Home Addition: We like orange, part one.

Way back in late October when had the painters here, we decided to paint the same bright orange we painted the front door back in March on the two sets of double doors on the back of the house.  They looked so great...

that we decided to make the garage doors match.  Say goodbye to the white.

As we were preparing the garage doors, we decided to paint the inside of the front door too.  Problem was, the paint was really thick and the temperature was only about 55, so it didn't dry fast enough to get the second coat on and put it back on the hinges. We had to survive the night with no front door!

It was shocking to watch the painter spray the front door and garage doors.  Wow, that's a lotta orange!

But it looks good and we love it.  We love orange!

Home Addition: flamin' hot master bedroom fireplace

This post is a little out of order. I have several other posts in the works to show you progress on the addition to date, but this one is quick and easy so I'll put it up even though the fireplace was done just last week.

We found the mantel, which was installed while we were in Europe this summer, at George's Architectural Salvage way back in July.  It is a floor joist from the Oquirrh School built in 1894 as I explained in this post.

Last week we had a really great tile guy come in and put the rock on the fireplace in the upstairs master bedroom.  We found this "tile"

while shopping for bathroom tile. We both liked it, it was real stone, it was on clearance sale, and it was the look we were going for.  It was one of the easiest decisions of the whole remodel and we love the way it turned out.

Here is the space before.

And here is the space after.

It has a rustic and warm feel and will look great with a sheepskin rug in front of it. We can't wait.

Moab in the Spirit

Drew and I sneaked away to Moab in early December for a sort of early Christmas by ourselves.  It was time for the annual Moab holiday festivities and the air quality in the Salt Lake Valley was horrible, so why not?

Moab is such a small town in the wintertime.  We went for a great walk along the urban path and made it to city hall in time for caroling,

announcement of the citizen of the year and business of the year by the mayor, and the spectacular (I'm being facetious) lighting of the Christmas tree. 

The next day, since I outlawed the bikes on this trip, we were forced to hike.  I took Drew up the Moab Rim trail that I had done on my solo trip back in August.

And then it was the event we had come for: the annual Moab Light Parade!  The Light Parade had 22 entries this year, including this one with an Egyptian theme...

And this one with, as you would expect for outdoor capital of southeastern Utah, a camping theme.

We were not sure what some of the floats were supposed to represent,

But we still enjoyed cheering and watching them go by on main street while we sipped our cold beer and stomped our feet to keep warm.

 
There was no marching band, but there was this:

Golly, isn't that excellent!

This was my favorite float, of course.

We enjoyed the small town feeling for another day before heading back to our busy pre-holiday schedules. 

And so with this post we wish each of our 10 readers out there in blog land a very ...

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Kitchen debut: Friends gather.

It was time to put the new kitchen to the test.  No, the kitchen isn't 100% complete yet - there are still shelves to put up, an island to buy, lighting to install in the upper cabinets, and a back splash to fabricate and install, but the appliances all work and we are at a point where friends are not scared they will get lung infections from inhaling dust anytime they visit. So it was time to host a gathering or two.

Gathering #1 FRIENDS!


For our first official party in the new space, we invited our good friends Jeff & Lisa

plus their two little boys and Keri & Jeff from Sandy

over to visit while Jeff & Lisa were in town visiting from Wisconsin.





For appetizers we ate moose meatball kabobs which I made using some ground moose we received from our Alaskan friends.  They were so yummy the kids even enjoyed them.  The main course was beef vegetable stew accompanied by Keri's cornbread and crunchy salad.  The food was all great, but it was even greater to see our friends again.

Jeff and Lisa's cute kids William and Noah entertained Drew all night long.

Jeff & Keri's adult son Clay and his wife Lisa stopped by later.  It was great to host such a lively and fun party.


Gathering #2   THANKSGIVING!

Drew, being the junior captain that he is, had to work on Thanksgiving. But being the savvy captain that he is, he was able to trade his assigned trip for one that had a Salt Lake overnight on Thanksgiving.  Yay!


Drew talked about inviting the crew that he would be flying with over for dinner. I was game, but he told me not to count on it.  So we also invited bike friends Rhonda, Andy, and Carl.  As of Monday, we had 5 for dinner.  The flight attendants accepted our invitation on Tuesday, so we were up to eight.  I thought I could handle that, but since this was the first whole meal I had cooked for that many people, there was some apprehension.  Wednesday after work I made the pies and prepped and cleaned and had things pretty much under control.  Off to the gym on Thursday morning for some pre-pig-out calorie burn.  Drew called while I was watching the Macy's parade from the treadmill with news that he had invited the first officer too so now we were nine! No matter that our table barely seats eight. Not a problem that we only have place settings for eight. We had lots of wine.

The first and last turkey I cooked 12 years ago turned out raw.  If you have not cooked a turkey before, take it from me, they don't always thaw as quickly in the refrigerator as the package says. This year I made sure the bird was completely thawed.  I dressed it with sister-in-law's herb butter, placed it in the new roaster pan we got five years ago for our wedding (proof we don't roast large things), and into the oven it went. The oven automatically turned off according to the internal temperature probe two hours before the turkey was supposed to be done. Oh well, that just left more room to cook the scalloped corn and sweet potatoes.  Guests arrived just as I was finishing up.  It seemed that Mandy, Mike, Constance, and May were happy to be celebrating with all of us instead of hanging out in the hotel.

Appetizers of cheese and crackers, fresh vegetable tray, and hot sweet peppers, went well with the first bottle of wine while I made the gravy using pan drippings.

Happy hour...

was over and it was time for the man to carve up the bird.

It was finally time to eat our feast.

Everything was good, except the gravy got a little too salty.


But we still had room for dessert.  I made two pumpkin pies and a strawberry rhubarb. Yum.

Pies are even better when eaten with friends and served on fancy heirloom china with coffee in fancy china cups.

Our Southwest guests were fun to have and I thought they were excellent guests - they did all the dishes!  They can come back anytime! It is always fun to hang out with Rhonda, Andy, and Carl and they lingered longer chatting and finishing up wine bottle number four.  So all in all, we called it a success. Drew and I were proud to host our first Thanksgiving for such as fun crowd.

Drew's view

Drew sent me this picture as he was flying 13,000 feet above the Salt Lake Valley as he came in for a landing.  Then he took off and flew to Oakland before he was released from duty to try to get back home on this busy travel day.

This is the Bingham Canyon Copper Mine, where I used to work.  Nice view!

Home Addition: Floors

This project has been oh so very long and arduous. Drew keeps saying to me, "we're gettin' there," whenever I stress about one of the many items left to finish without the help of our general contractor.  I am now starting to believe him.  When sitting down to write this post and looking ahead to the next few posts, I realize that we are putting many of the finishing touches on our little big idea we had back in January.  Finally, some "done" pictures to share!

Here is the bathroom floor.  It still needs a good buffing, but the grout is all in.  The shower is actual split pebbles and the main floor is travertine.  It looks warm and earthy. It will be fun to take a shower standing on pebbles.

Here is the 5" wideplank hand-scraped engineered pre-finished hickory in the bedroom.  I love the look and feel of it.  I am not a big fan of the hand-scrapped look that is so popular right now, but this floor's handscrape-y-ness is very subtle and it is not shiny. 

Here is the rustic 3.25-inch red oak solid pre-finished hardwood  in the kitchen and new office/family room area.

We had planned to go with slate tile in the kitchen, because slate is a great natural product and tile in the kitchen is a good choice. But early on in the remodel, we changed our minds and went with oak.  Oak is common in these craftsman bungalows and we like ours in the dining and living room.  We thought using a similar flooring in the new part of the house would tie the old and new in better than slate tile.

Friday the hardwood guy came back to sand and apply a second coat of polyurethane to the stair treads, hallway, and patch between the new flooring and old house.

The blue and green tape will come off after he comes back for the last coat, since we weren't happy with the job they did.

Here is the new 2.5 inch oak in the hallway. This is solid oak and matches the old flooring almost exactly.  Finally, 5 years after ripping out the teal-colored carpet in a fit of home-improvement gusto, we have flooring back in the hallway.

Here is the transition from old existing dining room floor (yellow colored floor in the foreground), to new very similar patch (slightly lighter band), to new pre-finished floor in the kitchen (reddish floor farthest away).  The new flooring is only about a quarter of an inch thicker than the old floor so there is just a small lip and it looks as good as I could have hoped for.

So as I sit here by the new gas fireplace keeping me oh so toasty in my dusty rocking chair, getting a little headache from the last coat of polyurethane on the stair treads, I can finally see the end in sight.

Home Addition: Appliances

After sitting in our living room for over two weeks, the new appliances are finally in and we've had a chance to actually get to know them a bit. I chose the Kitchenaid brand, after much lengthy online research.  My primary reasons for going with the Kitchenaid line were 1) they had a French door refrigerator that could accept custom door panels and was also one of the shallowest and therefore closest to true counter depth out there, 2) they had a quiet dishwasher that could accept a custom door panel, and 3) they had a nice looking slide-in range with a convection oven that got good reviews.

First, the range.  After we installed it and it was operational, I was concerned. The electrical panel on the range was acting up.  I was uneasy thinking there may be a short inside my gas range.  Kitchenaid sent someone to fix it.  Had to put a new computer chip in it or something.

So we were not starting a good relationship with our primary cooking device, but after it was fixed for a week or so, I have to agree with Drew, "this stove kicks ass".

Dang, this baby can cook fast, simmer slow, light quickly, and you can't argue that it doesn't look like it can cook :-).

I've made cookies and a pie in the convection oven so far.  It will take some getting used to, but the oven will be great.

Next, the dishwasher.  It is very quiet and does a good job of cleaning the dishes.  It also looks cool with the custom panel to match the cabinets.

Then there is the fridge.  We had thought about putting slate tile in the kitchen, but chose wood instead.  We do love the look of the wood floor, but there are a couple of downsides.  What we were most afraid of was the eventual leak in the water line to the dishwasher or something of that nature.  We just didn't think we had to be afraid of it two days after the brand new appliances were installed!  Yup, a water line inside the top-of-the-line Kitchenaid refrigerator was not attached correctly at the factory. Note that there was nothing wrong with the connections Drew made; it was a manufacturer defect.  So for two days, each time we would use the water filter, the water in that line would drain back under the fridge on the BRAND NEW HARDWOOD FLOOR.  I finally noticed some cupping of the floor out in front of the fridge on a Friday night, while Drew was on a trip.  I was, um, disheartened. Twenty-seven square feet of the flooring had to be ripped up, let dry for a week, and replaced.

It is all fixed now, and the fridge seems to be good.

The counter depth feature makes for a nice look and fits the floor plan very well, but I would not recommend it for a family.  The French door style is nice for the fridge compartment, but the freezer is pretty tiny.  We'll have to get a separate chest freezer to store our dead cows and birds.

Note to anyone considering custom panels: don't use chrome cabinet pulls and faucets. These door handles were one of only four choices in chrome of the 6 or 7 hardware manufacturers I shopped.  These were only $38 a piece, but the others were $132, a piece.  That would be over $400 in handles, for your fridge. Ridiculous.


The GE microwave, shown here with the blue protective sheet still on, has some very cool features.  Really easy to use. Would highly recommend.  It will eventually sit on a shelf above where it is sitting now.

The hood is a Whirlpool and throws 400 cubic feet per minute of air. It vents out through the dropped ceiling in the adjacent bedroom to the outside, which is a big improvement over our old recirculating impostor of a hood.

I like it for functionality and because it is slightly taller and more beefy looking than the other under-cabinet hoods I looked at, but still allows us to have all that usable cabinet space above the stove.   It was a good compromise for our space.

Although the sink is not technically an appliance, I'll show you it because it is v. cool.

I saw this sink in This Old House magazine and thought it might work nicely in our kitchen.  It does! I love the apron front style and the integrated drainboard is super handy.  As far as I could find, this sink, by Whitehaus, is the only farmhouse apron front with a drainboard. The Delta faucet is also very handy; you turn it on by touching the spout or lever with any part of your hand or arm (or foot or head I guess - I haven't tried).  It is convenient and a nice feature when you have "chicken hands".
 
So there are our new cooking toys.  Now there is no excuse not to cook like my sister-in-law.