Looking Forward to No More Construction!

I'm looking forward to all the construction work being completed on Fred's house.  It's been a true labor of love and friendship spending my unemployment time here (no, I didn't collect from the state this year as that wouldn't be right since I wasn't actively looking for employment).  My goal has been to add value to his house with ideas and donated sweat equity since he had flooding damage as a result of Hurricane Irene in August 2011.

The construction work hasn't been restricted to the flooded area, but to other parts of the house that need attention.

1. Every closet in the house (except the master bedroom) needs serious work to organize as they're stuffed with junk.  They need to be decluttered and reconstructed to better hold items.  
2. The garage needs a new back door, an access/vent panel installed in a crawlspace, but not before an attic exhaust fan gets installed.  The area needs better built in storage shelving and a serious clean out!
3. Fred's basement office needs to be completed.  There are a few ceramic tiles that need to be specially cut and grouted on the floor, and I need to finish floating out the sheet rock seams so it can be primed and painted.  I also need to leave tape marks on the floor so I'll know where the studs are when it comes time to build shelves and then a giant wrap around wall desk.
4. The master bathroom needs the shower stall torn out and replaced, and there's some sort of leak that doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, the water drips down the chandelier in the formal dining room - YIKES!!
5. The guest bathroom needs SERIOUS updating as it's easily 30 years old.  It needs a total demolition and rebuild, but the budget won't allow for that.  The best bang for the buck would be to tear out the old 4"x4" wall and shower tiles, replace all the sheetrock, tear out the double vanity, install new lighting fixtures, and go with a basic color scheme (the builders have three different colors in the room!).
6. The first floor powder room also needs to be updated with paint, new lighting, and a new vanity cabinet.
7. The walk in pantry has yet to get started, but will have floor to ceiling shelving in some areas, a wine cooler and a dehydrator cabinet.  Under the stairwell, pull out vertical racks will be installed.  We need to move the old fridge and the freezer chest from the garage into this space.  There was talk of a possible utility sink installation, but that might be too difficult.  This will be the dream of the gourmet cook/Mom who always needs more space/the canning junkie (like myself).   
8. The basement windows need to be replaced as they're original to the house and are not energy efficient in the slightest!

So far during this unemployment season, we've managed to:

1. Update the outside deck by adding three feet to it, tearing down the old railings and installing new wood and iron balusters, and install new lattice around the base.  It also got a new overhead canopy to allow use of the deck even on hot days.
2. Reclaimed the old furnace room with a new workbench and above bench shelves, painted the room and installed new wiring for additional lighting, installed new sheetrock that had been damaged in the flooding, and created framing for peg boards to hold tools.
3. Build a giant room divider/bookcase around a support pipe in an office/craft space (could be converted easily into a kid's bedroom or play area), installed new sheetrock that was damaged in the flooding, hung wainscotting and installed chair rail and baseboard, build a desk and supporting frame in a old closet that was torn out and turned into a comfy nook, installed new wiring and lighting in the room, and repainted the room.
4. Laid ceramic tile in Fred's future office, build framing over cement walls for shelving that's yet to be built, hung sheetrock that was new and replaced flood damaged sheetrock in the space.
5. Tore out old sheetrock in a stairwell and installed new sheetrock, added new wiring and lighting in the stairwell.  Stripped the old stairs of carpeting and paint, then refinished to the original wood grain, then stained and polyurethaned it.  Added 1"x"1 decorative tiles to the runners/kickplate.
6. Installed sheetrock and wainscotting in the future walk in pantry.

I've been a VERY busy woman since I left my last assignment, but I can't complain as I've developed some incredible skills that will one day help me to build my own house or volunteer with Habitat for Humanity or some other organization.  As hard as it was often working 7 days a week, it's been my honor to help out someone else and make a difference in their life.  Would I do it again?  In a heartbeat!   :)

Yeah, you read that right - I'm starting to consider building my own small house (forgive the really bad music - turn off your speakers!) or a cob house so I won't have a mortgage payment!  Do you see a theme here?  LOL    

What do you do when your start date gets pushed back?

You make lemonade out the situation and take care of another project in the meantime!  I think I can get this next one completed and installed into the closet by Monday or Tuesday if the bureau was treated exactly the same as the drawers (one coat of paint). 

The finishing touches are going onto the cake pan cabinet so I decided to start on an old bureau that has been hanging around this house for years.  It wasn't original to Fred or myself, but when he purchased the house, it was one of two bureaus (one short with double drawers, the other tall with single drawers) left behind by the former owner.

I woke up with the idea that since it is in the bedroom I use when I'm up here (TX is home, but I float around for work and visit NJ to help Fred fix up his home), I needed to do something positive with it as there's already a large bureau in the room that was recently gifted to Fred.  The dang thing has been a tripping hazard in and doesn't allow me to get at the closet (sliding mirrored doors) without leaning over it.  God blessed me with the idea because it hit like a bolt of inspiration - "put the bureau in the closet".   

So my current plan is to strip down this old bureau, reinsert it into the closet, and remake the closet so it looks like it's supposed to be there - a built in for out of season clothes, maybe spare linens, a place to put your accessories, or just junk you don't want cluttering your main bureau.  The top of the closet has those adjustable white metal racks that you see in closets and pantries all over this country - the Home Depot or Lowes "quick closet metal bracket organizing systems".  I'll create something that will add value to the house so when Fred eventually decides to sell, he will have bidders fighting over this property!

The drawers are crappy looking with these awful plastic handles, which I removed.  I remember a few years ago at Lowes I tried to find new handles, but they didn't have anything that fit, so I'll have to try again to see what they have in stock that will fit the bill.  In the meantime, I didn't toss them out in case I come up dry.  If I get to the finish line before I find new handles, I'll have to make new ones out of something...don't ask me yet as I'm having trouble visualizing that option.

I also have to come up with a new door setup for the spot as you can't pull out the drawers with the sliding mirrored doors as they open only half way.  I think I'll have to go with shutter style bi-fold doors and see if I can reclaim the mirrors from the existing doors.  

I stripped all the drawers down to the bare wood, which wasn't bad at all since it was only one layer of paint over polyurethane and stain.  Tomorrow's supposed to be a really nice weather day, which means these drawers should be nice and dry, making them perfect to sand.

Although it must be done, I'm not looking forward to carrying that bureau down a flight of stairs tomorrow and then hauling it back up in a few days.  I will confess to looking forward to the completed results and an efficient closet.

The first task I'll tackle will be the last major piece of work on the cake cabinet - polyurethaning the top to protect the hard work I put into it.  The rest of the piece will remain natural.  As soon as that's done (we're still struggling as to how to mount specialty handles on the doors as it's proving to be a challenge), I'll post some pictures.  My friend said the other day she didn't have room for the piece and told me to enjoy it, but I think she's got a serious pang of curiosity about it and may still take it back since God told me to give it back to her.  I bet once she sees it, she'll come and get it!  LOL

Making Homemade Fruit Vinegar

I had to struggle with this concept for awhile before I decided to try it.  Vinegar's so cheap and easy to pick up, but I'm always thinking along the lines of, "What if I couldn't get any vinegar?"  Say you're running short of cash, or some disaster happens - what are you going to do?  So here's another experiment just for the "Does it really work?!?" factor. 

I recently saw on a video post a woman was using the skins from her pineapple to make vinegar, so I decided to do a little bit of research.  Some recipes were a little vague, but I found this one to be quite useful, so I decided to run with it.

Here's the pineapple I started with when I made the pineapple vodka mix, and it was super ripe.

Once I had cut up the meat, I had the skins and top left over, so I began to cut up the pieces and pack them into a half gallon sized mason jar.  There's actually a couple of tricks to this method: if you leave more meat on the peel, it'll stay near the bottom of the jar.  If you're like me and you want to get as much of the meat into something else, those peels are going to be lighter, so place the lighter stuff at the bottom of the jar, and your heavier pieces at the top to keep everything from floating.

I used filtered water and added a half cup of sugar to the water and peels.  At this point, your instinct is to put a lid on the jar.  NOPE...you're going to take advantage of the fermentation process, which means you need a fabric cover.

I used three layers of cheese cloth and used a rubber band around the neck to keep out any pesky bugs.  The mixture needs to breathe, so if you put a cover on, it can't.  Put it in a dark place and stir it once a day to incorporate oxygen into the brew.  Just be careful and remember there's no lid, so don't tip it in a quick grabbing motion or you'll be wearing a nasty brew!

You also need to realize this stuff is going to look like it's rotting in the jar, and it'll turn color before it clears back up again, so don't give up on the mix too soon!

Happy Eats! 

UPDATE:
Here's what the jar looks like after around 30 hours sitting in the cabinet when I took it out to stir and incorporate air in.  It's definitely starting to have a bit of a vinegary scent, but still overwhelmingly the pineapple does make itself known.  Yes, it's supposed to have the nasty foam on the top as it's part of the process, so don't freak when you start seeing it on your jar. 

Making Pineapple Vodka

I bought a pineapple about five weeks ago, and left it out in the window box above the kitchen sink for nearly three weeks.  Fred cut it up for me one morning, and it was obvious at the time that it fermented because it had a strong taste of alcohol.  At the time, I said I was going to head out that day and get a fresh pineapple to repeat the process for pineapple vodka.

 Here she is...ain't she a beauty?  :)  She's been aged in the railing of the deck and in the kitchen window box, and it's so ripe, you can smell it's on the verge of fermenting in its own skin.

I cut up the pineapple and threw the skins and core in a bowl as I have plans for those.  The pineapple is in a half gallon jar, and as you can see, it's even a little bit loose, which is ok since you'll be filling it up with vodka.  Here's a trick - use a cutting board with a groove around the edges.  When the board gets saturated with pineapple juice, simply tip the board over the glass jar and pour the juice in, and you wind up with no waste and very little mess.

I'll confess that I bought cheap vodka this time around from a local distillery, so maybe that's why it was cheap, but since I'm into buying local, I figured it'd give it a try.  If I hadn't poured in every last bit of pineapple juice, I'm sure the last 4 ounces of vodka would've made it easily into the jar.

Tighten the lid well or you'll have the CO2 gas escaping, which you don't want to have happen at this time.  You want it to gas (means it's fermenting), but you MUST crack the jars open every day in the beginning to allow the gas to escape.  If you don't, the lids will buckle and the jar will burst...and all your vodka will go all over the place, and you're out time and cash.  Once the fermentation is going hot and heavy (lots of bubbles in the jar), I move it from a warm location to the fridge to slow the fermentation down; don't worry, it doesn't stop fermenting in a cold environment.  Once you move the jars into the fridge, "burp" the jars every other day for the first two weeks, then you can start backing off to every two days.  You have to keep an eye on the lid - if it's bowed and it's before the "burp", go ahead and crack it open and release the gas.

You want to seal the jars back up tight because you don't want to expose it to air very long or it'll taste like vinegar.  Oh, and it DOES matter what kind of jar you use; mason jars with lids will allow you a much tighter seal to hold in the gas.  Now you might think it's ok to use a plastic bottle or an old salsa jar; your vodka will taste like vinegar if you do because they're not airtight containers.   

And here's the bottled product!  Typically I leave my brews out in a sunny locale so it gets warm and helps get the fermentation process started.  I figure it doesn't really matter too much about the quality of the vodka at this stage as in a year it'll have a great pineapple taste (and when I get back to work in a few days, I'll buy some good stuff and put it away for year when I do this again).

Yes, I let my brews age a solid year, but you don't have to.  Why go through the trouble of aging your mixture?  Well, if you do, then the alcohol has time to develop flavor and character; it's akin to a really good sipping alcohol you want to savor, not slam back shots with.  You really begin to cherish it as "the good stuff"!  

If you chose to ignore my suggestion about the jars and used whatever kind of container you had on hand, skip the fermenting process and just toss it in a dark cabinet and shake it once a day over a 4-6 week time frame.  Pull out the fruit, drain, strain the mix through a coffee filter, and bottle.  Make sure you test your jars first for water leaks as some seals really stink, and you don't want a pineapple vodka "shower" while you're shaking the mixture.

 I never started out to make "homemade hooch"; my goal was to brew extracts for my baking.  To me, I was tired of paying $3-$7 for a bottle of flavoring, and I thought about how vanilla extract was made, so I guessed it'd be the same process with other fruits.  It's not always true, and I suspect my original failures were due to not using mason jars (I ran out of them at the time, and didn't have any clue what I know now), and using frozen, not fresh fruit.  Yes, that does make a big difference from my own experiences...why, I have no idea.

Happy Eats!   :)

The Cake Pan Cabinet's Almost Done

When my friend, Diane, gave me this old, beat up kitchen cabinet that would've otherwise been destined for the trash, I decided I could use the challenge and refinish it.  The "challenge" was I tried to make it into something it wasn't, and when I decided to remake it into a kitchen cabinet (novel idea, huh?) then the ideas on how to fix it up came flooding to me.

I'm bound and determined to finish it by tomorrow because I have so many other things that need to be taken care of before my new job starts in a few days.  I still have to mount the doors, but I couldn't as they're still trying to dry, and it's raining out.  The top needs to be polyurethaned so it'll stand up to use.  The last thing is to attach the new door hardware.

The cabinet has been modified quite a bit from the original piece.  It has vertical dividers so sets of cake pans can stand up on end (a big space saver).  I removed the drawers and salvaged the drawer fronts; we managed to cut up the frame and add a few wood pieces to successfully "mate" them into two large doors.  By going down this road, the cabinet can house larger diameter pans and cooling racks up to 27 inches in length.

Is this kind of project for the faint of heart?  Definitely NOT, but it's worth the aggravation.

 

As soon as the cabinet's complete, I'll post the rest of the finished pictures...and then I've got a lot of work to get done.

I told my friend about how the cabinet was coming back to her so she could stop work on fixing up another old cabinet.  This was supposed to be her Christmas present, but now she's debating if she's got room for it.  

Shelling Beans and Cabinet Work

The garden harvest continues, although the tomatoes are almost done.  This is the second of three HUGE bowls of speckled butter beans Fred's been shelling for two hours now.  He gets this job because he's good at it; I end up totally destroying the pods trying to get the beans out.  I might have to resort to kitchen shears and cutting the pods open in the future.  :)

My big task for today is to finish imprinting on the top of the kitchen cabinet.  It seems like it'd be easy, but by pressing down on a tiny stick, it's amazing how fast you lose the feeling in your fingertip.  Once that's done, I'm going to go over it again to deepen the imprints (if necessary), and then stain the imprinted text.  Once that's done, I'll be able to stain the entire piece a natural oak stain to match my friend's decor.  There's a lot of work before the whole piece can be stained, but I'm starting to think ahead at this point.  I want to have certain things "done" before I start my new contract in nine days, and this is one of them.

When the Heavens Line Up Just Right

Once in a great while, Father God and Lord Jesus just really bless my socks off, and this was a week of such blessings!

My Etsy.com store items are starting to sell, which is great!  It's always humbling and satisfying when you take the time to make great jams and jellies, and someone buys them.  My Facebook page with other items Etsy won't allow (not homemade enough) got a new fan, which is good news, too!

I got a new bowl with a handle on it for my Kitchen Aid, and the description states it should not fit my particular model, but it fits as perfect as the factory bowl does.  It was also on sale at $10.00 off the normal price, so I lucked out.  It's exactly what I wanted for an early Christmas present!  Now when I start kneading bread in the bowl, I can actually get the bowl off the stand without having to call for Fred to help me remove it.  LOL...

The downside was that someone bought the bowl, replaced it with their non-handled bowl, and obviously returned it to the store.  When I say "obvious", I mean the used bowl had scratches and was dirty!  So someone ripped the store off by returning their old bowl and kept the new bowl.  That's just wrong on so many levels, but I'll leave it for you to ponder.

I landed the contract job I'd been praying for, and it's doing exactly what I love and what I'm best at inside the insurance field.  I can't tell you just how happy I am to be working again after having been off 8 full months.  Granted, it seems when I'm "unemployed", I'm working my hardest!

This year from March through July, I helped my friend:

1. redo his backyard deck (added a few feet to it), tore out the old plastic lattice around the base and installed nice pressure treated wood lattice that's been stained and weather protected a second time with Australian timber oil, set up a new canopy system that covers the entire deck, and bought him a double barbeque (one side's gas, the other's charcoal).  
2. We also reclaimed a furnace room and built him a tool room with a workbench and pegboard for his tools.  
3. Then we build a huge bookcase that acts as a divider and storage (around a metal support pipe) and created a workspace and office for me.  It has a handmade built in desk with two support cubicles, and tons of space behind it on the floor to store stuff rarely used.  In the future, there will be ceramic tile put down.  The same tile that stars in the main office/lab will go throughout the basement (except for the workbench area), and has already been purchased along with tons of mortar and grout. 
4. We've laid down ceramic tile in what's going to be his office, and we framed over concrete block walls and hung sheetrock on it to create a space where he can now hang shelves on the walls.  
5. We stripped the staircase down of its old sheetrock and hung a fresh ceiling and new wall, installed new mini spotlight cans so the stairs are well lit, ripped off the old nasty carpeting and stripped the stairs down to bare wood, stained the stairs, and installed really great 1"X1" mixed colored "bling" tiles on the vertical surfaces of the staircase.  

After all this work, we decided to take a break, and only recently have I been doing some finishing work again on the sheet rock.  If all that wasn't enough, Fred and I have been refinishing and redesigning the kitchen cabinet that was given to us, and I KNOW it's going to look phenomenal when it's complete.  We also have a huge walk in pantry (9'x18') that's going to be incredible!  There's going to be a huge food dehydrator and a wine rack (maybe a climate controlled wine cooler), lots of shelves and great food storage in baskets, bins, and under the staircase will also be reclaimed space.  The floor will also have ceramic tile.

God also gave me some great ideas to dress up and finish the kitchen cabinet restore.  He also showed me how to deconstruct it so I could build another for myself, or maybe sell a few.  It's really satisfying when you can see how something's put together and understand enough how to build it from scratch.  When that's completed, it's going back to my friend for her Christmas present, and I'm sure she'll be shocked.  "IS THAT THE CABINET I WAS GOING TO TOSS IN THE TRASH IF YOU DIDN'T WANT IT!?!?"  Yup.  :)   She's going to LOVE the cabinet with its new modifications.

And if all my good fortune wasn't enough....I got a brand new creme brulee kit at a yard sale today.  It was listed at $29.95 on the box, marked down to $10.00, and the woman sold it to me for $3.00!!  Now that's a STEAL of a deal!  I still had one more bonus coming my way, though.  My friend gave me a bunch of stuff when she moved, and just two days ago I was going through a box when I saw a can of butane.  I had NO IDEA what on earth I was going to do with a full can of butane as I had no devices that took it.  Well, now I do!  So for $3.00 I got the torch, a cookbook, a 8"x8"x2" pan, 4 ramekins, and a rack - everything brand new!

God has been VERY GOOD to me this week!

I guess maybe the meringue cookies won't be on the list "to cook" next after all...the possibilities with this torch are almost endless!