House Remodel Update 5.22.13

**CAUTION PHOTO HEAVY POST**

We've been industriously working on the house this week-well except for yesterday, which I declared Beer Vacation Tuesday which really meant my husband was volunteering somewhere and I invited girlfriends over and we drank beer and ate dinner. OTHER THAN THAT we've been busy working and cleaning up as we go. It feels good to go to bed at the end of the day with weary, tired bodies and not just minds. The other day I crested 8,000 PLUS steps on my pedometer without going for a walk, many of those steps were UP and DOWN the stairs as I packed away the last remnants of our kitchen.


here is the LIST of what we need to do

1. finish the living room ceiling 
2. paint the living room ceiling
3. sew couch cushion covers
4. install ceiling trim
5. sand and prime the wall of shame paneling in out living room
6. investigate and possibly remove the alcove arch in the living room--
7. paint the living room walls
8. briefly enjoy the beautiful new living room color before we completely empty the house to refinish all the original wood floors--this includes demolishing the kitchen and removing all cabinets
9. Build out Pantry Wall so we have kitchen space 
10. empty the entire living room, dining room, kitchen and bedroom--put all that stuff somewhere 
11. once empty sand, stain, seal the floor
12. move living room dining room and bedroom back in
13. finish dining room ceiling/wall area
14. construct new cabinets at friends cabinet making shop      This has changed-he doesn't have time so we now have to move to plan b, there is no plan b we'll have to create one  We have decided to build our own cabinets (SEND HELP ASAP!)
15. paint cabinets
16. install cabinets 
17. install counters
18. move fridge to it's new home
19. install appliances
20. make butcher block island to replace breakfast bar--possibly changing this to NO KITCHEN BAR/BREAKFAST BAR
21. finish pantry if needed--paint inside 

we'll start way back with the wall of shame which kicked off the project see #5

Painted and couch recovered #1-7 DONE 

Ugly Kitchen Shots #1 these will be going away

This will move to the wall in the photo above--it will surrounded by custom made cabinets for ALL dishes post and pans

Ugly kitchen shot this wall will have NO upper cabinets only the range-sink and lower cabinets 

This is the pantry--it was found behind a wall and we kind of put it to use--it's too small 

and it's right in our mudroom

So we are making it bigger 

 we made it a little TOO big but we'll use it for now and trim it down later

 Here it is tucked BEHIND our kitchen in the mudroom--see the fridge? the door to the pantry is going to be right there once the fridge is moved and the open end to the mudroom will be a wall

here we are-almost moved in!

Now the kitchen is almost empty time to rip it out

Well that feels so much better

 South side

North side

And then no breakfast bar --which I love! I never want to put one back in--which is a major departure from our plans but having a KITCHEN table is nice and there is no big road block in flow we can move in and out as needed 

 And there we are--lots of demolition and hard work

You can see from these photos how BAD our floors are and they really were/are the impetus for the remodel.

The Penny Worthy Project

Well this week had been all about getting rid of stuff. Selling things I don't need on my local yardsale group page, donating things we no longer need and someone else might need and returning odds and ends to their rightful homes. It's here, remodel time is here, summer break starts Friday morning and we tore out the upper cabinets in our kitchen. It's odd to see the kitchen so empty, I haven't since I was little, my parents owned this house before I bought it. I remember when the counter was plywood on sawhorse during their remodel. Here is the kitchen pretty much empty and ready for cabinets to go away. I'm sad I loved my yellow kitchen.

And here it is without the upper cabinets. SO HUGE.

Here is our pantry addition my husband built last week.

It's a bit too long, we really thought we wanted it that long but it turns out it just doesn't fit.  So we'll be cutting it back roughly one foot after the kitchen is put back in. Right now that extra foot is damn handy because everything from our kitchen is in the pantry and for all intents and purposes our mudroom is now our kitchen. We gave everyone a bowl, a plate, a cup and a mug and you are responsible for washing up your dishes after every meal because the dishwasher is going away.

So you ask did I go thrifting? Why I did of course go, we needed a rain coat. Struck out on the raincoat but scored two books. I've wanted to read this one for a long time and I needed a book to read--

and this one

looked interesting but it's proving it's worth in the "put you to sleep ASAP" category. Probably good for insomnia, eh?


Honestly I did not want to drag anything else in to the house after I spent all week dragging stuff out. And as always what did you spend you pennies on? SHOW ME WHAT YOU FOUND so I can live vicariously through you.

Just Another Meatless Monday Toasted Goat Cheese and Pesto Spread

Well I think my family might just could live on goat cheese. We've decided that as long as we have goat cheese in the house during our remodel we'll be fine. Because it's great on toast, crusty bread, crackers, in eggs, hot or cold you name it and they love it. It's better tasting than cream cheese yet spreads as easily so it's all win there too. GOAT CHEESE equals AWESOME.

I made this spread up for lunch today, holy smokes, it was a winner. A little crusty bread, some cold fresh melon and big glasses of water and we were set. We tore out our cabinets in the kitchen today. It took a while to finish packing up a kitchen you've been working in for 19 years, so much stuff. I can't believe I've owned this house for so long. and since I was 23! Wow so many memories in this old place.


 Toasted Goat Cheese and Pesto Spread

6-8 ounces of goat cheese
1/4 cup of pesto-I make my own without any cheese in it, use what you have or like
1/4 cup of walnuts
1 1/2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

preheat the oven to 350˚
place the cheese in a small oven proof dish
cut the cheese roughly in half lengthwise and then in 1/2 inch sections, spread it out slightly
dot the pesto on top and sprinkle with the walnuts
bake for 8 minutes and then turn the broiler on broil for another 5 minutes or until the walnuts are browned or blacked in my case
drizzle the vinegar over the top
serve warm with crusty bread, crackers or even sliced vegetables

Sore Throat Soother

The last remnants of our week long bout with pinkeye seems to be the cold, more specifically the cough and sore throat. The Miracle Elixir was good, it stopped the cough but the sore throat remains, poor guys. They're finally back in school, for the few days that remain anyway, but even last night there throats were still sore. The cough was gone but the scratchy itchy throat was not. In my research I've found that honey seems to be the 'go to' for soothing throats and coughs. 

So I made a little warm drink for them that really seemed to help ease the pain, honey of course was the main ingredient. It was simply hot water, lemon juice, a bit of fresh ginger and honey. I made them sip it slowly but you probably don't have to, I felt like it might help a bit in the soothing department. Give them a spoon to stir it with though, the honey kept sinking to the bottom.

If you don't have lemon and ginger simply warming milk with a spoonful of honey stirred in is also a wonderful throat soother. And if you still need another idea our most common best bet for sore throats is simply a spoonful of good honey. It soothes going down and the THRILL of a whole spoonful of honey straight out of the jar can make any sore throat a thing of the past. Try out the tea though, it was really really good. Oh and helpful!

Lemon Honey Tea

1 cup hot water
1 TBSP lemon juice
2 TBSP honey
1 small piece of ginger,about a 1/4 inch peeled, chopped--optional my kids LOVE ginger so I put it in

make sure your water is not boiling hot, just hot
mix all together
serve warm with a spoon to stir it up
sip slowly for best soothing results

Thankful for honey, even way up here in Alaska, where it's going to snow tomorrow [May 17th!] and we have an actively erupting volcano, with lava even.

Never


Ever


Dull.

Homemade Miracle Elixir Cough Remedy

Well it's been an exciting 5 days around here. Pinkeye took over our house and along with it came a NASTY cold that set us all back right on our rear ends. There was no "happy" mother's day it was a cranky, snotty, infected, out of sorts day. The day before was our local clean up day and of course we didn't want to get out there and infect the world so we stayed home. I hope the people who cleaned up our ditch know we are not normally lame and do really clean up our area but it was too much for us this year. We did attempt our may day fire, yes over a week late because of late Easter and wisdom tooth pain, and we sat around and grumped at each other. That fire will go down as the worst may day fire ever. EVER. Friday brought us the pink eye and a box of dead turkey poults in the mail, don't worry though they were buried with full honors, a boy playing taps on his trumpet and 21 one shot salute with a bb gun. It has not been pleasant around here and today to top it all off it snowed, the date is May 14th, not cool.

Somehow I have made it through all the yuck with a sense of humor, I haven't lost it and screamed at anyone. I haven't locked myself in the bedroom or driven away swearing to never come back. I've given out a lot of pinkeye drops, kleenex and most importantly hugs. Everything in my house is sanitized, bleached and scrubbed clean so we can avoid reinfecting ourselves. When will everyone go back to school? I do not know.

Being contained to our home has been fine, I did escape once to go grab milk, I sanitized myself from head to toe to go out so I wouldn't infect anyone else. I forgot to buy cough drops at the store and the last lingering effects of the cold is a MAJOR cough, ugh. Luckily for me I found this recipe for a "miracle elixir, it'll do the trick sir" Sorry could not help myself there, the Sweeny Todd just pours out once in a while. I made the original recipe but with much less cayenne pepper, well because it's for my kids. The cool part is I can make/grow most of the stuff here on our property. Apples to make vinegar, honey from the bees, water duh from our well, cayenne from the peppers I am growing this summer and the only I am not growing is ginger, I bet I could, just let me do some research.


Homemade Miracle Elixir Cough Remedy

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 Tablespoons of fresh water
1 Tablespoon of fresh local honey

mix all together
1 TBSP for adults
1/2 TBSP for kids
NONE for kids under one--they shouldn't have honey!
this will store for a few weeks in the fridge but won't last long once someone starts hacking up a lung
I think I will make the full strength cayenne for my husband though, he'd like that

I gave each of my little boys a serving of this and they instantly quit coughing and acting sick. Was it a miracle elixir? Or were they just to scared of it to complain anymore? I don't know and I'm not asking and neither should you.









 

The Penny Worthy Project

Well spring has finally hit, it's raining and our last pile of snow is melting pretty quickly out there, although now the driveway is full of mud puddles instead of snow and slush. Ah well at least the trees are finally leafing out, sort of, or at least they WILL be. soon. nevermind.

It's brighter in the thrifting world. I found DIGIMON which my oldest son loved when he was little. So obviously I bought it for him. It's a brand new never used beach towel, perfect condition! 

This will be under the tree for him this winter, I am excited. I also got this adorable Digimon talking alarm clock still in the box

 I think he'll like it too, I hope he does.

I bought this Keurig

on my yardsale group on Facebook a while back, my original intent was to gift it to the teachers lounge or the third grade kitchen. But I soon realized that the teachers lounge HAS a Keurig and the teachers in third grade use a french press. hmmmmm what to do. Well it just so happens that we are remodeling and someone suggested you can't beat a Keurig for that ONE cup of coffee you need to get the job done, or hot water for tea or cocoa, or heck even instant oatmeal might be happening around here. So considering all that, I decided to keep it and perhaps sell it after we're done with it. Right now we use a french press and we love it but with no stove looming in our future a french press will not work.

Everything I have here I bought off of Facebook from a local yard sale or garage sale group, are you a member of one? It can be a fantastic addition to any thrifty lifestyle and a great way to purge your home of stuff you no longer need, think instant cash in hand. Of course I never invite anyone to my home, or meet people I don't somehow already know, having a group all linked on Facebook is a little less intimidating that craigslist. Do you have local buying and selling groups? Have you started one? I'd love to know about it, how do you keep sp@mmers out? And drama to a minimum?

And as always....how are you spending your pennies??

Just Another Meatless Monday Lentil Sweet Potato Curry

This is one of those fast one pan meals I love to whip up, not Paleo obviously but delicious anyway. A word about Paleo and our remodel, it will be hit or miss. I plan to eat healthy foods, but many of them will not be Paleo. I will be trying to avoid gluten because I'm sure it has a negative impact on my health. Really what I am interested in is

• quick cooking
• thrifty cooking
• as little clean up as possible.

I will have limited work space during the remodel and time will not be mine to plan and execute huge meals. I am making a 2 month cooking plan, almost done with that, and following that for our main meals until July when I will chop, prep and freeze another 2 months or so of meals. I'll share my meal plan soon, I'm almost done with it.

So this is one dish I think I can easily toss in a crock pot at noon and come back to fully cooked dinner after 5 hours or so. I made it on the stove but I know beans and lentils cook well in a crock pot so one of my meals for the summer plan is to try this in a crock pot. It was really good, we all enjoyed it with a dab of yogurt on top and fresh fruit on the side. Perfect for those days when everyone is hungry and look at me like I'm supposed to feed them or something.

Lentil Sweet Potato Curry
2 TBSP coconut oil-divided
1/2 an onion
1-2 TBSP curry powder, add as much as you like
1 tsp cumin
3/4 cup of green lentils
1 sweet potato, chopped in 1 inch cubes
6 cups water
12 ounces frozen cauliflower
salt to taste
pepper to taste

melt 1 TBSP of the coconut oil over medium heat in a dutch oven
coarsely chop the onion and cook it in the oil for a minute or two
add the curry powder and stir for 30 seconds
add the lentils and sweet potatoes and stir for another 1-2 minutes
add the water and bring to a boil
reduce heat to simmer, cover and cook for 45 minutes
stir occasionally to make sure it's not too hot and scorching, reduce the heat further if it is
once 45 minutes are past remove the cover and add the cauliflower
cook for another 15 minutes or so
add the salt and pepper to taste
remove from the heat and stir in the last 1 TBSP of oil until it melts
serve hot with a dollop of plain yogurt on top

This is my husband's lunch all ready to go in a mason jar, there was JUST enough to send him leftovers.

I'm going to start up a Just Another Meatless Monday board on Pinterest, so when you link here, know I am pinning there. Follow along and join the fun.