Several Free Finds

Things are heating up around here. No, not the temperature (*sigh*), I'm referring to the number of free items on the sidewalk in my neighborhood! Last weekend made for a particularly good haul.

It started Friday evening as we walked to get some dinner. I found this wonderful little plant stand sitting next to a garbage can. I'm going to paint it chrome and have already ordered this spray paint.

Wouldn't it look sweet in a bathroom with toilet paper and towels rolled up on it?

Then Saturday afternoon I found this little table on the side of the road. It needs a few screws tightened and I'll paint the legs but I'm not sure yet what color.

I love the look of the top so for now, I'm thinking I'll just seal it.

I also picked up this little tray at the same location as the table. I'll probably paint and stencil it. I'll add some handles and it would make a nice tray to carry food and drinks outside (yes, I'm dreaming of warm, summer evenings).

Finally, on Sunday as I walked up to yoga, this window was tossed to the curb. I figured if it was still there on my way home then it was meant to be mine! Old windows sold really well at my last sale. They're very versatile and can be used outside, hanging from an eave, for some privacy, or inside.

I'll be sure to post the after photos of these items once I have a chance to finish them!

Pressure Cooker Love

About a month ago I finally purchased the pressure cooker that was on my Amazon wishlist for years.

I've already made pulled pork, Chicken Masala, lentil bacon soup, pork fajitas, macaroni and cheese, and black beans with chorizo! Needless to say, I love it!

I especially think it's going to come in handy this summer when (if?) we get hot weather as it's electric and doesn't heat up the kitchen when it cooks.

Right after it arrived, I picked up an 8 lb pork shoulder roast and cooked it for an hour in the pressure cooker using this recipe. We had pulled pork sandwiches that night for dinner and ended up freezing enough leftover meat that we ate 3 more dinners with it!

I purchased it mainly because I loved the idea of having bean soup in less than an hour! Usually it takes hours to make as it simmers on the stove. I've found though, that I use it a lot to cook meat as well.

This Chicken Masala recipe I made a couple weeks ago. I love Indian food and this had all the obligatory spices in it. It was great as a leftover lunch the next day as well.

Naturally, I've made a few pots of beans with it. This black bean soup with chorizo was especially tasty.

I added a little cilantro and sour cream when serving.

With a nice crusty piece of rustic bread, this makes an easy, quick, and healthy dinner.

Most recipes can be converted to pressure cooker recipes by reducing the liquid and time needed to cook. This site offers some great tips on how to convert recipes to cook in a pressure cooker.

My pressure cooker will also work as a rice cooker and slow cooker although I have yet to use it that way.

If you're like me and like good homemade food but don't always have the time to make it, I highly recommend getting a pressure cooker!

A Few Furniture Repurposes

Welcome to Spring! I hope you're lucky enough to be enjoying some warm(ish) weather.  Because of the cold and wet winter we had in Portland, flowers have been slow to bloom. We do have the die-hard daffodils blooming, and of course the daphne is in full scent but other than that it's pretty bare.

Since I'm not in the yard working on the weekends I had some time last weekend to do a few, quick furniture re-purposes.

I shared this table last year. I always thought it was beautiful but for some reason (maybe too formal?) it never sold.

So, reluctantly, I painted the legs and lip white but it still didn't sell.

Last weekend, I finally painted the top and added this stencil to it.

I'll put it in my Home and Patio Sale this July and see if it will sell this time.

Meanwhile, a couple weeks ago I picked up these shelves for free (sorry about the bad phone photo).

These are nice pine shelves with a plate groove cut into them.  I painted them with Layla's Mint milk paint. I think they would look nice in a kitchen holding spices.

I also had an old frame that I had lost the glass to so I converted it to a jewelry (or note or coupon) holder with a little chicken wire that I stapled on.

I painted it and added some burlap to the back over the cut chicken wire so it would be more finished and less likely to cut someone.

All these items will be in the Home and Patio Sale the last weekend in July!

Kitchen Painting Finished

Yes the painters finished up this week and I'm very pleased with the result!

Before we get to the "reveal", I wanted to share the flowers I put together for spring.

Even though it's been raining and grey here forEVER, the calendar does show March and that means spring is around the corner!

This box was originally a bottle box that I repurposed and planted herbs in for Mother's Day last year.

Now it takes on another life as it provides a little color and a hope for spring-like weather.

Ok, on with the reveal!

Every good reveal starts with a before picture, so here it is.

We added crown molding  to the soffits.

Then painted the kitchen and hallway from the original *ALL* yellow...

...to the new greige-ish and white!

There was one snag in painting and I'm glad I hired it out. All the woodwork in the hallway (seven doors!) had latex paint over oil paint. Who would have done that!??? (probably me).

Anyway, it had to be scraped off so the new paint would stick.

I tried to pick a color that blended well with the cabinets, counter top, and floor. This picture shows the true color best.

I'm pleased with how it turned out.

I'm especially glad we opted to put the crown molding up.

To provide more light in the kitchen and because we didn't need it, I removed the blind from the window. Since the blind was original to the house and pretty nice, it got a new life in the bathroom.

I even splurged for a couple new rugs to go with the new paint color. The red rug under the cabinet I got at a Pop-Up-Shop before Christmas. Their rugs are all handmade and beautiful! Check out their website here.

That's it! Several years of searching Pinterest, a year of thinking about it, five months of talking about it and I'm finally finished with the kitchen.

What do you think? Do the colors match Ed and Olive?

Crown Molding Installed

Last weekend we got the crown molding in the kitchen installed. We purchased 4 8-foot pieces of this MDF (medium density fiber board) molding.

We purposely picked this style (flat) because we were placing it directly on the soffit and not on the ceiling.

We cut the boards down to the correct size and then used the nail gun to attach them to the soffit.

So much better!

The tricky part in installing crown molding is when you have an inside corner. Luckily, we had only one.

In this case, one piece is cut at 90 degrees and butts up flat against the wall at the end. The other piece gets the molding profile cut into it so it (hopefully) fits right up against the other piece.

On an outside corner the pieces are cut at a 45 degree angle and the top piece of the molding is cut longer.

This job took us (mostly Jeff) about 3 hours.

The painters are here now so next week I should be able to post the end result!

For now, I'll leave you with pictures of Ed and Olive who are modelling my color scheme for the kitchen!

Here's Olive showing off the lovely burnt orange on her cheek. In the kitchen the color will actually be more of a brick red.

And here's Ed giving us a nice full length photo of all the colors together!

Be sure to check back next week for the final reveal (hopefully)!

A Few Things

I've just got a few things to share this week starting with my STRONG desire to see the end of this winter! REALLY tired of the cold and wet. *sigh* Ok, enough complaining.

We're spending this weekend putting up crown molding in the kitchen as the painters will hopefully be starting next week.

I decided on the Pumice color (middle color) from Miller Paint for the walls.

The trim will be Patti's Pearl (top row second from the left) also from Miller Paint.

Last weekend we made our annual winter trip to Astoria, Oregon for the Festival of the Dark Arts. As usual, it did not disappoint.

There were plenty of people in costume, some really good ones too!

There was also some nice art including this ice sculpture.

The beer, of course, was awesome if you didn't mind being served by ghouls! Next year, we plan on going after 6 pm however, as the crowds seem to really thin out. It's really crowded right when they open at 2.

On our trip home we saw this herd of elk by the roadway. We scared them off when we stopped to take photos though.

Monday is 'Pizza Day' around here and we usually (just about always) make a pepperoni and mushroom pizza. This week for a change we really mixed it up and made this goat cheese, pear, and caramelized onion pizza. I used my homemade pizza dough recipe and added a little arugula as well. It was a big hit and will definitely get some more playing time!

I finally broke down and bought a Pressure Cooker this week. I've had it on my Amazon Wish List for years but never pulled the plug on it. Now, I'm really excited to try this recipe as well as cook dried beans in 45 minutes! CRAZY!

I've been using my new Honey Hopped Soap lately and am loving it! I'm so happy with the scent, the cassia essential oil really held through the soap making process and smells wonderful. Pick up a few bars while they last!

Kitchen Change Of Mind

It's been over three months since I shared my thoughts on doing a small kitchen overhaul. I haven't forgot about it, I've just been stewing over it and I'm glad I did!

I began my kitchen overhaul over a year ago in my head. I thought I'd redo my counter tops, put in a tile back splash and repaint. However, when I verbalized my ideas Jeff pointed out the obvious, that my counter tops were perfectly fine and I just put in a kitchen floor that matched them. I then decided I'd repaint and add some wallpaper to one wall. I'm usually not a fan of wallpaper but there are some real interesting ones now that don't even look like wallpaper.

That's where I left it back in October, I was working up the energy to tackle wallpapering and painting. Then I started looking at Pinterest again...and, well, I've changed my mind a little.

I'm not going to wallpaper and I'm not going to paint. Maybe I should say, I'm not going to wallpaper and someone else is going to paint because that's really what I mean.

Painting the kitchen at my house isn't a big deal but you can't just paint the kitchen. There's a curved wall from the kitchen to the hallway so you need to paint the hallway too and there are SEVEN doors in the hallway! That's why I needed to work up the energy for three months!

When I've painted in there before I've been lazy and just painted all the woodwork and walls and ceiling the same color to avoid cutting in. I didn't want to do that this time; I wanted it to look a little more...professional.

So Tuesday I had two painters come over to work up bids to paint the kitchen and hallway.

Because of my travels through Pinterest I decided I'm going to add some crown molding above and on the kitchen soffit so it's not such an eyesore, similar to this. We're going to do that work ourself as Jeff has a table saw and I have my dad's nail gun and power tools are better than paint brushes!

I've also changed my mind on the colors. I'm going to paint the walls a light greige (Thank you Pinterest! I never even knew that was a color let alone a word before!) and the ceiling and woodwork white. Similar to this.

This color will bring out the gray in my cabinets without washing them out and still be neutral enough to not fight the yellow floor and the brick red counter tops. Well, that's the hope at least.

Here's what the final color scheme will be (roughly, the greige will be a little more grey than beige).

Ironically and completely unplanned, it's almost the same colors as Ed and Olive! DOH!

So, that's where I'm leaving it for now, we've got to install some molding and schedule the painters. Suddenly, this feels a lot more doable in my mind.