Kitchen Refresh

When we built our house, I wanted my kitchen painted a nice, bright, primary yellow. To that end, I chose a paint called "rain slicker."

While I loved the bright, cheery color, I had some doubts from the start about whether it was the right choice. For one thing, the color did not quite match the more mustardy hue of our tile. For another, it was only available in a matte finish, which is not idea for either a kitchen or a house with kids, because it does not wash so easily.



I was happy enough with the color to live with it for a good 15 1/2 years, but this summer I decided it was finally time for a refresh—still yellow, but a shade a little more toward the golden end of the spectrum.

C and I spent two Sundays moving furniture, washing dishes, and sanding, washing, and painting walls, which is pretty remarkable considering how much durn stuff was in the way. (That turquoise cabinet up there? It weighs somewhere around a metric ton—and it's never once been moved, as evidenced by the dust and M's drawings from that time, before we had the cabinet, when I left him alone with a pencil and a stack of newsprint when he was one.) Not to mention the sheer volume of dishes that had to be moved, and in many cases washed (it gets dusty up on those shelves).


The color I chose to replace rain slicker is called "butter cream" but I prefer to call it "National Geographic" because it is the exact color of the yellow border around a National Geographic magazine.



It could also be called black-eyed Susan or goldenrod or any of a number of bright, summery flowers that are just now coming into bloom and have that rich, golden, buttery yellow hue.

It's also the exact color of the original Fiestaware yellow (not a coincidence). So I made a special display of most of my vintage yellow Fiesta (plus one modern cake plate because I'm running out of room for standing up my big plates and platters) to celebrate.

Certain people in this house don't see much difference between the old paint and the new, but that's because they lack a sensitive appreciation of that sort of thing (certain other people claim to hate yellow, which is blasphemy). I think it's bright and cheery, not to mention new and clean and eggshell finish, therefore washable. So I'm pleased.

Small Completions ~ Instant Gratification

Sitting down to write a book is a daunting proposition. I mean, a book is HUGE. When I've spent literally years tinkering with essays and short stories, the prospect of completing something ten times longer is a humbling one indeed.

Just before we left for our trip this summer, I read a blog post by writing coach Sage Cohen called "Honor Every Completion." Sage was talking about the small steps along the way to a big project, but I carried her advice with me on the trail, celebrating each saddle surmounted, each day completed, every significant mile marker passed. It definitely helped to break a 500-mile trek into bite-sized celebrations.

This week, I've been celebrating the first completion in the book process: transcribing my journals. I now have 71,000 words in the computer, ready to be coaxed and cajoled into good writing (a job no less challenging than dragging a family of five over mountains).

But even this mile marker, which is likely the easiest one I'll reach on this book-writing journey, was a long, drawn-out one. In the midst of this big project, I've needed something little and quick and easy to satisfy my need for completion. So I made some fruity potholders and a trivet. They're the knitted version, from Purl Soho. After several failed attempts at knitting lace last month, I picked up some cheap cotton at the craft store and whipped these up over the course of a week or so. Once I re-learned how to knit, each one took me only a little longer than the length of a movie to make. I even made a couple extra for gifts.

I know, I know, after all my talk of my reluctance to return to domesticity, I actually knitted potholders. The only thing more domestic I can imagine making is an apron (fortunately I already have plenty of those). But everyone has to take hot things out of the oven now and then, right? And they're so…fruity! And most of my potholders were pretty grody. 

If these look a little narrow for potholders, it's because they are—I've already burned myself twice. So they take a little careful attention. And I'm sure I'll be grouchy when they pick up their first burnt food stains, but for now I like their shining little selves smiling up at me from the kitchen drawer.

In other kitchen decorating news, Z decided we needed squirrel salt-and-pepper shakers for fall, and I found several pairs like these on Etsy. They're so funny because the native oak trees in Colorado make the tiniest acorns, and the leaves on the shakers are so not oak leaves. But, natural history incongruities aside, they are a festive addition to our fall dining table.

While I was at it, I found this set of orange-and-lemon shakers and they match my new potholders so well I had to get them. They say "Florida" on the other side, but with kind of tacky decals, so I prefer the blank side. I've always wanted a vintage salt-and-pepper shaker collection, and now I'm well on my way there. That's an even easier completion to honor.

La Cocina en mi Casa

It's no secret that I'm a Southwestern girl trapped in a New England Salt Box. Nowhere is this more evident than in my kitchen which, admittedly, has a bit of the feel of a Mexican restaurant.

Said kitchen was the focus of September's installment of my Total Home Reorganization project (really, by the time I come up with a catchy name for this whole adventure, I'll be done with it).

The most offensive part of the kitchen was this corner which I'm sure was just sucking away all of our chi (in fact I'm starting to blame it for the complete and total suckiness that has been 2011). It was always an odd spot, an abrupt dead zone where the cabinets ended and noting else began. I tried a variety of furniture pieces there, but nothing really worked. Then when C put in the dishwasher five years ago, he just moved the cabinet that was where the dishwasher needed to go down to the end and slapped a piece of plywood on top.

Although the plywood came in handy for things like gluing and painting and cutting with exacto knives, it was never attractive and became one of the biggest "hot spots" in our house (that's Flylady speak for "place crap piles up"). Also, one of the kids broke the door off of it, causing it to vomit out the tupperware stored within. It was bad.

Just looking at this picture makes it hard for me to breathe.

 I've had my eye out for the perfect cabinet/hutch type of thing, with shelves on top and doors on bottom, to fill the space for quite some time, but anything I saw in antique stores was either too wide, too short and/or painted with (no doubt) lead paint. Finally, I gave up on the antique and instead picked up a perfectly-sized piece at the unfinished furniture shop when I was there last spring.

In between soccer games and various other weekend activities, I sanded (C actually let me use the power sander), painted (with some milk paint I had bought long ago for another project that never happened) and clear-coated (on the most damp, humid day imaginable, despite the can's warning not to use it in high humidity--I aimed the fan at it and hoped for the best). Other than a few mishaps with doors and shelves sticking to newspapers while drying (oops), it turned out fantastic (if you don't look too close).

You'll note I placed a small wooden stationary box on the end of the counter for C to store his odds and ends, like charging phones, note cards and the book he reads while eating breakfast...I am not entirely un-accommodating.

There was a tense moment when it looked like C might have to take out all of the cabinets in order to fit it into place (I had measured from the end of the counter to the sill of that window in front of it, and thought I had a couple of inches of wiggle room; it turns out, however, that when C put in the dishwasher, he also had to move the cabinets down, so that the last one sticks out beyond the counter). As it turned out, though, we were able to lift it over the windowsill and had a good solid 1/16, maybe even 3/32 of an inch to spare. Whew. (I think C would have been completely justified in filing for divorce had that come to pass).

I haven't completely decided how to deck out the shelves--I keep rearranging things. On the top shelf I hung a tea towel my mom made me for my birthday, and placed a flowery plate and trivet, along with some vases and my Akro-Agate tea sets--that shelf is now officially the floweriest place in this house.  Other shelves hold more useful objects that we use regularly--syrup and milk pitchers and tea pot. I do plan on making a trip to the antiques barn soon to buy something special for it (and, I must admit I've already ordered some Fiestaware off of Etsy).

The bottom shelf holds the kids' dishes so they can, in theory, set their own places at the table. Inside live the Lunch Bots and water bottles (which were transient before and bounced from cabinet to cabinet to counertop before), as well as all the plastic storage ware I still somehow have, despite my efforts to rid our home of plastic (I just can't throw away "perfectly good" and useful items).

Happily (and not entirely by accident), the color of the new hutch (or is it a sideboard? dresser? whatnot? tell me, dear reader, what I should call it) matches closely (but not exactly) the big one across the room, whose shelves have a bit more breathing room, now that some of their contents have moved to a new home.

The fire extinguisher doesn't add a lot to the appearance of things,
but it's nice that it matches the clock.

While I waited for the paint to dry, I emptied and rearranged every single drawer and cabinet in the kitchen. No kidding. I wanted to do it all at once, and take a picture of everything piled on the table, but that would have involved: a) clearing the table and putting in a couple of leaves; and b) enough time to get it all done in one event. Here you can see the contents of just the bottom cabinets piled on the counters and the floor (which was none too clean, so that's kind of appalling).

I got rid of a few things and moved some other things to more logical locations (which, of course, has left C lost in the kitchen). Everything has more wiggle room now, which creates a feeling of spaciousness.

I also cleaned the oven, the exhaust fan, washed all of the decorative dishes and dusted the shelves, and even dusted in that narrow space above the cabinets (oh, how I wish someone would put up some molding so I never have to do that again!)

Aside from the cabinet, I didn't buy much for this project, other than a pot lid rack (have been dying for one of those for ages), some new dish rags and towels (I demoted the grosser ones to either the rag bag or the camping box), and this cute hook for hanging towels:

And, finally, on the door to the basement (which is situated between kitchen and living room), I created an organization center. C had suggested painting the whole door with chalkboard paint, which horrified me (I'm very much a natural-wood sort of person, aside from the occasional turquoise cabinet), and I have been saving corks to make a cork board for somewhere around 14 years. I initially thought I'd buy a giant picture frame at Goodwill, paint it, get a piece of masonite cut to fit in it, place a divider down the middle, paint one half with chalkboard paint, and glue the corks on the other half. Then, at Goodwill, I found two brand-new chalkboards. I snapped them up, spending half (or less) the money that I would have on the other project and waaay less time. I just painted the frames, glued the corks (waited about a week for the glue to dry--perhaps I used a tad too much) and, voila!

I still need to wash the floor (I was hoping C would do it--I told him it would be sexy, but even that didn't inspire him) and polish the table, but those can wait for a dreary rainy day sometime. The next room in line is the sunroom--I was hoping to get it done before the plants came in for the winter, but with frosts predicted for the next few nights, I had to bring them all in tonight.