Category Archives: kitchen remodel

Simple Sunday

Posted in books, bread, California, cooking, Flylady, home improvement, home stuff, kitchen remodel, Uncategorized, Walking by

I’m trying out some new sourdough recipes for burger buns. This is the second recipe. It has an egg and milk so it’s a soft dough. Not a lot of rise so I may try one that just uses instant yeast. Last night we had tofu burgers with the ones I did yesterday. They had excellent flavor but were on the smallish side.

Whoa, Nellie!! It is hot!!! Today is supposed to be the hottest at 106. I hope it doesn’t get that hot.

I just finished closing all the windows and the thermo curtains. These are the ones I bought from Amazon. I originally bought them for the entry way windows as they get full afternoon sun. They do a great job so I ordered a set for one of the bedroom windows and then 2 sets for my office windows that get full morning sun. They are affordable and do the job. I wanted to get the natural colored ones for myoffice but they were double what the grey ones were so that won out.

The window coolers are doing a good job keeping things cool enough. I have them set on the lowest setting and the 2 that are digital I keep at 78-80 and they come on automatically. Last night I turned them all off at 8 and opened windows.

We had a nice walk this morning and it was cool enough. Lots more people out early though to walk before the heat kicks in.

We took one side of the kitchen cabinets down yesterday.

We’re going to put up one 2×12 shelf using the hand forged brackets from Signature Hardware. B will paint it today and then get the shelf up. Then all the shelves will match except the other side which we’ll take down next week. I don’t have the brackets for that side yet. They are pricey but I love the look. Originally I was going to do Elfa shelving from the ceiling down but I don’t need that much shelving and plus I wouldn’t be able to reach anything. One shelf will be enough. I keep my bread up there and my basket of vitamins/prescriptions. There will be a few cups as well.

After I bake the burger rolls I’m going to the gym and do some weights. I plan on cooking a chicken while I’m gone so the oven can be off after 10 am. My oven is very efficient though and does not heat up the kitchen. Still, it’s on and there probably is some heat residual.

FlyLady this week is the bedroom but I’ve already done that so I’ll just do a quick once around and tidy some areas that need it.

I just finished Rhonda Hetzel’s book’ Down to Earth’. It’s a very fine book and worth buying. I got my copy off ebay. I doubt you would find it at a used book store. There weren’t a lot to choose from. It’s nothing all that new to me, but I like her perspective. Her husband, Hanno, died last year and it’s been a hard time for her. She actually closed her blog just recently. She has kept up all the posts and they are worth taking a read.

Frugal Friday

Posted in budgets, California, home stuff, kitchen remodel by

I don’t suppose it was a very frugal week.

We had to pay DMV on the truck which was almost $500. Ouch! And it needed a smog test. cha-ching! Well, at least it’s done for the year.

Then it was our turn to buy the dry cat food for the kitties. Science Diet, so that was $60.

Costco came in right under$500. That included a case of beer for B, some wine I chose, and very expensive CoQ 10( that itself was almost $40, ) and a skin moisturizer. But most of that will be for the month. I plan to go out to the farm this afternoon so that’ll be an additional $30 for veggies for the week.

I bought garbage bags from Amazon. It seems there was something else from Amazon???

B bought the grab bar to put up in my office area on the stair wall.

I ordered the brackets(2) from Signature hardware to put up the shelf in the kitchen which will replace the ones there.

So I guess nothing was frugal this week. Some weeks are just like that.

Today I’m going to head to the Rec Center early so I hope to miss the traffic heading to Tahoe for 4th of July. It’ll still be busy on the freeway but not like it’ll be this afternoon.

I just fed my sourdough starter and will make the dough later this afternoon. I made the yogurt yesterday and today I need to drain the whey off.

Last night we had black bean bowls with my pressure canned black beans. Delicious. That was my last jar so I will add that on my to do list. I plan on doing pints though not quarts.

The lettuce is from the farm.

I’ve started reading some things on Ultra Processed Foods. There’s a new book out that Sue over at https://asmallerlifelivingsimply.blogspot.com/, was talking about. The book is brand new and I’m debating buying it. I requested it from the library(for them to order) but that can take a while. I’ll think about some more. The whole idea is we’re eating way too much processed foods. Now, we eat pretty clean but after going thru what we ate in a day there were a few surprises. For instance those tortillas in the bean bowls. Processed. I’ve made my own tortillas before but maybe I’ll look into making them and freezing them. The ones I get from Costco are in the freezer and I can grab them when I need which is what I like. Of course, regular bread, anything white flour etc. I’m always up for a new adventure.

Frugal Friday, camping edition.

Posted in California, camping, cooking, frugalism, home improvement, home stuff, kitchen remodel, Lake tahoe, travel by

When we’re out in Rubi we definitely have low spend weeks. We really only buy gas to fill the truck up and then whatever groceries to fill in the blanks. After the gym yesterday we went over to Safeway( in the same parking lot) and bought veggies for a stir fry that we both felt like. We had brought from home some snow peas from the garden and then added mushrooms, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, tofu, and steamed rice. It was delicious.

Snow peas were added after the rest was cooked.

Today is stay in camp day and we plan on walking out to the meadow. We had some thunder last night but not really rain. Then later my son and his friend are coming into camp with us. Zephyr does a lot of car camping so he’s all prepared. We might do a lodge dinner tonight but I’ll wait and ask him if he has any ideas. He will stay in our spot till Monday but we’re leaving sometime this weekend. I really prefer not to be in camp during the weekends, it’s noisy. too many kids. blah, blah, blah.

All in all not much spent this week. Oh, but I did find this corner kitchen cabinet on Marketplace with a granite top and the guy wanted $60. I asked if he could wait till the weekend but then said he could deliver it so I said sure. $60 Zelle later it’s in our driveway. I’m hoping this spurs us to rip out the counter and get going on the kitchen after we( not me, B) finish fixing the wood damage where the pipe was leaking. Our kitchen can only be redone ( unless we were rich) using the same footprint as the layout is locked in by 2 doors that are on either side of the room. There’s not any other way to redesign as I said unless it was professionally altered. We don’t have money for that so the sink counter will stay the same just all new cabinets and sink and countertop. It’s really quite small so I know we can get it done reasonably. But if this cabinet works it’ll be a good start. This corner has been a problem and I hope this fixes it.

Tahoe girl.

I’m terribly unphotogenic 😦

OMG, the best news….trump indicted !!!!! How he can say or even Mccarthy for that matter that he’s innocent when it’s 2 grand juries that brought the indictment is just nuts. All the right-wing mania with anti-LGBTQ+, book banning, and on and on is just insane. I can only hope the pendulum swings back for rights for all.

Happy Summer Solstice and Simple Sunday

Posted in California, cancer, Cooking thru my cookbooks,, Flylady, home stuff, ikea, kitchen remodel, Uncategorized, White space by

The heat has been brutal. Today we’re still topping out over 100 degrees. By tomorrow it should at back to the 90’s. The garden is suffering and most of our veggies are not too happy. I’m not sure what we’ll even get. The tomatoes are sad looking. The gopher has gotten most of the pepper plants and I don’t even see a zucchini plant out there. I’m not sure how to plan the garden if we’re going to have such heat, water shortages, and gophers. 😦

Happy Father’s day to Barclay!! The best Dad ever!! So much fun over the years!

Today I will continue with looking at cookbooks. I already have another 4 ready to go. Then the Flylady zone is the bedroom. I’ve moved a few things out of the closet and there is more shelf space in there now.

I still want to rearrange where I put the red Fiestaware. Right now it’s in the teak bookcase on a shelf. I’d like to get it underneath in the cabinet. One empty shelf idea or at least some white space on a shelf.

The kitties are getting bigger and more rambunctious. We have another appt for mamakat but last time she ran out of the cage so I’m not sure what we going to do.

I have my doctor’s appt Wednesday and my labs should be there. I do want to talk to him about a few things like would it be worth getting a Velcade shot once a month? and my sleep pattern is terrible. I have interrupted sleep every night. If I take Ativan then I can get about 4 1/2 hours straight. Then what about my watering eyes? I’m assuming that it will get better. And of course, the neuropathy. It never gets so bad but it still does get worse as the weeks go on. And lastly, what about my IBS and having a rough day usually the day after Velcade on the last round of the month. Oh well, he’ll probably just say that’s chemo. 😦

I’ve ordered the brackets for the kitchen shelving and then we are planning to put up 2×10 shelves. These bracketts are the same I’ve used on the other wall and are quite nice, hand forged and all. I’d still like the ikea pantry but since it’s been a year and a half since they were available ,I’ll just move forward.

‘

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, cooking, Flylady, home improvement, kitchen remodel, plants, Uncategorized by

Our beautiful weather continues here. Today we’re supposed to reach low 70’s.

Spring is in the air. Although it would look like we’re headed for another drought so that’s not good. The daffodils are up and there are violets in the yard. I like violets as they will spread and pop up in the most unlikely spots.

I finished the living room zone already. Since there’s not a lot to do in there it goes fairly quick.

Yesterday, I potted 4 starter plants and today I have 2 more to do. Mostly pothos and Monstera and

Syngonium podophyllum. I have at least 2 more of these.

I also decided to repurpose a little table my daughter took out of her room to put the plants on since now I have at least 4 more to put somewhere.  I’m painting it white so it’ll blend in more.

We’re looking at stove hoods and found one on amazon we like so we’re going to order that. This begins the very minor kitchen remodel. We can’t change the configuration of the kitchen due to walls and doors so we just have to make do with the way it is. I suppose if we had money, a contractor could do it but we don’t so that’s that.

I’m also going to get a new kitchen island in stainless. Basically, the same as we have that’s from Ikea but they don’t carry this one anymore and the one I found ( AMazon)has the shelf straight across whereas the one I have it’s split.

We’re trying to prioritize what we can do and how much we can spend as there is no more ‘extra ‘ money coming in.  That SDI was pretty great.:)  😦 sad it’s over…..

Well, off to the gym and then Safeway.

Simple Sunday

Posted in budgeting, budgets, camping, cooking, Flylady, home improvement, home stuff, husband, kitchen remodel, MDS, medicare, Myeloma, Uncategorized by

It’s been a nice week although weird again with the holiday in the middle of the week. I kept thinking Thursday was Monday. Oh well, it seems that we’re back on course and today is Sunday.

We did a shop a Costco on Friday and didn’t overdo it. I bought extra coffee and TP so we won’t need to ‘run’ down there for those things. We are eyeing a new TV though. Ours is about 8 years old and still works but the sound quality isn’t the best. There are some sales for the super bowl so if I think we can swing it, I will.

B’s last SDI was this last week too. He did get a notice to have his doctor fill out a form about not returning to work, so I’m not sure if they would extend his benefits to use up the little he has left or if it’s just paperwork. What I read is the maximum award is 12months, so we’ll see. We’ll try and do that next week although he sees his doctor on Tuesday and I’m sure it won’t be in the mail by then.

This month will be the big test of how we do without the SDI. I know it’s going to be an adjustment. But at least we have no big bills in January just the car tags for the old van. Still, that’s $150. I have been saving quite a bit of the SDI so that I know I won’t be adding to the savings.

Also, we had to call on his Cobra as, just as expected, the Noxafil prescription came in at$1200.  This amount was the Medicare Part D prescrpiton plan that I’m not planning on using that’s why we’re paying the Cobra amount. I am not paying that much money when last month it was 0.00 co-pay.  So he called and the Cobra payment letter was just going out. So we did it online and then now we have to wait for it to get activated by the prescription plan. After that, we still don’t know what the co-pay will be since we haven’t reached any yearly deductible.  It’s all unsettled right now but next week we should know and hopefully, it’ll be resolved.

Plus we know that within a few months Noxafil will be reduced or eliminated so then we will cancel the Cobra and just use the Medicare Part D as all his other drugs are Tier 2. I think it’s only Noxafil that is Tier 5. What a Fucking scam is all I have to say.

Today is a gym day and we will go for our walk shortly.

Flylady zone is the kitchen and I’ll start that today but finish tomorrow.

I made a new recipe last night from another blogger( Teresa Kasner)

She lives along the Columbia River in an old beautiful farmhouse. Her pictures are outstanding. So the recipe was for Chicken with potatoes and spinach in a creamy parmesan sauce. It was good.

This week is Clinic for Barclay and our overnight trip. Plus whatever stress with the prescription stuff comes up.:(

I started a list of projects for the year and we’ll see how far we get.

  1. to drop the wood stove to floor level so that the footprint is lower and less of an eyesore. We built the platform specifically so we wouldn’t be bending to put wood in but it does take up a lot of floor space. This won’t cost a lot except added stove pipe( which is pricey) but we won’t need a lot. And some stone for the floor. Our woodstove is quite efficient and we will keep it for a few more years. Eventually, we will put in a gas/propane stove. But that’s maybe 5 years out still.
  2. We will be replacing windows in my daughter’s room. This will be maybe @ $1000 as it will be 2 windows replacing one large one. The Anderson windows we bought last summer are great and very energy efficient. So that ended up @ $800( I think).
  3. I’d like to also replace the bathroom window. Same size but just more energy efficient. All the windows in the house we’re replaced when we remodeled but they are now 25 years old so an upgrade will be nice.
  4. I don’t think we will get to any bathroom remodel this year.
  5. I think we are going to try and redo some of the kitchen. The biggest thing is the counters and sink( pipes underneath) really need to be redone. Getting a new pantry system from Ikea will be first on the list as that will be freestanding.

There’s always garden work and yard work. That’s kinda ongoing.

Barclay’s official retirement date is January 30. That’s 25 years. It’s hard to let go of, I think, because of the way it all happened with him getting sick. But how incredibly lucky we are for modern science that has given him a new chance without cancer. Even I can’t say that, although I have been extraordinarily lucky that my Myeloma has responded to treatment. Well, it is what it is.

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This was our dinner the other night. A small piece of filet mignon and a Beyond Meat sausage( which are delicious BTW).

 

 

some added photos

Posted in budgeting, frugalism, home improvement, kitchen remodel, Uncategorized by

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Almost done!

 

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A view from the sink!!

I think for now it’s done in the kitchen. I thought about some kinda of temporary back splash. I may go into HOme Depot and see what they have. I’ve seen on Pinterest some tile that is peel and go. Not sure if Home Depot has that but I might check.

Today is Friday.

Frugal Friday or this week? Yes and no. I haven’t bought too many groceries, just milk and cream. I did spend $100 at Target but that included cat food at $15 and some frozen Amy’s enchiladas on sale.  Most of it was the bins.

I need to get gas in the VW and I’m going to go to the local bakery and get day old bagels if they have any. They’re organic and go quick. So we’ll see. Plus I need to get some multi vitamins at Grocery Outlet.

Other than that I have a load of laundry to do and just tidying up the house.

I’m working on the budget for November and it’s in good shape. I’m paying extra on our second and I’m going to make an extra car payment if I can pull it off.

Things are coming together.

Posted in decluttering, home improvement, kitchen remodel, Uncategorized by

I took everything off the shelves to the right of the sink and did the 2 coats of paint and then this morning did the final third.

I have the bins ready to go back tomorrow when it’s had 24 hrs to dry. My goal with all this redoing is to really only have what we use and get rid of the rest. On someones minimalist video, she said ” having open shelves keeps me accountable to what I have”. I really love that. And it’s quite true.

I have a vision of what  want this funky old house to look like. There’s nothing really special about it. It was built in 1949 in at that time, a very rural community. There was no insulation in the walls and when we re -modeled ,we insulated what we took down but there are still walls without. All the window were replaced as they were just single pane. Now after 24 years almost some of the window need to be replaced as the dual pane has some degradation and they are slightly filmed. But we continue on. We don’t have any inclination to move so it’s making the best of what we have and I WANT that vision of a a clean, minimalist house.  I think there’s really a ways to go as I am continually surprised, yes, genuinely, surprised when I declutter for the umpteenth time and still find I am releasing stuff.

Over the years, I’ve given away thousands of things, many valuable. And you know what, I hardly remember or care what they items were. By removing them, I have moved toward that goal.

So back to these open shelves. What’s there is what I can see and the rest is gone. Some stuff is in other baskets on the restaurant stainless steel shelves, but most is gone.

I love this process of minimizing and and have learned so much.

So today was a gym day and then to I went into Target to get a water proof crib liner for Bonnie, the rescue dog, as she is peeing in her bed Every. Single. night.  So in I go, get cat food, of course, cream, a bottle of wine and sale, one more bin for the pantry to hold my brush,Invisalign,stuff, etc and then left and promptly forgot the liner. My list was folded over and of course the one thing I went in for was on the other side.

I did call and got her an appt. Monday to check out the situation.

IMG_0541All this is open shelving now and ready to go tomorrow.

 

Tidying up and refreshing old cabinets

Posted in kitchen remodel, Uncategorized, White space by

IMG_0543 This was the first coat of paint.

I needed a project and wanted to do something different in our kitchen. So I decided to have B take off the cabinet doors on one side and then I would paint them and put my OXO there and my jars.

Well to start, when he took them off I was appalled at the mess and then I freaked out thinking this will never work. But by morning( he did it the evening before, I felt ok with going ahead. So I removed everything and wiped it all down. I had leftover white gloss paint so I got right into a first coat. I knew I would need more paint so I would get that later for a second coat.

IMG_0540I think this is the second.

IMG_0538This is the third. Here’s the other side.

IMG_0541Next, I’m going to do those shelves you can barely see on the right. The pine is nice but stained.

I’m completely wiped out by the painting and the rearranging. I managed to pull together a large box of thrift store things though so that’s good.

Our big project next year will be to pull out the counter and sink and replace. The layout of the kitchen doesn’t really allow for a different configuration as there’s a door on the left wall and then the opening to the front room on the other. So basically we’re stuck with where things are unless we hired a contractor which we can’t afford to do so it’ll be upgraded but nothing moved.

IMG_1624 (1).jpgI really love how it came out even though I am exhausted:(