Feeding the troops

Since eventually this blog will be more about food and less about kitchen construction, I thought I'd get a jump on things and start posting our weekly menus, which you may find helpful or perhaps just mildly entertaining.  We generally don't eat a lot of convenience foods, but you'll see that we've had to make a few concessions during the remodel.  Often our kitchen is completely inaccessible, or too dirty, or too dangerous to be in for long.  I'm grateful it's as functional as it is, but the day is rapidly approaching that we'll be eating pizza 14 days straight.  ;o)

With the exception of Sundays, I shoot for dinners that are in the 500-800 calorie range.  I always make extra so that the "Mom-I'm-STARVING" among us can get their fill, but I worked too darn hard to get myself into shape to serve lasagna at every meal, and I want our kids to learn good eating habits and to have healthy attitudes about food.  We aren't obsessive about eating particular kinds of foods (or avoiding them either) and just try to go with the idea that most things are OK in moderation.  We very rarely eat any sort of hunk-o-meat dinner, like roast or steak.  With the exception of this kitchen remodel time, we don't generally eat a lot of fast food, but we do feed the kids pizza on Fridays (our date night)- usually from Pizza Hut or Little Caesar's, and sometimes the Wal-Mart take-and-bake kind.  

We eat a lot of foods from other cultures and parts of the world, in part because we have a multi-racial family, and also because those are just our tastes.  Our favorites are probably most Asian foods (Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Indian, etc.), middle eastern, African, Caribbean, and Mexican.  Really, we'll eat just about anything, and will try anything once.  And even though I love all sorts of foods, my very favorites are simple things - a good bagel.  Dark chocolate.  A bowl of oatmeal with pecans and dried cranberries.  A slice of toasted homemade bread.  (Clearly I'm a carb lover!)  

I'll write about this in more detail in another post, but part of the reason I can feed my large family with the variety I do and without breaking the bank is because I am Queen of the Coupon.  I stock up on things when they are at their very lowest prices, and have amassed quite a stockpile of foods and other necessities.  I can easily feed all 14 of us on about $200 a week, and that includes toiletries and other non-food items.  

I am a cookbook junkie, and I love websites like food.com and allrecipes.com.  I think the iPad was invented for the kitchen, and I believe my recipe-loving mother-in-law smiles down on me from Heaven as I gather and tweak and organize my treasured recipes.  :o)

Here is this week's plan, which is subject to change should I find my kitchen filled with volatile chemicals or without plumbing.  Any relevant recipes follow.  Just click on "Read more" below.

27	28	1	2	3	4	5
SUN	MON	TUE	WED	THU	FRI	SAT
Asian lettuce wraps*, rice, broccoli, chocolate pie	Potato bar	Tzatziki turkey pita sandwiches*, fruit salad	Zuppa Toscano*, breadsticks	Egg McMuffins, hash browns	Little Caesar’s	Fend for yourself

Kitchen progress

Most of the kitchen progress is of the cabinet construction sort, which we don't get to see every day.  But we DID get our new back door installed, and I love it!  Our genius contractor saved us hundreds of dollars by applying an oak veneer to a cheap steel door so it can be stained to match the others.  The adjacent garage door will get the same treatment, but with a chalkboard in the center, rather than glass.

Our nifty crumb-sucker vacuum arrived, as did our speakers and amp.  I also ordered the lock sets for the two new doors, and I'm really excited about them.  They are very similar to our original door knobs/back plates, but I ordered them in a brushed nickel finish.  You'll have to use your imagination because the nickel picture has disappeared from the site.

Here are some shots of the oak-sheathed door.  A solid oak one would have cost us $1000.  This one comes in at around $400.  I am loving the extra light in the kitchen, and Miss Poppy is appreciating that even with  her stubby little corgi legs, she can enjoy the view of the pile of garbage backyard for the first time.  

Finally, here are a couple of shots of our slate.  We're hoping to get it sealed this weekend, and the contractor says it may be able to go in as early as next week.  I can't wait to see it installed.  It's one of my favorite things about our kitchen.  

The pics show the tile up against something that is solid black, and then white, for reference.  It's an awesome grey color.  

More kitchen goodies

Today I bought one of these nifty gadgets on Amazon.  It's a stationary vacuum that you can sweep crumbs directly into.  They have great reviews, but what sealed the deal for me was seeing a picture of one that had been mounted into the bottom of a base cabinet in a kitchen.  Without having to have a central vac system, you can sweep the crumbs right up to the toekick and they are automatically sucked up.

I also ordered our amplifier and ceiling speakers for the kitchen audio system.  Can't wait to dance while I cook and embarrass all my children.  Priceless.  

Table finish

Our table has all its parts in place.  Isn't it wonderful?  I can't wait for all the special meals, holidays and celebrations that this table will play a part in.  To have my whole family around one table is going to be amazing.  If I could, I'd plop that baby right in place today.

But alas:

So it will squat in the living room a while longer.  

So now my dilemma is over how to finish it.  Should I go with a weathered, antique finish like our lovely model?

Or this Irish antique?

Or should we go with a darker (but still old-looking) finish?  Thusly:

These are the chairs and chandelier (minus the shades) that will be going in the dining room.

I will ponder this perplexing puzzle and post PDQ.

By George!

Our over-the-sink pendant arrived from Rejuvenation, and I love it!

Meet George:

An (early) Valentine gift to remember

Today the table made its way to our home.  We still have the breadboard ends to attach once the brackets arrive, and of course it has to be finished (in some yet-to-be-determined way), but it's here, and it's HUGE. I can't wait to be able to clear all the construction mess out of our dining room and actually use it.  I'm guessing it will stay right where it is for the next 2-3 months since it can't exactly be tucked into a corner or something.  It's quite a focal point in our living room!  ;o)

When I first approached my dad about helping me build a table, I really meant "help" me, and I naively thought that I could do most of the work myself.  The truth is, he did probably 90% of the grunt work, but I loved every minute I spent with him in that cold garage.  I learned a lot, and I feel almost brave enough to attempt some sort of furniture construction on my own at some point.  Something small, anyway.

I love my parents so much, and I feel so blessed to have them here with us.  Our own family keeps us so busy that even though we're in the same town, we don't get to see them as often as we'd like.  It makes the time I was able to carve out to do this project with my dad that much more special.  I love the table, and I love the memories even more.

I might have to be buried with this table.  ;o)

All loaded up and ready to go

J1's friend showed up just in time to help

Coming up the front walk

T and Hubby are holding up the still-unattached ends

Me, my dad, and my bad hair day 

It's like my birthday!

Except I'm still in my 30s.  Bonus!

Morning brought the following:

Bunch o' base cabinets for sink wall.  You can see where they go in the drawing below.

New Tolix knock-off stools

Brackets that will go under our one bank of upper cabinets.  I'm holding it up to the old ones.

Brackets for the hood

Close-up of wire grille for upper part of smaller hutch piece (shown in drawing above).

Wire grille for smaller hutch

Table, day 1 (and a half)

My dad and I went to the lumber yard yesterday and picked out all the wood for our table.  Although I really liked the walnut, I decided to get white oak because we could get white oak dimensional lumber so the frame would match.  I'm not a fan of medium-tone, builder-grade, 1990s-look oak, but if I can get a color similar to this 18th century French antique oak table, I'll be happy.

Or this English oak antique, which sold recently for $7000.  Seriously. 

Or any of these.  That kind of oak I can live with, and I figure with 12 kids, I'm gonna have patina all over the place in no time.  

So we only did one boo-boo that required a return trip to the lumber yard and the outlay of another 16 bucks.  Not too bad.  We got the frame completely assembled, complete with a few tweaks for strength and style.  Por ejemplo, the stretchers extend an inch beyond the edges of the legs, and we notched the bottom of the middle stretcher to fit into a notch on the side stretchers.  I also ordered 4 oak brackets which will support the 10" breadboard ends at each end of the table.  And the table will be 4'x10'.  Almost big enough for our family, but unfortunately limited by the length of our dining room.

Awesome table, super-awesome daddy.  

Family Facebook Fun

One of my twins posted this as his Facebook status. Can't. Stop. Laughing.

"when i went to england 2.5 years ago, I saw something that made me laugh whenever i saw a chocolate kiss. we went to a candy store and they had something almost exactly the same, but they were called gilded nipples.

british people are weird."

Bangs for Eliza

Today in church, my friend, K, gave the lesson in our Relief Society meeting.  She talked about Elisabeth (mother of John the Baptist) and Eliza R. Snow (LDS writer/poet, and one of the most prominent women in early LDS church history).  K said that since not all of us had a sense of who Eliza really was, she wanted to read some information that would help us get to know her better.  Among other things, she read this:

“She was slightly above medium height and of a slender build; her bearing was at one graceful and dignified. Hers was a noble countenance, the forehead being unusually high and expansive and the features of a slightly Hebrew cast, exquisitely cut as those of an artistic specimen of the sculptor’s art. The most striking feature of all [was] those wonderful eyes, deep, penetrating, full of meaning and intelligence, often illumined with poetic fire. They were indeed the windows of a noble soul. Her conversation was charming, every word being distinctly articulated. … In speech and action she was thoughtful and deliberate. While of susceptible and delicate organism, and in every way womanly, she had great decision of character. So deep were her convictions and potent her sense of morality, that we believe she would more readily have surrendered her life than act in opposition to them.”


When she got to the part about the unusually high and expansive forehead, a few of us giggled a bit about Eliza being described that way - as if a woman would want to be known for a huge forehead!  Without missing a beat, K, a hairdresser, said in the sweetest, most sincere voice, "Awww, well we could give her some bangs?"  This was met with peals of laughter from the class.  I don't know if I've ever laughed that hard at church.  

Knowing of Eliza's penchant for fashionable clothes, I gave her a cute, wispy 'do.

Sur la table

1.  My family has not fit around one table since 2008.
2.  A table large enough for my family, and which does not violate (A) My Unwavering Rules on Style, apparently exceeds (B) My Unwavering Limitations on Budget.  My conundrum is compounded by my lack of proximity to an Ikea.

See this table?  It's a Restoration Hardware piece, made from reclaimed English pine, and I've been pining away (ha!) for it for some months now.  Actually, any of these would suffice.  Unfortunately, it (and all of its linked cousins) violates (B) above.

And this?  It clearly violates (A) above.

And then there is this, which cleverly violates both sets of maxims.

While searching the internet for the gajillionth time the other night for an acceptable table, I came across Ana White's amazing DIY furniture website, and I found this:

Ana actually built the above table with scrap wood and $9.98 worth of screws.  That's reason enough to like her.  But I also like her because she's a girl, she makes stuff herself, her plans are free, and they're almost - almost- simple enough for me to follow.

Enter my dad.  

My dad knows his way around his little workshop, and I knew he could help me figure out how to alter the plan for size (it specifies 38x96" and I need 48x120") and a few stylistic upgrades.  He came through for me and provided me with an updated cut list and the promise of wood selecting and construction help.  This week we plan to pick out the wood (I'm leaning toward walnut) and get everything cut, and we're shooting for assembly (which he says will take a mere 6 hours or so) this Saturday.  

As I told my dad, I don't mind putting a little money into this since it will be our family dining table, but even with the walnut option, we're looking at spending less that $400 for a 10' long table.  And that's still nowhere near that Restoration Hardware price tag.  

Wanna build one, too?  You can do it with pine dimensional lumber for about $50.  Plans are here, but make sure to peruse the site because there are all sorts of nice projects that most people can handle with simple power tools.  Most people.  

Soffit solutions

When our contractor ripped out the ceiling, he discovered that there were some hot water radiator pipes that might not be able to be moved as he planned.  As it so happens, they make their appearance right over our kitchen sink, angle down over to the right wall, enter the wall cavity, and then poke out again in base cabinet territory.  We knew we could alter the base cabinet (which was just going to be a trash pull-out, anyway) to fit around the pipes, but he suggested we might need to enclose them in a soffit above the windows in order to hide them.  

You can see the painted pipes extending out behind the light fixture and extending over to the right wall

For literally years now, I have dreamed of reclaiming my high ceilings and having cabinets soar to the top.  Call me spoiled, call me overly dramatic, but I have waited a very, very, very long time for my dream kitchen, and the thought of inserting an ugly, boxy soffit into this vision was almost painful.

I agonized, mulled, pondered, sketched.  And then one night - bing!  An arch.  A soffit-that's-not-a-soffit.

A thing of beauty amidst chaos.  Our contractor deserves an award.

Close-up of the offending pipeage

The "George" fixture from Rejuvenation that will hang over the sink

Et voilà!  Lemonade from lemons!