Getting buttoned up for winter :)

Yesterday was a pretty productive day around the house!
A few days ago, Lady Friend and I had started planting spring flowering bulbs, but didn't finish before the sun started setting on us. Yesterday, I took the time to finish that project off, so hopefully the house will be surrounded with all kinds of tulips, allium, narcissus, and crocus come spring time!
There was also the more mundane chores of catching up on laundry, mowing the yard, and straightening up around the house, but I also cut back the rest of the moonflower, hosta, and other perennials..I even pruned the Limelight hydrangeas outside the solarium!
When that was done, I decided I'd spread my cutting board and wooden kitchen tool 'collection' out on the bed of my truck and give everything a good sanding. Over the course of the last year or more, they've become scratched, stained, dull and dry, and they needed some attention. This dark, round, end-grain board actually had a few separations around the edges - the combination of sawdust and the penetrating moisture from the Board Cream tightened everything up again. Good as new, and ready for winter cooking!

Manic cleaning/organizing on a Thursday night

In addition to laundry, cleaning the house, doing the dishes, and organizing the kitchen, I cut out these squishy shelf liners for all the drawers and shelves in the kitchen. I also loaded the kitchen cabinets with food, dishes, and other kitchen stuff. Very fancy!

The last two weeks, I've walked around piles of laundry, let the dishes pile up in the sink, and swept crumbs off the counters onto the floor. Last night, I caught up on everything in a burst of energy right before CRASHING to sleep. Looking pretty good around the house, if I do say..

Weekend = Too Fast

I took a slightly longer lunch Friday because I knew I wouldn't have time over the weekend and I needed to do something about my giant bowl of tomatoes before they went to waste. The bowl just keeps filling, by the way..

I’ve been thinking about this technique I saw a while back – you take the innards out of the tomatoes and slow roast the..hulls, I guess you’d call them, until the flavor is really concentrated. I salted and peppered to add flavor and sprinkled with sugar to take the acidity out of the tomatoes. I also rough chopped a few cloves of garlic and threw that on the pile. Roast on a sheet pan with a wire rack for as long as you like..you'll smell garlic and tomato all over the house.

A couple black cherry tomatoes, yellow, beefeater, Roma, and others. Not a job you do in your dress pants.
http://beyondthebluegate.blogspot.com/

I didn’t roast mine for as long as I would have liked..again, because I was doing this on my lunch break..but I think the end result was really great, nonetheless. The tomatoes still had enough moisture in them that they created a sauce-like consistency when run through the food processor, but weren’t as ‘bright’ tasting as they would have been right off the vine. The garlic added a lot of flavor, and the sugar helped mellow everything out. Because I had so many different varieties of tomatoes, it’s a really deeply flavored sauce. Once I’ve got some pasta, I’ll add some herbs or wine (or nothing at all) and enjoy truly homemade pasta sauce!

Saturday morning, I got out of bed ready to rumble! Before breakfast, I decided to go outside and start salvaging the bricks from the two front steps that I’m having redone. Once I started chipping away at the brickwork, I realized just how bad the condition of the steps really was. The brick was actually the best part of the step..they really didn’t want to let go, save for a few.

This was taken shortly before I bought the house..and the cracks had only gotten wider.

A couple of the bricks had been falling out anyway, and a few came with a little help.

10 minutes later..

The rest of the bricks were STUCK and wouldn't budge..but the whole step would. As I see it, the steps were poured on a short, shallow limestone foundation, so there was a lot of heaving with every freeze/thaw cycle. This explains the cracks and out-of-level appearance.

About an hour later, my parents came by and we made quite a bit of headway on the baseboard project, finishing up most all of the kitchen and laundry areas. All that is left to do is the bathroom, my bedroom, and a small closet!

Laundry all trimmed out and painted!

Dad worked on the toe kick part of the kitchen cabinets – very snazzy (and very FINISHED looking!)

From the laundry: notice the area under the cabinets? Dad finished that up Saturday. Our friend Aimee came and fixed my kitchen outlets, too..everything's coming together!

Mom and I wandered around caulking and touch-up painting. Everything looks so much better once it’s all been ‘tightened’ up a bit J

Saturday was my time away from my projects. I went to Des Moines to spend time with friends and ended up staying through to Sunday night. A couple really cool stops along the way:

·         http://zombieburgerdm.com/ - been here several times. The food is awesome!

·         http://www.continental-lounge.com/ - super classy/sexy bar. Had a sidecar and listened to jazz with a lady friend. Instantly felt like Don Draper.

The "Planet Terror" at Zombie Burger: Cheddar cheese, bacon, BBQ sauce, caramelized onions.
I had the "Dead Moines", not pictured: ham, prosciutto, gouda, and truffle mayo. Gets better every time I go!

Yeah..this basically sums up my Saturday..

IIIIIIII'm Movin' Out!

I'm almost ready for company!

The vanity - the container on the right is full of extra towels. The container on the left is for all of my bathroom junk. 

I went a little crazy on the tiny plants last night.. I've been looking forward to turning the entryway into my mini greenhouse, though. No time like the present!

Looking through the kitchen into the dining room and living room at the piles of moving.

A nice sturdy metal shelving unit for extra storage in the laundry room.

The bookshelves and my borrowed recliner :) Dad/Roommate and I built the shelves a few years ago...it's strange how well they fit here! Also, no laughing at the recliner..it's the best nap chair ever.

The finished hardwood. Initially, I wanted to stain it dark..then I saw how awesome the wood was all by itself.

Pretty big day. We moved enough stuff that I could actually use my garage! :)

About Grout

Just a quick update to show the progress we made the day after Christmas.

The tile had been down for a week or more waiting for the right time to grout. With family in town for Christmas, I knew it would be difficult to find a time to make any progress on the house. My uncle, being the damn decent man he is, volunteered to help us grout seeing as he has had some recent experience in that department.

Coming into the laundry from the garage. Kitchen and dining room, beyond.

The grout was pretty self explanatory, but I had the added bonus of talking it over with the salespeople at the Tile Shop. I really appreciated the guidance and actual customer service I received there – I recommend them!

The grout I bought was a modified sanded grout – this means, in addition to the sand and cement-ish mixture standard in this type of grout, this one had a polymer component that would help stabilize the floor and help keep the grout from becoming brittle and cracking over time. In addition to this, I bought a liquid latex additive that further stabilizes and adds flexibility..though flexibility isn’t the right word..

View from "the bathub" looking out into the kitchen.

Directions call for mixing the grout to the consistency of toothpaste, though I’ve heard pudding, peanut butter, etc. all work well. We went a little wetter because we felt it would seep into the cracks better than a stiffer mix. Actually, the bathroom is a little stiffer than the laundry, which is stiffer than the kitchen. I’ll let you know if I have trouble and where.

After filling the voids and smoothing out the cracks (with our fingers..no fancy tools, there), we wiped down the floor several times making sure to clean and refill our buckets frequently to avoid leaving a streaky haze over the tile. I’ve been told that the additives in the grout could make that haze a pain to remove if you don’t get it while it’s fresh, so be diligent.

Kitchen floor grouted! Bathroom, beyond.

48-72 hours from grouting, we'll be able to wipe the stone/grout sealer over the entire area. This will darken everything slightly, but, more importantly, it will help protect both the tile and the grout from staining as they're both pretty porous. Any time after that dries, we can set the fixtures in the bathroom!

I hope everyone is having a happy holiday season..wherever you are!