This Dip: It's Kind of a Big Dill

 

I've got a lot of dill in the garden this year. Like, a LOT. Mind you, it is totally my fault that we have this predicament. When I first started vegetable and herb gardening many seasons ago, I started some dill from seed inside, and transplanted the little herblets out when the weather got warm. Now, every season, the dill grows tall everywhere, with lots of full feathery fronds and giant seed heads. I let it come and go as it pleases, for the most part. 

This year it's been a little, dare I say, out of control. Even for a person who likes dill. It's shown up in places I don't really care for it to be, like driveway cracks and perennial beds, and I've even had to pull up some of the plants so that they don't shade out other things, like my peppers, which need their fair share of the sun too. 

It's hard to hate the situation, though, because I love the smell so much. Along with cucumbers and greenbeans, it's the smell of high summer in the vegetable patch. I like adding it to flower bouquets, and sometimes I like big bunches of it as a stand alone; it makes the kitchen smell great, even if I'm not making pickles. I'm a refrigerator pickle person. My canned pickles are straight up terrible, and I don't seem to have a knack for heat canning them. 

It's a shame, because if there were a year I could be hitting the dill hard for pickles, it would be this one. I've got plenty of material to work with. And I have stuffed plenty of dill into the few jars of refrigerator pickles I've made so far. But there are only so many refrigerator pickles I can make, and then I'm looking at my dill-weedy garden and wondering why I was so confident, years ago, that setting this plant loose in my garden was such a good idea. 

Another thing I've been trying to do is reduce the number of additives and preservatives in my food. I've discovered that I am sensitive to a few of them, some of them make my eczema worse, and not all of them are great from a healthy diet perspective either. And since one of the worst offenders in this area is salad dressings and dips, I've been experimenting for awhile with homemade ones. I've made a few really tasty and relatively healthy dips (I say relatively, because we're talking mayonnaise here, and there's only so much I can lie to myself), and because of that ongoing kitchen exploration, it seemed like a natural place to use all these bunches of dill. 

And I do mean bunches. I'm not a measurer of things, which gets me into trouble. If I make a terrific and tasty version of something, and didn't measure any of the ingredients while putting it together, I can't replicate it. If someone likes it and asks for a recipe, I have to say I don't have one, which makes me sound like I don't want to share. But I do want to share, and after several rounds in the kitchen with a notepad and paper to jot down what I'm doing, I have a recipe that is worth sharing. 

The only not-a-measurement measurement I will make for this recipe is for the dill itself. You need a big handful of fresh dill, like you see at left. How much is that? No idea. About a 1/3 cup to 1/2 cup chopped, loosely packed? Probably. You can wing this a little. I trust you. 

So, a big handful of mostly dill, but also stuff some chives in there too, also as shown. I'd say this amounts to about 1/4 to 1/3 cup chopped and loosely packed. I know "big handful" is relative: I have rather small hands, and so my big handful will be different than your big handful. But it won't matter, because this is a dip recipe, and it is flexible enough to cope with this inconsistency. 

Strip the feathery leaves off the dill stalks and roughly chop the dill leaves with the chives. Don't go crazy, because the food processor is going to do most of the work. Throw the herbs in the food processor with:

1 cup plain greek yogurt. I am picky about greek yogurt. I use Fage brand 2% fat, and I really recommend it for it's thick texture and mild but tangy taste). For a full fat version, you can use sour cream.

1/2 cup mayonnaise. I'm also picky about mayonnaise and want to eliminate some of the fat calories, so I usually make mine with Hellman's Low Fat Mayo or Hellman's Olive Oil Mayo. You can also use full fat mayo if you like. I will still recommend Hellman's/Best Foods, or Duke's. 

Juice of 1/2 lemon. Or if you don't have a lemon around (it happens), use a tablespoon or two of apple cider vinegar. 

1 T. minced garlic. That seems like a lot. It is. Trust me. 

1 T. dijon mustard. I prefer coarse ground. 

1/2 tsp. kosher salt

1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

a pinch of sugar

You need to pulse this only a few seconds in the food processor until it is thoroughly blended. Seriously, you will spend more time rummaging around in your condiment rack and scooping stuff out of tubs and jars than you will processing this up. Most of the time I make this, it is a thick pour out of the processor, and it sets up a bit once it's had a chance to meld flavors in the fridge for a few hours. Other times it's very thick and a tablespoon of milk will help get it to the right consistency if you'd rather use this as salad dressing, which you can totally do.  It makes just shy of 1 3/4 cups of dip, and you can double the recipe if you've got a crowd coming, or if your people are just total dip hogs (we know who we are). 

This dip is great with raw veggies and crackers or chips as a dip. It is fantastic on the side of fried green tomatoes. Toss a few tablespoons of capers in it and serve it with grilled salmon. Throw in some grated, drained cucumber and a drizzle of olive oil and it becomes tzatziki sauce for Mediterranean food. Put it on a buttered baked potato. It's great on salad greens and tomatoes. I'm also thinking (though I haven't tried it yet) that it would be good as the dressing for pea salad, or maybe egg salad too. As long as my dill patch holds out, we will have plenty of chances to experiment. 

This post should make anyone feel better about their half-done renovation

Renovations are supposed to have a start date and end date, right? A before and after. A glorious reveal. 

This post will contain none of those. Instead, I will present you with during, during, during, and, to top it all off, some more during. Because that's how renovations go around here. 

The photo below right is probably the best my kitchen has ever looked in its most recent incarnation. Not saying there's anything wrong with it; there wasn't. I'd moved into my house, put a brand new Formica countertop on refinished 1960s-70s era maple cabinets, painted, and....well. Not much else. 

I was at that time a single parent trying to raise four boys and fix up a house that needed more attention (and of course money) than I could give it. So many things (kids, broken water heaters, yards, jobs) were desperate for my attention that something had to give. Kitchens being the center all things-- meals and homework and craft projects and bill paying and board games-- there's never a good time to have your kitchen all torn up. So I just didn't bother.

I had a list though. I'm good at making long, day-dreamy, expensive lists full of the things I'd like to do to a room. 

That was back in 2012. Eight whole years ago. It seems at the same time an eternity, and a few wild seconds. You'd think that in that span of time I'd have ticked off a majority of the boxes on that list. 

Nope. 

The kitchen pretty much has looked the same ever since I put the paintbrush down in the summer of 2012. 

In the summer of 2014 my sliding glass door cracked, at a time when money was tight. (I'm trying to remember a time when money wasn't tight.) It waited months, until the spring of 2015, before I was able to get a new one installed. Living with it even for a few months was really discouraging for me. I'd spent so much time and some hard earned cash to make it be basically okay looking and functional, and it seemed like a huge step backward. 

In this collage photo, on the left is the half of the broken sliding glass door. On the right, the newly installed one. 

I was supposed to have painted the trim and sliding door frame on the new install. That also hasn't happened yet. Five years. I suppose that gives you an idea how much I hate painting trim. 

One of the up sides, if you can call it that, of living a long time with a DIY list while you DDI (Don't Do It) is that you are usually pretty darn sure what isn't working in the space by the time you finally get around to crossing an item off the list. 

The big ticket item on that list for this room of our 1939 house was the windows. The window over the sink, and big one in the eat-in area were 70s-era casements. They were poorly installed and poor quality, which meant the kitchen was freezing in the winter, and roasting hot during the summer (the kitchen is on the northwest corner of the house). The crank mechanisms didn't work very well any more either, and screens were missing. Over the sink, one of the panes was replaced with plexiglass, which was clouded and scratched. 

Those 70s-era fabric curtains were wool, lined on the inside with a heavy felt backing. In the winter they kept out the drafts, in the summer, some of the heat. 

Over on the aesthetic side, the windows were ugly. They didn't match the windows in the rest of the house, which are white eight-over-eight or six-over-six double hung windows. And the dark brown trim seemed to trap the light right at the windows, never getting into the room. 

This year, finally, we used our tax return to fund window replacement. Tom decided that he didn't want to do the install, so we hired it done. This turned out to be a magnificent decision for the welfare of our sanity and our marriage (which are, as you might guess, unavoidably related to each other). 

These are Marvin fiberglass windows, with wood trim that still needs painting, but matches the trim in the rest of the house in design. The white color bounces tons more light into the room, and makes the space seem bigger. The sashes tilt in for cleaning. Everything about them is sleek and bright and smoothly gliding, basically everything our janky old windows were not. 

Over the sink the new window does an impressive job keeping the sun from heating up the kitchen in

the afternoon, even without a curtain or blind. And while I did not request it, the windowsill is deep enough to host ceramic chicken planters. I'm shocked that Marvin did not advertise this feature in their full-color brochure, but you can see I wasted no time in claiming some windowsill territory for my poultry (and houseplant) shenanigans. 

Eight years later, I'm not much closer to "after" or "reveal" with the kitchen, but these windows made such a huge difference that we feel a bit more energized about the possibilities. At any rate, we're going to bask in the joy of newness and accomplishment while we consider where we go next, which is: 

Paint. The new trim needs to be painted. While we're at that, we should paint the sliding glass door trim. It has also occurred to me during the last eight years that while I like the color green, the shade I chose for this room is too dark. After eight years it's looking pretty tired, and I admit I'm tired of it. 

Dishwasher. The dishwasher was old when I moved in, nine years ago. I think it's probably about 137 in human years, and has reached the unfortunate stage where it removes the food from the plates and puts it on the silverware. Basically, it's overdue for a meltdown, which, following Appliance Law, occurs during the least convenient moment (Thanksgiving, in a dishwasher's case). I see a Labor Day appliance sale in my future. 

Floor. I had ambitions about the floor when I moved in, in 2011. It was disgusting then. It has reached a nadir, but it's another big ticket item in a year full of them. It will probably have to wait. But will it be another five to eight years before a big change in our kitchen? 

Not if the dishwasher has anything to say about it. 

In My Kitchen

My kitchen.

Lately, it is the only place I want to be.

It almost never looks like this, though. That photo up top is an older one, "showing the house for the blog" clean, and well, we definitely don't live like that. Ever. 

It often looks more like this, when I'm in the throes of some manic baking (that's a thing, here.)

Women aren't supposed to cook the way I do, any more. We aren't supposed to have the time. I don't either. And yet, I still shove little bits and pieces of my schedule aside, put in some prep hours on Sundays, cook two meals on a free night to have a hot meal on the busy one, anything I can do to elbow other priorities out of the way so that I can cook.

I don't always want to. I cook regularly for five, all with different tastes and preferences, some of them finicky. Some (most) days I come home tired from work, and I get out of patience for everyone's delicate sensibilities when it comes to casseroles and vegetables and whatever else. Fine. Eat a sandwich for all I care. There's a local breakfast cafe that has its cheeky motto painted on the wall: "Just like home, you can't always get what you want." True that. There's not a lot of romance to the day in, day out aspect of cooking.

When the entire crew visits, which is my kids plus Tom's kids (eight of them), I cook for armies-- grandparents and significant others and friends. We budge around the edges of rooms crowded by expanded tables and cook extra potatoes in big pots and take out the trash, hourly it seems.

The kitchen is not only hard-used, it's showing it. When we moved into this house I had installed new Formica counters and a stainless steel sink on the early 70s-era birch cabinets, refinished those, and painted. I never got to the floor, which is fake vinyl parquet, with broken corners and permanently ground-in dirt.

There's almost always flour  spilled on it; it's ugly and dirty and mopping seems to make no difference.

The dishwasher keeps chugging along, but it is more than 10 years old and I fear every day might be its last. The refrigerator drawers make me cuss.

But I want to be here. In my kitchen. Even when it's a mess, even when it's just hot dogs, even when it's crammed to bursting with people and pots, even when I think for the billionth time that those janky casement windows are going to be the reason we freeze (winter) or roast (summer).

Why do I want to be here? It's too easy to simply say I like to cook, because there's more to it than that. There's something more essential going on. I know this because especially now, with the world gone mad and work gone dull and schedule so full, I find myself, every weekend, up in my own kitchen, scrubbing the counters and making grocery lists, chopping vegetables and inventing bread recipes.

Cherry-almond bread. It wasn't a failure, but the experiment needs further research.

Some of it is in the genetics. The women who raised me cooked because they had to, but also to sustain family labor, to celebrate milestones and endure griefs, to show love. I know there are dietary experts out there who decry the use of food as way to show love, but I feel they are dead wrong, feel it so strongly that it's probably worth an entirely separate piece of journal writing.

There's an old relationship self-help book called the Five Love Languages, and it names "acts of devotion" as one of those languages. Cooking and baking are my act of devotion. That's why, when people ask me "why are you going to that much trouble?" when I've dirtied every bowl in the house making a particularly difficult cake recipe, or decide that homemade tomato soup really is better than canned, I blink at them. The word "trouble" never entered my mind while I was doing it. It is why, even though I am an introvert and am sometimes overwhelmed by a packed household, I will gladly plan meals for as many as 15-20 people at a time, populate my kitchen with volunteer (or not so volunteer) potato peelers and dish washers, and siblings being silly. I may be on the sofa with a cup of coffee and a book the next day, restoring my introvert equilibrium. But I will never regret the act of devotion inherent in those meals, those cakes, those occasions.

It's not just the cooking, either. Acts of devotion have taken a lot of forms in this room.

Like flirting with the resident handyman as he passes in and out, working on his own acts.

And represented in items from others, like this pie plate from my sister and quilted runner made by my mother. I love all the warm colors.

 Celebrations of all sorts:

Ben and Joe are 14 now. That was fast, wasn't it? They still like as much candy and frosting on the cake as I can manage, though.

Spending time together, doing whatever:

Let me introduce you to Eli, Tom's son, who was teaching himself how to knit two Thanksgivings ago.

I'll also freely admit to some pretty low-rent drinking in this kitchen. Maybe not an act of devotion exactly, but there it is, part of the mix. Some of the best times I've ever had with friends have been drinking at my kitchen table with a bowl of chips in the middle, card game optional.

That goes for the refrigerator magnets of questionable humor, as well. We have questionable humor in this house as a general rule, though, and it gets us through a lot of days where the acts of devotion are harder to manage with grace.

It's been a trite turn of phrase forever that the kitchen is the heart of the home. I think it's probably actually the hands, because I keep returning to the idea of those acts of devotion. Those acts. Just like the cooking and baking, it must be practiced daily to keep getting better at it--not just the glory and pride of serving up some beautiful thing to others, but also the time, the preparation, the work, the attention to detail, the correction of errors, the cleaning up of the daily living of life afterwards. There must be rhythm, ritual, regularity, and maintenance. Sometimes there are messes to clean up. It can't be done any other way than getting your hands on it, and getting to work.

I seem to need that part of my kitchen right now, and it's why I want to so fully inhabit it. I've got things I need to get my hands on. I can start, at least, with making dinner for the people I love. What comes next, I'll learn by practicing daily. 

No More Sad Door!

Remember when this happened?

My broken sliding patio door. That was in August. I've been living with it since then.

Even before it was broken, it was a leaky, builder's grade (or worse) door, with "curious" installation issues.

My house isn't that green. This is a weirdly-colored photo

Granted, part of that was my fault because I take forever to make a decision about large purchases. I really agonize over them. Since the screen porch (and a glass storm slider on the outside) protected the door from being either dangerous or leaky, I just let it ride. Winter in Iowa is a terrible time to do window and door replacement, too.

But it also was depressing. It made my kitchen seem trashy and uncared for in a big way, I was embarrassed when I had company over, and spending time in my kitchen gave me the sads. I know I'm going to sound a little overly tragic and possibly whiny by saying this, but I think the door was one of the factors in my winter blues this year. Seriously.

When I checked out patio doors at the big box stores, I wasn't enthused about their products; some of them seemed suspiciously low-cost. Installation could be purchased too, but those are subcontracted out and I had no idea who would be working on my house. I wasn't crazy about the store getting to decide that part. And sales people didn't seem particularly knowledgeable about their product, which made me nervous.

I also got a few bids from large-scale roofing/window/door companies, and got discouraged. Don't get me wrong. None of them were bad people, or bad contractors. But they are too big for their britches and do bulk ordering of just one or two lines of products. I decided I didn't want vinyl-clad windows or doors in a 1930s house. I just didn't. They may be what's economical. They may be "what everyone else is getting." But it wasn't right for my house, and in talking to just two contractors I got tired of being told why what I wanted wasn't what they wanted to sell me. It was also clear they didn't want little one-off jobs like mine. And the bids for the labor part were priced accordingly. Unreasonably high. Like they wanted their bids to be rejected. I think they did.

So I did. But that didn't leave me any closer to finding a) a patio door and b) an installer. In February I finally found a place, north of town, which is part of a small local chain of construction supply stores. They deal mostly with people in the trades, but also do business directly with homeowners. They have a recommended list of installers. They have people who actually know the products they sell, and explained it to me thoroughly, and were happy to price out several different options.

This wasn't the cheapest option of all the places I looked. But look at this!

Is that not the most beautiful thing you've ever seen? It was to me. I sorta peeked around the edge of the kitchen doorway, not knowing what I'd think, and......I actually had to stifle a few tears. The installation dude probably thinks I don't get out enough.

The green in this picture is much closer to real life. 

Clearly I've got some painting to do, and yes, my kitchen floor still needs replacing. But wow, wow, WOW.  I'm so glad this is done!

Look At My Purty Dishes

On Tuesday I showed you my "new" printer stand, a vintage turntable cabinet. But oh, that's not all. I feel like it's third grade here on the blog this week, and it's show and tell. Every day.

One of my cousins is in the process of cleaning out the estate home of her aunt, and she picked out a box of stuff she thought I would like, and sent it along home with my Mom last week. Boy, did she have my number.

The items above from left to right are: a pressed glass spoon holder, an opalescent glass cream pitcher, and an amber Depression glass dish. I threw them on top of a dishtowel so the colors would show more in the photos, not necessarily to confess to you that I never iron anything. So there's your "keeping it real" moment for this blog post.

I'm one of those ladies who likes all sorts of "purty dishes" (say dishes with a long squishy southern vowel-- "deeshes") for entertaining, flower arrangements, holding eyeglasses, mail, and jewelry. Heck, I may even use that spoon holder as a spoon holder. I do, yes, have to actively manage my inclinations at garage sales, auctions, and thrift shops, or I'd have cupboards full. Cake stands alone are their own category.

Look at these!

Are these not perfect for my 1960s avocado supreme kitchen? The mixing bowls are especially great, because I've been needing some smaller-scale bowls for cooking. The casserole is a 9-inch square. They are all a Pyrex pattern called Spring Blossom.

There was also a loaf pan and a gigantic shallow casserole, almost 9x13 pan size. I'd never seen one that large.

And then there was this wonderful thing:

Anyone for some Tang? 

I could see myself serving mojitos in this. Tang mojitos? Hmmm. It's so summery looking. 

I am so grateful to Valerie (holla, girl) for thinking of me. All of these items are welcome to my home and will be used. 

I have to be honest and say I'm also grateful because it's hard to blog about progress on the house when, well, there's been no progress on the house. While all of these recent acquisitions have been great because they are wonderful in and of their own selves, I have to admit they've saved my blogger behind this week. 

I'll be back next week with some decor updates, some garden updates, and some project updates.

Kitchen Revamp: Part III

This end of the kitchen, the eat-in area, has been done for awhile. It's been a lack of sunshine and good interior lighting that's held off this post, and at this point I'm ceding defeat, trying to take photos facing into a window. I wish I could have all my bloggy-babes in for a glass of wine and personal tour, because it's so much warmer, cheerful, and oh, so......1968 in this room. I guess in that case it would need to be chablis and a cheese ball with ritz crackers, right? 

Here's a tiny glimpse of before-ish (I'd already primed the muddy dark blue window wall):

Are here's another view slightly to the right of the first, below. 

The louvered double doors on the left lead down to the basement (or, as I like to think of it, ground zero of the worst craft supply and tool explosion ever.) That's a future post. The skinny door on the right is the Pantry Closet of Weird Smells. Yes, capitalization. That is also a future post. The dark edge of the far left of the picture is the doorway into the "formal" dining room, if "formal" is a word that can be used in any house that I live in. 

Our family dinners are lovely here. A round table is a democratic arrangement, a circle of family members rather than the more formal arrangement with the hierarchical head of a rectangular table. I'm a little sensitive to the ways in which we occupy our space, and this just feels right for this kitchen and for our family. I'm glad I took this table and chairs home with me. 

The one thing that doesn't really "fit" the 1960s vibe in here is the cupboard in the corner. I cherish it because it's from a family member, and they purchased it in 1949. It doesn't really "show" in the photos, but the red and black design painted on the glass are really drawn out by the bittersweet reds and dark outlines of the floral designs in the curtains. The cupboard also holds my chicken collection; I keep ceramic ones because I'm a frustrated chicken farmer. We'll take a tour of them in a future post too. (Notice how I've promised three future posts in this one? Sheesh, girl. Hush up already.)

The original lighting in this part of the kitchen is anybody's guess. When we moved in there was a gigantic, builder's grade white ceiling fan with big canister downlights. It was spectacularly ugly, and layered with dust and grime.

I found this light fixture with the lovely folks at OrWa Designs. Their Etsy site not only sells some pretty awesome interpretations of Midcentury Modern furniture, they also have an excellent eye for vintage light fixtures.

You'll notice in some of these shots it's hanging a bit higher than the conventionally advised 36 inches above the table top. That's because the work area of the kitchen is one step up from the eat in area, and hanging it that low meant standing in the other side of the kitchen and being able to peer down into the inside of the fixture, glaring bare light bulbs and all. So I decided that higher was better in this case.

There is not much wall space for art in this room, and really, the curtain fabric is so graphically strong it doesn't need much anyway. But in a sliver of space between the end of the cupboard run and the sliding glass door (which doesn't make much of an appearance in these photos because I don't want the yucky mauve screen porch paint to be spoiling my kitchen party) I tucked a couple of items:

My sister's little oil painting of a nuthatch seemed like just the thing. I'd been looking for a place to hang it where it wouldn't get lost on a huge wall, and where I would see it every day. The key hanger (wonky hooks and all) was originally hanging in the that spot when I moved in, but it was so grimy and tarnished it was green. I kinda think of it as so tacky it's cute, so I took Brasso and old rags to it, and found its shine again.

In one of the photos above you'll notice some botanical prints of apples hung to the right of the pantry door. They are special to me because they were literally the very first vintage thing I ever bought, with my own money, when I was just seventeen. They're chromolithographed pages from a U.S. Department of Agriculture reference book from the 1900s.

I hauled them around for years before I was old enough to hang them in my own home, and at that time I invested quite a bit in having them framed professionally. While the gilded wood frames seem a little 1990s to my 2013 eyes, at least I chose a relatively simple frame style, and I'm not going to mess with trying to update them.

The bowl on the table is a vintage find. It's big, sparkly, and green, and I love it.

Sometimes there's fresh fruit in it. Other times it's empty, and I'm debating what should go in it. It should be fun to find various things to feature-- shiny gold Christmas ornaments from thrift stores is a good possibility for the holiday. My youngest, Joe, voted for keeping it filled with M&Ms.

I've got one or two more smaller posts to wrap up the kitchen revamp reveal, and then it will be time to move on to other things. The upcoming weeks will not be good for home improvement progress--we've got a trip, some entertaining obligations, and some planning to do before we take our next steps in April. What are next steps? Planning some outdoor projects, and beginning some smaller scale cosmetic upgrades to the main floor bathroom. The latter will involve ridding the universe of another bit of mauve paint, which is only for the good of humanity. I'm looking forward to it.

Kitchen Revamp: Part II

In order to discuss the next few feet of counter space in my kitchen, I've really got to start, indirectly, with love and habitual routine. 

You'll remember, from my first Kitchen Revamp post, that Mr. Man had given me some yellow tulips to mark the post-Valentine's Day Day. 

Because he's carefully observed how tetchy I am about the horrible-ness of V-Day. 

Careful observation is part of his charm. When we first started spending time together, I noticed him watching me making coffee, and asking rather particular questions--why this coffee cup, how much cream is too much, how many scoops--while I made a pot of coffee. 

Scrutiny makes me nervous, and I am ashamed to say I got a little defensive. "Why are you asking me?" I felt a big "here-let-me-show-you-the-right-way-to-make-coffee" coming on, and it was going to make me mad. 

"I just want to know exactly how you like your coffee. So I can make it for you." 

It is routine, now, that when he is here at my house he makes me coffee, fixed exactly the way I like it, and brings me a cup. 

The only problem with our morning coffee and late night coffee and warming up a cold afternoon coffee was the coffee pot. It was an inexpensive model to begin with, and the wrong kind of "vintage"-- just plain old, stained, and worn out. To put it bluntly, in two years we've been together, we brewed the crap out of that old thing. 

So it seemed only natural that part of the kitchen revamp should include: 

I was surprised to find a green appliance that wasn't bright neon green or Jadeite mint green. It is perfect, not only for my kitchen, but also for the lovely habitual routines of Mr. Man. If he's going to bring me coffee, it's only fair I should bring him a coffee pot. 

The other thing sitting on this end of counter is the fruit. In previous incarnations of my kitchen life, I used a tiered plate stand that I bought at a Southern Living at Home (now called Willow House) sales party. 

I like it, but in this smaller house and smaller kitchen, it seemed huge. It felt like it was taking up the entire counter space. I still have it and it gets lots of use during the holidays and large gatherings, but I was looking for a vintage something more in scale with my kitchen. 

I found this: 

I love the browns and greens, the roosters, and the smaller size. 

Though it is more modestly proportioned, it still holds plenty: 

Here the two contestants are side-by-side:

Now the entire run of that side of the kitchen: 

Some little details: 

The counter ends in a curved extension that floats over the step-down into the eat-in area. That's the trash can underneath it, in the lower right hand corner. I'm not in love with the idea of the trash out in the open, but the area under the sink was completely unmanageable. 

I shortened the blinds for the window, but did not make curtains for it. At least not yet. I'm a bit puzzled about how to fit curtains to this window, boxed in as they are by the upper cabinets. I'm also thinking of replacing this window with a weather-tight, paned window, which might also mean refitting both the shades and any curtains. Anyhoo, curtains here when I get around to them will break up the brown/green baseline I've established with the paint, cabinets, and kitchenware. 

The floor is vinyl wood grain parquet, looking every day of its thirty-odd years, and the dishwasher is dinged up but still working okay. They are both on the replacement list for the near future (next two years). 

I'd love some plates hung on the soffit to add a little more color and pattern to this wall, but those will have to come to me when the time is right. I think forcing a room to "finished" ends up looking just that, forced; so I'd rather have it look a little spare to begin with. It's not like I have a problem collecting things, for crying out loud. 

IRL, the countertop directly above the dishwasher is usually stacked with plates and glasses, the yogurt cups and granola bar wrappers the kids didn't toss, and smeary peanut butter knives. I wouldn't want you to think I'm this clean all the time. In fact, this is a rare moment of blog fantasy. It lasted about five minutes after I put my camera down. 

We've been plagued with dark gray day after dark gray day here; it's made indoor photography difficult. Because of that and the fact that it is snowing madly here as I write this post, I won't make any promises for this week. Just know that I'll be back with another installment soon! 

Do I Have To? Shorten Window Blinds

It's March and time for another installment of "Do I Have To?" the whiners way to get un-fun stuff done. Since I've started this monthly feature, I've painted some trim, organized a part of the basement, and pulled up carpet staples. This time, the chore is:

Shortening window blinds.

Everybody all together now: YAWN.

If the world were perfect, all of us would have the cash for custom-made window shades and blinds.

But my kitchen window blinds are pre-made and purchased at the home-improvement big box store. At least they can be cut to the width you want in the store while you wait. But they usually only come in one length: super long.

The ones in question at my house were in the kitchen window over the sink, and 60 inches long. That's a lot of extra length for my 38 inch window openings, and whether the blinds were open or closed, there was a lot of bunchy gathers on the window, all the time.

Not having blinds was out of the question in this window, which faces due west and heats the kitchen up like one of Dante's levels of hell in the summer. (A separate blog post would be about how much I hate these leaky, horrible casement windows, but lets just tackle one thing at a time, shall we?)

So here's a step-by-step how-to for shortening blinds.

1.

You'll need a pair of household utility scissors (you don't want the nice sewing scissors for this job), a glue gun, and a tape measure. If you need to protect your floors from some light do-it-yourself action, you'll also need a drop cloth, like I have here. The largest uninterrupted floor space in my house is in the dining room, so that's where this kind of monkey business usually happens.

2.

Let the blind out to its full length. This is easier to do BEFORE you take them down, so do it first. No really, I'm not just hiding the dirty dishes.

3.

Take 'em down. Mine are held to the mounting brackets by a wing nut on each side, and this is fairly typical of stick or bamboo blinds. Make sure you have a handy spot to stash the hardware while you're doing the job. 

4.

Lay the blinds down on your work space upside down, or with the backside facing up. Here you'll notice a system of cords and rings that are attached to the back of the shade, and run through the pulleys at the top of the shade to pull them up. The last ring on the cords leaves about 8 inches of shade at the bottom.

5.

Make sure the pull cords in the front of the shade are pulled up and out of the way during this entire process. These you do NOT want to cut.

6.

Here's a close up of the cord system. It consists of a braided strand with loops that go through each metal ring on the back of the blind, and the cord that is pulled to draw the blind up. You can see how heat and UV exposure is already causing the blind backing to crack and deteriorate.

7.

Measure your window, and then the blind. My window opening is 38 inches long, and that's how long I want the FINISHED blind to be. Cut the cord system there.

8.

The nearest metal ring loops above my chosen finish length are at about 33 inches down the length of the blind. The draw cord (the plain brown cord on the left in this photo above) now must be knotted to this loop.

9.

Make a knot, without pulling the cord tighter or making it loose. I wish I'd paid more attention in Girl Scouts. This is just a simple double overhand. Do this on either side of the blind. (My blind only had two sets of draw cords on the back. Wider blinds will have three or four. Repeat this step across the whole blind.) The looped braid should still have its loop in the metal ring. You can cut off excess, leaving about one inch ends.

10.

Flip the blind over to the front so you can see the sticks and slats. You want to give yourself a generous amount of extra for the cutting and hemming process, so add at least four inches, like I did here. I'm cutting the threads of the blind between the slats nearest to 42 inches for my 38 inch finished length.

11.

Start unraveling the vertical threads that weave the blind together, and remove slats and sticks for a few inches, until you have some length of threads, like this:

12.

Tie knots on each vertical row, to prevent further unraveling. At this point the blind should be 1 to 2 inches longer than your finished length.

14.

Now, trim the ends off the knots, and any backing that was left hanging down. The backing was really shedding lots of fibers, so I was glad I put down the drop cloth.

15.

Flip the blind back over to the back side again. Find the nearest "fold" in the slats and sticks to your finished measurement, and be generous with the hot glue gun. Please be careful. It took me a few mishaps, swearing swears I didn't even know I knew, to understand that a "high temperature" glue gun, by golly, is really $%^# hot.

Fold it over and press firmly. Sometimes a few strings of glue will pop out the front, but once it cools they are easy to strip off.

16.

Rehang. This looks much smoother and less bulky. The blind on the left looks a little shortened, but that's because of the crank-handle at the bottom of the window getting in the way.

Next month I hope to do an outdoor "Do I Have To?" Then again, it is the Midwest. It's best not to bet on the weather here. See you in April for the next installment!