Some Things We Think Are Fun

With most everything done I thought I'd post some photos of odds and ends; things around the house that I like - for one reason or another. 

These sweet little buttons of wheat are the hardware we selected for the kitchen and the pantry.

This square drain grate is from an outfit called Ebbe Square Drains (original huh?).  We really liked them and the tile layer did too.  It's much easier for him to cut tile or stone in a square rather than than a circle.  We selected the polished chrome but they come in a lot of different finishes.

They are not screwed in like the round grates.  They sit in the square drain riser.  The grate comes with a grate puller and whenever you want to clean the trap you insert the grate puller into one of the holes and simply turn and pull it up.

These cast iron dog heads are being used as coat hooks in the mud room.  They came quite rusted.  We wanted to keep some of the rust because we wanted them to look old.  I scraped off the loose surface rust then coated them with a matte sealer so none of the remaining rust would come off on our coats.



Charles found these wall sconces at market. 

They add a nice little glow in the evening.

The built-in ironing board is for the laundry lady to de-wrinkle all of our clothes.  Unfortunately, the laundry lady would be me.  I hate to iron.  Perhaps it stems from mother making my sister and I iron hankies, pillow cases and sheets when we were young.  Sheets, really?????  I didn't question that then but now I think back and wonder why....

I do have a nice little shelf to hold the iron and a bottle of Tito's spritzer bottle.

And this is how I reward myself after an afternoon of ironing.  A most refreshing cocktail made from freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and Tito's.  Do you think if I drank a couple of these while I was ironing I would enjoy the task more?

The TV Mirror Complete

Remember this? 

 A cubicle was built in my closet directly behind the central mirror in master bath.  This picture is taken from the bathroom looking into the closet.

Now I'm taking the picture from the closet looking out into the bathroom.



Here, the inside of the "box" was painted black as well as the wall that the two-way mirror will be mounted on.


This photo turned out really strange because the white walls you see are actually black.  I am standing inside my closet taking the picture through the two-way mirror. 

We purchased an 18" flat screen, set it on the Satellite box and pushed it flush up to the mirror back.


And, Voila!

Live from Victory Park with the News 8 Daybreak crew.

GO MAVS!!!   Game 2 comeback!

Settling In

In what seemed a very short time we went from this

to this

to this

to this

to the final product.

We are all moved in now but still have a lot of settling in to do.  Nearly everything is unpacked but not everything has found its place yet.  No pictures or paintings have been hung.

Our wall art is nothing to auction off and retire on but we like them.  This house just doesn't have suitable wall space to hang much beyond the bedrooms.

This is my favorite.  It's a reproduction of an Alfred Bierstadt painting of the Yosemite Valley in 1865.  I would have his works all over my house if I could.  The problem with this painting is that it is so big you really need to be standing far away from it to appreciate it. The only bare wall large enough to hold it is in the entry hall or on the fireplace (and I don't want it there).   If it were in the hall you would feel like you were on the very front row at the movie theater, head tilted back and having to move it from side to side to view the picture.  It will kill me to get rid of it.

I love the squaw. This painting has been in the family for a long time and moved around with us from New Mexico, Texas, North Carolina and back to Texas.  I hope C. finds a place for her.  You see, my darling husband is the interior decorator.  That's his passion.  I design the kitchen but believe me when I say it's best I leave the rest of the house to him.   

My father-in-law gave this one to me.  Such precious kittens and momma kitty.  Although I'm allergic, I adore cats. 

Just look at these sweet faces!

This is Uncle Edwin.  Not really.  We don't know him at all.  He's some doctor who realized the importance of washing your hands and sterilizing instruments in the operating room.  Everyone thought he was crazy.  One can find out all sorts of useless information on the Internet.  Ain't it grand?

Kitchen Appliances - The Rest of my Playthings

We elected on 2 refrigerators instead of a refrigerator and an extra freezer as we've done in the past.  When I'm really cooking or baking up a storm I find it's more refrigerator space I need; not freezer.

A surprise these refrigerators held was a filtered ice water dispenser on the inside.  Since I did not want a dispenser on the door front, where they're usually located, I figured I would have to settle without convenient ice water.  You can barely see it (in this terribly grainy photo - another 800 speed film disaster) as a grey oval button on the side of the left wall of the interior.  I was quite pleased with this surprise.

The potfiller will save my back from lugging heavy pots of water from the sink to the range-top.  Yeah right.   Although it is actually quite practical I will admit I wanted one because it's just another fun toy in the kitchen.

Now, the ovens will save me from some back aches.  Being the shorty that I am I elected to do two single ovens side by side instead of a double set on top of each other.  I had them set at 32" from the floor (at the bottom).  See the cabinet top to the left?  That's the baking center top that is also set at 32" (for easier bread kneading).  The cabinet top to the right of the ovens is at the normal height of 36".  This puts them at the right height for me to access them without having to bend over or stand on my tip toes.

C likes the blue enameled interior and the heavy SatinGlide racks with handles.  The handles are really sweet.  I like that the bottom heating elements are hidden.  Two other features I like are the temperature probe and the steam-assist technology (for bread baking).

 

I realize that technically this is not an appliance, but I sure like them.  I found them at Loew's.  These are for some of my heavier pots and pans.  They will become my friends because I won't have to get down on all fours to dig out the cast iron skillets or the Le Creuset dutch ovens.  I elected not to put them in all the cabinets because you can actually store a heck of a load more without them.

These are in the cabinets below the baking center and will hold the flour and sugar bins.

Once all the cooking and baking are done we get to clean up!!

 And this will make it fun!!



After the dishes are done, it's time to pop the cork on a nice bottle of wine.


Next time, I'll show you some things that we did in the house that I think are really fun.

Kitchen Appliances - My Toys - Chapter 1

This is the first installment of the appliances I chose.  The ones after these probably won't be as detailed because they are new to me.  This one I am very intimate with.

Professional interior designers will tell you that a certain % of the building cost is put into the kitchen.  Who knows what ours is.  I will say that %-wise the majority is probably in this kitchen.  C & I really went back and forth about how much we were going to sink into the kitchen but at the end of the day, we decided to go ahead with what we really wanted; knowing that it was more than we should. 

But we literally live in this room, and all of these appliances and cabinets are really going to get used.  So, here is the beginning of my favorite room and I want to say right here and now that I am so thankful and blessed that I have a husband who is willing to make my dream kitchen come true.

They installed the vent hood and the rangetop will be dropped in tomorrow.  I went with the Thermador vent hood.  We had a Vent-A-Hood in our last house and it was really fine but I think that these baffles will be much easier for me to clean.   Although the range top is 36", I went with the 48" vent hood because I am a firm believer that the larger the "capture" area the better the ventilation; and that is only from experience, not book knowledge or tens of thousands of dollars worth of education.

This is my baby.  This is the same rangetop I had in our last house; well, not the same one but you know what I mean.  I'm in love with it.  I am so in love with it that I wanted to get the 48" 8 burner, but I couldn't get 8 burners; the 48" only came with 6 burners and a grill or griddle to take up the two extra burners and I didn't want that.

I know this is going to sound like an advertisement for Thermador but they are simply my heart-felt opinion and feelings.  However, if Thermador would love to reimburse me for saying such nice things about their product that would be great too. 

The two burners on the left have an extra low and an extra-extra low flame.  The extra low flame is on for 50 seconds and goes off for 10, comes on for 50 and so on.  The extra-extra low flame is on for 10 seconds and off for 50, comes on for 10 and so on.  They are great for sauces, melting chocolate, etc.

These are the wonderful sealed 5-point star burners.  With these are reduced cold spots and more flame distribution.  Water will boil 50% faster with these little puppies too.

Now, this is something new since the last one I had.  The burners sit up higher which is going to be sweet come time to clean.

Here she is all installed and ready to go...

Hello Lover.

Scraping and Staining

 Back in December the hardwood floors were laid (layed?  lain?) put down.  Hardwood was installed in the great room, kitchen and pantry.

One of the last things to get done before closing on the house was staining the wood floors.

Before going forward, we needed to select our stain.  These were what we chose from.  We decided the one on the right made the grain in the wood "pop" a little more.

First they sanded and hand scraped,

then they swept up all of the saw dust with this heavy-duty vacuum (my husband would love to have something this powerful but it looks a little cumbersome to me),

then I went home and when I came back a couple of days later the floors looked like this

These photos are really grainy aren't they?  That's because I was using up the 800 speed film that was in my camera.  They also show all of the dusty footprints of the workers

The Dunny

The lavatory, latrine, crapper, bog, loo, head, potty, can, privy, throne, john, stool, netty, bulkhead, confessional, water closet...whatever you choose to call yours, we all have them.  I, for one, am thankful that we have brought these porcelain and china chairs indoors.

Searching for toilets wasn't an activity that made my skirt fly up.  I really didn't care as long as it worked.  That is, until I saw this.

Tall, clean lines; nice tank for hiding storing all sorts of things in (come on now, you know you probably have a relative who used to hide money or whisky in them).

Caroma, the manufacturer out of Australia, refers to this as "reduced-flush water-efficient sanitaryware".  Wow - sanitaryware - sounds as if they want you to eat off of it.

There's nothing new about dual flush toilet systems.  But this system comprises two buttons:  full flush (1.28 gallon) and half flush (0.8 gallon).  Also known as a #1 button (on the left) and a #2 button (on the right)!

It took the plumber a lot longer to get these installed.

It has a different offset plastic outlet connector rubber cup thingy than a regular toilet; please don't ask me why. 

I'm a little concerned that we installed one of these toilets in the powder room.  Will we find it necessary to hang a framed plaque with instructions on which button to use?

This could prove very embarrassing for our guests.

What drew C to these toilets was the chair height and knowing he was going to be able to help protect the environment and save on utility bills. 

He also thought the seats were really cool because they are what they call "easy closing";

they float down as they are closing until they are shut.  No more slamming!  Almost looks like it's trying to talk.

I like the chair height as well.  I also like the fact that the sides are straight; not a piece of porcelain mimicking an over sized section of the large intestine.  This will make cleaning so much easier.

Since our "sanitaryware" is Australian, I shall crown them as The Dunny.