More trim, more paint, more better :)

Kind of a low-key night on the homestead.

I walked through the farmer’s market, bought some eggs, and picked up my farm box after work and went home to see what I was getting into this week. Looks like a good mix – and things I’ve had before! Sometimes the familiar can be good, too J

Lovin' my farmer's market brown eggs!

Contents of my farm box: green onions, mixed lettuce, herbs, misc. tomatoes, chard, little yellow things I have to research, purple peppers. Healthy, healthy!

 My only real project last night was taking the door down between the laundry room and the garage and painting everything. It has been cool enough (FINALLY!) the last two or three days that I felt comfortable enough opening the house to the elements.

Pretty easy process..I unscrewed the hinges from the jamb and set the door up in the garage for painting. I would alternate between painting the jamb and painting the door, giving each time to dry between coats while I worked on the other. Pretty efficient, I’d say!

Garage door all painted up!
My wire rack is looking a bit crowded these days. Another coat of paint on the inside of the kitchen cabinets and I'll clear this out a little better.

I also took a minute to snap a picture of the work we did the night before. In addition to the quarter round from the previous post, we hung the ‘headers,’ as we’re calling them over the doors to the garage and the driveway. It looks so much more finished now! A little caulk, a little paint, and it will look crisp and clean..and, most importantly, DONE!

Trim: in place.

All painted..and glowing :)

It's beginning to look a lot like..finished :)

So, I’ve been posting much shorter entries lately. Which, for long-time readers, is probably fine because there are a few over the past several months that are a bit lengthy. Anyway..for whatever reason, the shorter posts just seem more in line with what’s going on around the house lately. Little projects here are there being finished up – but the impact of those projects is pretty huge!

The last “little” project to be done was painting the inside of the house. The entire. Inside. Of the house. When compared to building a garage or rewiring the entire place, it’s not a huge project..but it took some time, nonetheless. Now that that’s been completed, we got back into trimming things out.

Last night’s project du jour was the quarter round in the front half of the house. When we tore out the plaster and lath and replaced it with drywall, there was a pretty good sized gap between where the wood floor ended and where the wall (and even baseboard, in some spots) began.

Remember these gaps? No more!

The solution I chose was a thicker, taller baseboard that would be more in keeping with the age and scale of the house, and a ¾” x ¾” quarter round strip to fill in the gap and give it a more polished look.

I bought the quarter-round preprimed - all we had to do was throw on a couple coats of the 'White Dove' paint, cut it, and pop it in place.

Over the course of a couple hours last night, we had pretty much everything done save for a few small pieces in the office, and it looks really great!

Much more finished looking!

A few days ago, I took the time to organize where all the ‘header’ pieces would go – because we’re working with salvaged stuff, nothing fits exactly over the doorways in my house, so I was trying to fit each piece to a door with as little cut-waste as possible. Once I had everything placed, we cut the pieces down to fit as needed and did the necessary cutting, sanding, and filling to make them look good once they were in place. As of last night, the laundry room was done and we were starting to think about the more complex cuts for the pieces over the bathroom doors.

Last Tuesday’s farm box came and I feel a little embarrassed that I haven’t used up much of the produce..especially because the next box comes today at 4! Anyway, last night I made up a batch of seat-of-my-pants eggplant Parmesan. I say seat of my pants because I had never had 1. Eggplant, or 2. Eggplant Parmesan. I knew the basics – after all, two of the ingredients are in the name – but had never done it before. Granted, mine was the quickie version – no baking, just skillet-quick – but it was really good and gave me the confidence to buy and use eggplant again in the future!

OK, I cheated..this is NOT a picture of my eggplant Parmesan. I scarfed mine before taking a picture.
And this one looks better.

The other thing I tried was much more by the book – I found a recipe online for a banana cake that looked and sounded really good. I can usually kind of take or leave banana cakes, breads, etc. but this one was quite good. Really dense and moist with lots of cream cheese frosting. (The frosting was not from the recipe..it was mine: 1# cream cheese, ½# butter, 1# powdered sugar, 1t vanilla. So good.)

Waiting for the oven.

Trimmed the rounded top off the bottom layer (and dipped it in frosting..nice snack :) )

Again..cheated..not mine. But mine was kind of crooked - I'm not a professional, get over it.

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2012/05/double-banana-cake

I brought the cake to work Monday, gave a hunk to mom and dad, and had a piece for dessert after my eggplant Parm..and it was pretty well gone! Which is fine..the last thing I need is a double-decker cake staring at me every time I open the fridge.

More trim tonight, I suppose – will post pictures as good things continue to happen! J

Almost forgot my trip (back) to Cedar Rapids! My friends were getting rid of a perfectly good twin bed that I will be putting in my office for visiting friends. We stopped off at Parlor City Pub & Eatery again this time and were very happy with it. Awesome beer selection and good food! http://www.parlorcitypub.com/