Category: House Work
Inspiration and expectations, managed.
I woke up to the weather person on MPR saying that today is going to be looked at as when spring began in MN in 2013. What welcome news, because this winter was a DOOZY. I thought it would have been reasonable to expect all the winter-storm-warning-stuff to be done before the end of April (or the middle… or the beginning….), but this year, winter just kept hitting us.
And while I’ve been managing my expectations for this spring, I haven’t completely given up!
These plant babies are really helping me along, even though I know better than to get far too excited about putting them in the ground prior to the end of May (the last chance for frost around these parts). I am planning a major overhaul of the gardens this year. I’ve had two summers of raised bed vegetable gardens now, and I’ve learned things. The most important thing is that one of them does not get enough sun for anything other than lettuces (and cucumbers that hang over the end and really reach for the sun). And while the idea of a 4×8′ lettuce bed is really intriguing, it’s probably not the best use of space, time, seeds, and compost. So it’s gotta move. I’m also pretty interested in doing something more than 15 tomato plants that take up almost all of the space in the front garden that DOES get enough sun (ok, so it was only 8 last year. but you get my point).
I’ve been getting pretty excited about this garden re-do lately. I even borrowed my parents’ wheelbarrow so that I can move the 1.5 tons of dirt and compost from the back garden to the front gardens. And then this weekend, while I was visiting my parents, we were offered some barrels to use to make our own rain barrels. I’ve been looking at rain barrels a lot over these past two years, but they’re expensive! I’m really looking forward to these MUCH CHEAPER barrels, and now I feel as if it is time to get the roof redone on the garage and put some gutters up.
But here’s where I have the biggest problems with all of this. I am SO SUPER INSPIRED by thinking of spring and my gardens and TOMATOES and grilling. But I can’t do it all, so I can’t really expect to get it all done. So what is important here? I get to have rain barrels and I will have a better planned garden this year. What might not happen? the roof of the garage and new gutters. That’s ok, though. They might get done later this summer, but it’ll not be happening before the beginning of the shortish growing season here.
Inspiration and expectations for the garage: Managed. (next: get a grip …. again…. on my knitting and sewing expectations. that’ll be a little more emotionally complex….)
Still here.
March is almost done, and I’ve been a little AWOL on the blog even though I still want to try for the 100 posts in 2013. But it’s been for a really great reason – I’ve been busy with work. Like my paid job. And I’ve been really happy! Even though it’s still not what I pictured doing with my degree, and even though it’s not what I picture doing for the rest of my life, I LOVE IT. And what a difference being in my new office has made. I’m still not organized to the point where I want to show you everything (really, it’s at the “organized chaos” point. still, it’s moving towards being more in line with my simple life for the year.), but I have TWO WINDOWS in this room.
Mornings are bright like this. I was going to put up a curtain or something over this window – it opens directly onto my neighbor’s porch, and when I say “directly,” I mean there is a gap of about 12″ from my window to their porch. Hence the muslin that is starched to the window for privacy. P.S. BEST PRIVACY-WITHOUT-BLINDS-OR-CURTAINS FIX EVER. Seriously, I still get a lot of light with no worries about anyone being able to see anything. Not even the outlines of anything, like with the frosted glass clings. It was a great solution when this used to be my bedroom and it’s a great solution now that this is my office.
Signe’s new space is finally set too. We tried a few different places in the new space, but this is by far the best. A cozy little corner beneath the other window and between the filing cabinet and the closet. Better still, I was able to resurrect an old canvas bed cover that I had made for her when she was a puppy. Baby girl’s turning 4 this May, and I can’t imagine what I did before her, nor can I imagine living alone without her. Thankful for the companionship of animals is what I am.
and last I leave you with this picture of my ceramic dragon, watching over my cutting/ironing table from by my printer.
Life is good folks. And next week is SPRING BREAK. All sorts of goodies planned for that, I tell you.
Putting the wheels back on.
The carpet is in. Even better, I’m almost re-organized in my new office. Good enough to be working in here daily, at any rate. Pictures to come.
But the important thing is that I’m back on track after a February that was nothing like I thought it should be. It wasn’t bad, just scattered and not really productive. I didn’t get everything done that I wanted to get done (though I did get those socks done. still haven’t mailed them yet….) And I’m getting back to running now that it’s no longer -40 out and my frostbitten toes are healed.
So I haven’t lost all the focus that I had hoped to shove into 2013.
I even have something crafty-like to show you today. Read on to see….
Hooray for Mondays!
We got hit by the big snowstorm at the end of last week, and I was super-happy to be able to use the snowblower. Signe was just happy to plow through the snow gazelle-style. I shared this on facebook too, with the caption “i hope you have the chance to be this happy sometime today, even if it is only for a little bit.” And it holds true today too.
Mondays are great and have just about always been my favorite day of the week. No, I’m not kidding. I like routine, and monday is a return to routine, the end of a weekend in which I try to get EVERYTHING POSSIBLE done.
So happy Monday! I hope it’s a great day! Here are a few things that are making my Monday great today –
- I got my new carpet installed on Saturday afternoon. I’m writing this FROM MY NEW OFFICE, and I can’t wait to share pictures with you! Importantly, I am reclaiming my livingroom and bedroom inch-by-inch. Not quite there yet, but it’s getting SO MUCH BETTER. I think I’ll be back to normal by the end of this week. Hallelujah!
- I painted my new office white. and I love it. because now this is an option, though for now i’m leaving it white and am just enjoying the clean look. (found via elise.)
- While the language used by the writer of this article isn’t exactly what I would use, a great point about the excitement of science is made: let’s stop trying to over-sell discoveries and just be ecstatic about how much closer each little thing we learn gets us to understanding the awesomeness of nature (and, in particular, the brain.) I have a lot of thoughts about this and would love to discuss them, but not here. I actually just deleted about 5000 words summarizing my thoughts on this, because it is monday and I want to keep things light for you. (you’re welcome.)
- again, the language is a little coarse, but as someone who has participated in the relocation of not one, not two, but three labs (and now my own personal home office), this is something to which I can certainly relate.
- I wants to spend all of my time with these.
- I made this over the weekend. It works like magic (I used snow instead of ice and my immersion blender instead of the whisk). Tasted like magic too. And because of dark chocolate’s health benefits, I think it can even be classified under “health food.” No. Really.
- Gotta find time for making this, some of these, one of these, and a whole pile of these, with sour cream in vinegar.
Happy Monday!
In which everything falls apart.
In a series of unfortunate events, (actually, not SO unfortunate – more unforseen?) my life has devolved into what feels like an episode of Hoarders. I’ve never actually seen the show because it makes my skin crawl to just think about it, but I’m sure that this is close to what it must be like. And it has really been negatively impacting my simple goals for the month….
Let me back up and start at the beginning.
I bought my house three years ago, and I immediately knew that there would be new carpet going into the back two bedrooms (i.e. the “back bedroom” and my “office”). This to-do list has been on my chalkboard for close to 9 months now –
The goal was to get new carpet after finding that teaching job. Well… things are still moving pretty slowly on the job front, and the impending arrival of a new treadmill is forcing the moving of my office to the back bedroom. So carpet time it is.
But, as you might have guessed from the title of this post, these things don’t move along the way we always expect them to. More after the jump….
Goals and Resolutions: The first month.
January is ending. I ran, worked on finishing projects, and tried to get myself more organized.
Running: Didn’t do so well here. My excuse is that it was COLD the last half of the month, so I missed out on all those days. The total distance over the first 15 days of January, according to my garmin watch, was 15.71 miles. The battery died about a mile into one of those runs, so the total was actually closer to 17.5 miles. Not bad, just not what I was hoping to log in January. The exciting news for running in February is the appearance of a treadmill on the horizon. That’s right! I won’t have any more excuses (like these below-zero temperatures/windchills and the inch of ice all over everything from earlier this week) for not getting the miles in, and now I can start training Signe to run on the treadmill as well!!! That’s the REAL reason I want a treadmill…
The rest of the month is a little harder to quantify. There were new Etsy sales, a lot of sewing projects that will never see the light of day, a bunch of knitting, and a good deal of reflection on my hopes for 2013 to be a year of more organization in my brain, my house, and my life. a summary –
- Almost finished knitting those Christmas presents! just this pair of socks for my sister, to be delivered by her birthday in February!
- Got the baseboard trim finished in the livingroom – added the quarter-round and even got it PAINTED!
- Sorted most of my tools, both handywoman and crafting tools, and now i know where BOTH of my hammers live!
- learned to use my binding foot and made a knitting needle roll (more on that later). Look at how awesome that binding looks!
- finally got all the embroidery floss into some semblance of order – not perfect, but certainly better than smushed in a box on the shelf. now it’s out for me to see every day in these clear pouches!
- Ate a lot of pancakes… YUM!
- Helped the old roommate to organize her yarn – even helped her get rid of two bags of extras. It was so inspiring, that all I can think about is destashing my own knitting resource center!
- Got my hair cut. Michelle Obama bangs for EVERYONE!
January was a great month – here’s to February being EVEN BETTER!
Bringing the outdoors in…?
I’m still working on decorating my living room. The latest addition?
Yes. a huge birch branch. It’s probably a weird addition, but I’m in love with it. (you’ll note that my “to-do list” is pretty cut-and-dry….) It’s from my first major tree-removal project as a home-owner – this tree here.
The tree was dying from the top-down even when I bought the house three years ago, and it just got worse and worse each year until I finally had it cut down. Being the sentimentalist that I am (har har), I decided to take a chunk of it and use it to decorate my livingroom. I think I was thinking of something like this –
Source: blogs.babble.com via Rachel on Pinterest
Actually, I’m still using this image as inspiration; I have high hopes to yarnbomb that sucker and do some more decorating of the branch itself. But for now I like it au naturale. And while it took me over a year to get it up there, it was pretty simple to put it up. First I found the center stud on the wall and marked it. Then I found the two flanking studs and placed large corner braces with 3″ drywall screws. I had originally intended to make sure that the branch was perfectly centered and exactly level from one end to the other, but then I woke up from the dream of perfection and just winged it. Aside from guessing-ish where I wanted the brackets on the log itself, I just placed the first bracket, then grabbed the second bracket and the branch, held the branch on the brackets, marked where it looked good for the second bracket to stay, and screwed it into the wall.
The branch is secured to the corner braces with two screws to prevent disasters. (And yes, that is a Lego unicorn on the blackboard.) I really like the black and white of the branch with the black and white of this wall. And i’m leaving the Christmas Garland up for a few more weeks. It is, after all, only January.
Using up the yarn – I made a basket.
In working towards making my house more “user-friendly,” I have been thinking a lot about more and better and prettier storage.
Enter a two-birds-with-one-stone opportunity!
I made a basket out of the leftover yarn from my sister’s wedding present – This was a great (and super-fast) project, and allowed me to use up all by the very lastest 20-30 feet of Cascade Magnum. I can’t remember how I originally came across the pattern, but I know i’ve seen it on All About Ami and Ravelry. The key feature that sold me on this was this nice little ridge here on the base of the basket that really gives it an awesome and defined shape –
It’s all half-double crochet, with TWO strands of super-bulky yarn held together… SUPER-FAST! I made this in a morning a bit ago, and made a few adjustments to the pattern. Basically, I made the bottom 57 stitches around and as tall as I could make it before the yarn ran out. And I seem to remember that the pattern called for an “L” hook, while I used an “N” hook (that’s all that I had….)
I’ve been using the basket to hold my current knitting project, a sweater re-creation for my dad, which is only the fourth-ish time I’m re-knitting it. But that’s a story for another blog post.
I’m “too lazy” for paper towels – Cloth “un-paper” towels DIY and tutorial
About a year ago, I stopped buying paper towels. It wasn’t that I made the decision on principle (and I’m not about to go all “family cloth” at my house either), it was more that I just didn’t want to buy them because packages of paper towel are huge and I am, in some very twisted and illogical manner lazy about buying paper products*. I started using some old linen napkins instead. And recently, I’ve been using some cotton bubble gauze scraps as my kitchen cloths, just keeping them folded in my kitchen linen drawer with the napkins.
A few weeks ago, some visitors asked me where my paper towels were, and I pulled out some of the gauze towels. That was when I realized I should really just make myself a roll of paper towels out of the remaining gauze in my stash drawer – about a yard each of gray and hot-pink. I had always been interested in making un-paper towels (check out these tutorials using terry cloth and quilting cotton) but it would require the pastic snaps, and only 12-ish towels fit on a roll that way. But plain old squares of cotton bubble gauze? I can DO that.
I love these, because they are super-thin and great for picking up the spilled coffee grounds that inevitably fall out of my grinder every morning. They’re not super-absorbant, but they can be rinsed in the sink and reused between machine washes. And best of all, there are a huge number of them on a roll on my paper towel dispenser and I can easily just grab a new one whenever I need it.
So here’s how I made them and how I deal with the used ones.
Supplies
- Cotton Bubble Gauze – 1-ish yard
- iron and ironing board
- cutting mat, rotary cutter, and clear plastic ruler
- sewing machine
- thread
- empty cardboard paper towel tube
A standard Target-brand paper towel is an 11 x 11-inch square. This is how big I am making my towels, but really, the key is having one of your dimensions 11 inches, as this is the WIDTH of a standard paper towel roll.
Iron your fabric on high with some steam or water from a spray bottle. This fabric has some natural wrinkle in it in one direction, and you’ll notice that getting the fabric wet will make it wrinkle up. Ironing will ensure that the fabric is completely flat for the purpose of cutting it into EXACTLY 11-inch squares.
The ‘wrinkle’ can be seen here – it is parallel to the selvedge of the fabric, which is frayed in this picture. Ironing will remove this wrinkle.
After ironing, fold the fabric selvedge-to-selvedge, and then fold it in half the same direction once more.
Ironed fabric, folded selvedge-to-selvedge, then center-to-selvedge, resulting in four layers of fabric.
Cut any uneven ends off to start with a nice square end. To do this, line up the folded side of your fabric with one line on your cutting mat. Hold your ruler on top of the fabric so that it is lined up with a line on your cutting mat that is perpendicular to your fabric fold. Cut along your ruler.
Using the same guidelines, cut 11-inch strips from your folded fabric.
Cut 11-inch strips, using the selvedge edge to make your cuts square.
Then, unfold the strips and stack them on top of one-another. Each strip should be about 44-45 inches long by 11-inches wide. Lining up the cut edge of the strip on your cutting mat, cut 11-inch squares. I put a paper towel on top of the stack here to show where the cut should be.
The second cut, to make 11 x 11-inch squares
You should have four stacks of 11-inch squares now.
I finished my towels with a zig-zag stitch, just to keep everything from fraying in the wash too much. It’s not fancy, it’s not beautiful, but it gets the job done, and I’m not too picky about it anyhow.
A simple zig-zag stitch to finish the edge
To do this, I used a slightly wider and longer zig-zag and sewed just over the edge. This is how I lined up the edge of my fabric under the foot, and the weight of the fabric allowed it to slightly gather across the zig-zag.
With this set-up, the needle just about goes off of the edge of the fabric. Because the fabric is so thin, the thread at the very edge of the fabric pulls the edge in and prevents fraying in the wash.
Sew around all four edges of the towel and they are finished! You can use them as-is now, or you can make a roll to put on your paper towel dispenser. To do this, lay out a number of towels as shown below.
Starting at the top of the picture, I laid out the towels. The first towel is laid out flat. The second towel is lined up and laid on top of the first towel, leaving one-quarter to half of the first towel visible. The rest of the towels are laid on top of one another, leaving part of the previous towel visible. This will allow you to “rip off” one towel at a time.
Then start rolling with the top towel, picking up the towel beneath, until all the towels are rolled up on the roll.
The towels are all rolled up – there are about 20 towels on this roll.
The paper towel roll can then be installed in your holder, and towels can be used at will!
With the towels rolled as I showed, you can just pull off one towel at a time without the whole thing unraveling. A perfect “tear” every time!
I have a small bucket (an old ice-cream pail) that I keep under the sink for the dirty towels. After using a towel, I rinse it out a bit and put it in the pail. In the pail, I add a bunch (about a tablespoon) of vinegar to a bit (a cup) of water, which prevents bacteria growth between washes. If the vinegar smell is too much, a similar solution of oxyclean can be used in its place, I’m sure. Don’t use bleach, as this will (of course) cause discoloration of your towels and is really hard on the natural cotton fibers. I wash mine once a week, no matter how many towels are in the pail, and I just throw all the vinegar water into my washing machine with the towels.
After washing, the towels will re-wrinkle – here’s a demonstration of what I mean.
The towel on the right has been sprayed with water, which caused it to re-wrinkle. The width of the towel is affected, but not the length. When I re-roll the towels after washing, I always make sure that I lay them out so the wrinkles are all going in the same direction on all the towels, and that the width of the towels match the width of the paper towel tube. Thus, no ironing ever again!
I have two empty paper towel tubes, so when I wash any towels, I put them on the empty one and then just switch them out when I empty the first.
I hope this was helpful! If you have any questions, feel free to ask away. This is my first major photo-tutorial, and I’m sometimes (ok most of the time…) pretty laissez-faire about my sewing, so I might have left something out. Let me know if you give this a try. I’m sure you could do it with quilting cotton as well, and I’ve got 10 yards of Huck Toweling that is just waiting to be sliced up.
Happy Sewing!
*Last summer a visiting student in the Mayo Summer Research Program needed a place to stay for a few weeks – I had her pay rent in mega-packages of toilet paper. Best deal ever – she had a place to stay with air-conditioning, and I haven’t had to buy toilet paper since. I think I might even make it to halloween or later.
The new kitchen, in all (or most of) its awesome glory!
This house has been a great ‘starter’ house – no big plumbing problems (except that one time that the basement flooded, but that was just because of some roots in the main drain), no leaking roof issues, no electrical problems, no nothing. The only big problem is that this house was a little… er… dumpy.
Witness the kitchen, before I moved in.
The cabinets were just fine, the stove was great, but no microwave, no dishwasher, and REALLY ugly faux tile paneling and gross pine wainscoting. Here’s a close-up from the entryway closet.
This stuff went through the kitchen and entryway. Yuck. And even worse, the paneling (and wainscoting) was stuck directly to the bare drywall with Liquid Nails. Tearing it down was a NIGHTMARE, and repairing all the holes, divots, tears, and mess left after removing the ’tile’ in the kitchen a year ago Christmas took almost an entire week of hard work.
But it’s done. HALLELUJAH, IT IS DONE! (ok, so i still have to fix a few more pieces of trim, and there’s still a little bit of paint touch-up left in the entryway, but CLOSE ENOUGH!) So. Without further ado, here’s the kitchen!!!!
For that “before” picture above, I was standing about where the table is in this picture. I got a new refrigerator almost immediately after moving in. I LOVE the freezer drawer, and having the refrigerator part on top is nice for tall people like me! Here you can also see that I painted the walls a nice ‘mocha’ and put up new wainscoting. I love the color combination, and the nicest part is that the mocha makes most of my ‘mistakes’ and ‘wall-fixing irregularities’ less obvious. You can also get a small peek at the crown moulding that my MOST FAVORITEST brother-in-law and I put up over New Year’s. I love it!
Here’s the “dining area” – I haven’t had much time to take a lot of pictures during the lightest portions of the day, so please forgive the black hole of a window and the pulled shade. The point here is that you can really see the loveliness of the new wainscoting! The curio cabinet was made by my Grandpa, and I repainted it from powder blue to match the wainscoting and trim. I was also able to reclaim the troll picture on the other wall there from my parents’ collection of our old junk. I think this was actually a cast-off of my sister’s, and I put it in a really old glass tray/frame.
This shows the only place in the kitchen where I left the faux tile paneling, as a backsplash of sorts. We figured that it was easier to do this than to try and take it down, because that would require taking down all the cabinets. Yuck. But really, it doesn’t look all that bad as a backsplash, and at this point, it’s easier this way. Here you can also see that I added a microwave and a dishwasher. My dad laughed when I told him that the dishwasher would change my life, but it’s totally true. It’s changed my life.
This is the back entryway and garbage/recycling area. I put in a new door here so that I could see out of the windows. Signe goes out this door, so I’ve set up a shelf and some hooks for her leashes etc. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out!
And here’s the most recent finishing touch, the front entryway! I put in new doors this summer. I wanted to be able to see out the windows, and before this, I had a door with a small frosted window. Now I get a ton more light and I can see who is out at my front door!
So. That’s the tour! It sure is a good feeling to have it almost completely finished. This just dragged on (mostly that was my fault…) and it was a hard push to the end, but now it’s done! I love my new kitchen!
whirlwind 