet pinpoint it. I have the cupboard set up for them, and I just need to choose which to keep and put them in the cupboard. So what is the hold-up?

I suppose I could choose the ones I think I'll use most, put them in the cupboard and store the rest for a set amount of time, selling them if I haven't referred to them in that time. I could do that, couldn't I?

They're just books. They're not magic. They're just paper and ink, and who knows if the recipes are even any good? I sure don't, I haven't tried most of them. How could one? To cook every recipe in a cookbook could take years. Years. Remember that book I mentioned a while back, Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously, about a New Yorker who decided to give her life meaning by cooking every recipe in volume 1 of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume One? It took her a year, and it was sometimes a miserable one, to cook every recipe in that admittedly large, book. I do not want to spend a year of my life doing that. In fact, most of what I cook is made up by me, as I'm doing the cooking. Why do I even have cookbooks?

Still, I'll move these books. I'll stow what fits upstairs. The rest will be tucked into a basement storage cupboard, to be reassessed in three months. Seasons change after all, and I do almost no baking in the summer. I might need those cookie books in a few months, when the fall holidays come.

Good bye old refrigerator!

It served us well. It was in the house when we bought it. Other than one glitch some years ago (which sweetie was able to fix) it has worked great. Like the other appliances we replaced, there was nothing "wrong" with it. It just didn't fit the kitchen I envisioned.

When I was cleaning it in preparation for its departure, I noticed the model tag. It was made in 1987. It's 21 years old. Poor old fridge.

We disposed of it using a program our power service subscribes to. They'll take away and dismantle (or donate) your old appliance when you upgrade to a more energy efficient one. And you get a check for $30.

With the old fridge gone, we were able to reclaim our dining room and living room.

I love my Vestfrost!

I have to tell you how much I am loving having a small fridge! I've wanted a freezer on the bottom style of fridge for a long time, and having the whole thing be so small is such a bonus.
Here's the width of the old fridge, for comparison.And here, the slender Vestfrost.
Here are some views of the interior. I like it when the fridge is not too full. I like being able to see most of what I have in it.




We're a family of four--two adults, an eight year old and a five year old. We have two cats. Do you think our fridge looks empty? Full? How does it compare to yours?

We don't drink soda. Sometimes when we're out or for a special treat at home we might have root beer floats. We don't drink cow's milk, though we do use it as an ingredient. We don't regularly drink juice. I don't like icy cold water, so I don't keep a Brita filter pitcher in the fridge.

We do have a separate upright freezer, in the basement. The Vestfrost actually has a lot of freezer space. It has three drawers in the freezer, and a narrow slot for ice cube trays (it came with three, they're shallower than standard American). Still, I like being able to use the upstairs freezer for frequently used items and the basement one for storage. I buy our meat in bulk at Costco and freeze it in meal-size portions.

Tea Clutter

This is a box of tea. Mystery tea. Old tea. Newish tea. Good tea. Tea that no one likes. Tea.

I drink tea. Once in a while. I prefer coffee in the morning. Sweetie drinks tea every day, but he's quite particular about what he'll drink, and the teas that he likes are in his tea cupboard in the kitchen. This box of teas has been sitting in the basement since March, when I removed everything from the cupboards.

Some of the teas are ones I thought I should like (aspirational teas if you will), some just plain looked good but didn't taste as good as I had hoped.

Why do I keep them? Because I paid good money for them! Because they're perfectly good! Because because because!!!

They can go on Freecycle. Perhaps I'll list them today...

Repurposing: Partylite candle holder into ...

a fruit plate! I had this Partylite three-wick pillar holder on my mantle. I burned down the one three wick candle I still owned (sold/gave away the others long ago) and decided to give it a new use.

Cookbook Clutter: Update

I've been pondering the cookbook situation. As Clutter Buddy pointed out, most of us use only a few of our cookbooks. This is true for me, that's for sure. But, I like cookbooks as literature, as inspiration. I just don't want to have as many of them as I currently own.

Recall I did cull cookbooks a while ago. I sold about two dozen of them, ones I rarely even looked at for ideas. What I need to do next is to cull the remaining books, and be ruthless. I have designated ONE spot for cookbooks, and it's not huge.

Managing the Cookbooks

Last year, I cut way down on my cookbook collection. I sold or donated about a third of what I had. Still, I own a lot of cookbooks! As my kitchen remodel is the only one in history to result in less storage space than before, I'll need to cut down even more.

Before the makeover, I had two shelves mounted high above the refrigerator. These were there when we bought our house; simple painted board on metal bracket shelves. Nothing special. Their placement was awkward and the books got covered with grease and dust. Since we have the Vestfrost now, no shelves would work easily on that wall. And, frankly, I want to keep that wall free. I have a piece of art that I plan to hang there.

I also had a corner shelf that stood next to the range. It held mostly cookbooks. Even though there's more space now next to the range, I don't want to put anything there. Having open space is so very nice!

I've finally decided that one of the lower cabinets will serve as cookbook storage. Being in a cabinet will keep the books dust and grease-free. I'll be choosing what to keep and what to sell in the next few days, and setting up my new cookbook cabinet.

Two drawers down!

Today, I reinstalled two more of the kitchen drawers. This just leaves one (the former junk drawer) and it needs another coat of paint.

In the new drawers are food storage containers and plastic cups/lids (so the kids can reach them).


Sweetie has agreed to give a microwave-free life a trial! We're going to stow the micro in the basement and see how much/whether we miss it. Hurrah for more counter space!

Sweetie helped me install more shelf liner and I re-arranged two of the smaller cupboard shelves. It's all coming together! I'm not in a rush, I want each addition to be mindful.

Decluttering the dishes

We have an eclectic collection of dishware. Lots of decorative mugs and little plates and various bits of this and that. DH hates it. I, well, part of me loves the variety and part of me just wishes for plain white plates.

That part won. I've set us up with new dishes. They're white porcelain. They're microwave, dishwasher and warm oven safe. They're simply designed and just about could be called elegant. I've been spending the morning fitting shelf liner into my dish cabinet. Once the new dishes are clean, they'll go into their new home. We'll have eight dinner plates, eight salad plates, four shallow bowls, four deep bowls, four mugs and four cup & saucer sets. Everything else will be packed away for a month and if there's a specific piece anyone misses dearly, it can come back. After that, donation time.

Living without most of the dishware for the past two months has actually been great. I can't point out even one thing that I genuinely miss. It's a good argument for the "let it age" policy--give yourself time, time while you still own the item(s) to miss them or not. If you miss them, heck, you still have them. If not, easy to take the box to the Goodwill.

Keeping kitchen clutter at bay

We've been slowly moving items back into the kitchen. Since we have the space (garage, basement), my plan is to move items back in as I need them. Thus, the salad spinner came back last week when I needed to wash and dry a head of lettuce. The cloves came back last night to make sweetie a hot whiskey. The grill pan came back to cook steak. You get the idea.

There are items I like, that I want to keep, but that I do not use. That is do not use, never have used. An example? My burnt orange Bundt pan. It's a real Bundt brand pan, in nice condition. Never used. Why? I don't know. I guess the only recipe that appealed to me that's made in a Bundt pan uses three sticks of butter and I just can't bring myself to make the recipe. The possibilities cause me to keep the pan. I've had it for years, "rescued" it from a thrift store. Yeah. That one's going to have to go. Ditto the angel food cake pan (it's a really nice one). I used it once. Thing is, I don't care for angel food cake. Too dry and spongy.

We've almost completely transitioned to the new, small fridge. Remember the new fridge is less than half the capacity of the old. I was brutal with the condiments and salad dressings. So many had been kept because "oh, that's still good!" but really, if it was still sitting in the fridge months after being opened, that's a sign that NO ONE LIKES IT. Seriously, let's get real here. If you like a food, it'll get used up. So out went two bottles of salad dressing, a couple of odd sauces and some stale beef bouillion.

My dream kitchen will contain only what we use, in quantities suitable for our family size, neatly arranged. It's on its way to my house!

No One Needs 13 Jars of Jam

Really, what were we thinking? I'll tell you how it happens. It's easy, really. You run out of your favorite jam. There's a whole slew of jam in the pantry (from the summer of canning). You open up one of those jars, hoping for something tasty. You spread it on your toast. It's...ok. Not great, not the best, but ok. So, it goes into the fridge. Another time, you stop at Trader Joe's. Wow, they've got that great usually expensive ginger preserve cheap! Better get some. No matter that only one person in the house likes it. (Notice the price tag? Remember when Trader Joe's used to use price tags? Yeah, it's that old!)

Then, there's the aspirational jam. That's the jam you wish you liked, but don't. In my case, it's the low-sugar jam. I just don't care for it. I wish I did, but I don't, no matter how many times I try.


Then, there's the jam I really love, that I only buy when it's on sale, that I always use up lickety-split (which is why there are no jars of it in the fridge!).
So, in a nutshell, that's how one can end up with 13 jars of jam in the fridge. Now, some of the gory pictures!
These are the ones still in the fridge. Both are almost empty. Y'know why? 'Cause they're tasty!

Kitchen Makeover: Project Creep!

So, as you my stalwart readers know, I had decided not to change out the countertops and sink, due to, well, apprehension let's say, about how that all would go. A dear friend, let me call him Mr. Berry, who is a contractor, strongly suggested that we re-do the countertops and sink. He came by today, and make some suggestions, and, well, here's the result. I'm half "oh my God, what have I done?" and "Wow, this'll be great!". What do you think?

We're going to go with laminate again on the countertops, and a self-lipping white sink, same basic dimenions. Here's the laminate we've chosen: