Coming Soon

We have a lot of projects in the works right now and none of them are completely finished.  (Is any house project ever completely finished?)  We've been hard at work, but three straight weeks of guests, school work, and an upcoming roadtrip have put a little crimp in the work schedule.  Here are a couple of things to keep your eyes peeled for in the near-ish future:

-A front porch spruce-up
-Aaron's clothesline project
-A revamped hallway
-A six-month one year photo update
-A backyard overhaul

So We Sailed On To The Sun...

The dining room has finally come together! Yes, it still needs a few tweaks, but for now it is done.  This project took much longer than expected.   It started in mid-April, only a few short days after we moved in.  Skip ahead to late-August and it is nearing completion.  See the progression of the project in photos and read all about it after the jump!






Here is the room we started with.  The second we stepped into the house we knew the wallpaper would be coming down.I wouldn't have started peeling the paper down so quickly if it wasn't already peeling on its own (or if I had known the project in store for me).  I've removed wallpaper before so I was pretty confident that this project would take a week or so.  I was an insider and I had all the right tricks up my sleeve; this would be a cinch.  Oh, was I wrong!  As expected, the plastic-y overlay came off really quickly and I got down to the paper backing within the first day.  After that, I ran into trouble.

Apparently, I was not the only one to notice the peeling parts.  It seems the previous owner tried to 'fix' this problem by super-gluing the edges of each sheet down.  Needless to say, I wasn't expecting super-glue.  The middle of the sheets came down with minimal effort, but oh, those edges; they wouldn't budge. 







We spent two months with a dining room that looked like something you might find in an old dilapidated house, not one someone was living and entertaining in.  Luckily, our friends didn't care that they were eating in a room with exposed, water-stained plaster walls and half-peeled wallpaper.

In late June Aaron's dad, Steve, came to town and helped me finish getting the last tiny scraps of wallpaper removed.  We had already tackled a fairly large outdoor project earlier in his stay here, but he wasn't finished helping out.  He sanded the walls down and helped me get the room painted!  He even caulked around the wainscoting and crown moulding!  The paint color was one we chose years ago and had painted our living room with in Oklahoma.

For those interested, the color is Behr's Sahara Shade. Aaron and I found a new light fixture and purchased a new and bigger table and that is how we got to where we are now.Future projects in the room include replacing the window with french doors, centering the light fixture over the table, and building end seats for the table.  But for now, it is done and we are both very happy with the results!

Fresh Off the Vine

It has been a good week here.  Our grapes growing in the garden came up ready to pick and pick them we did!  The only problem with growing grapes (and this holds true for many fruits and veggies) is that they're almost all ready at exactly the same time, which means we had a ton of grapes sitting in our kitchen all week.  We ate some and then we needed to figure out what to do with the rest.

After looking at grape jam recipes I had the idea to search for a grape pie recipe.  Sure enough, I found a few that looked promising.  After browsing through commentors' tips I decided which steps to include in my own recipe.  The crust actually took the longest, as it needed to chill for at least an hour, but the filling came together really easily while the dough was chilling.  After I rolled out the crusts the filling went into the pie.  It was a beautiful color!

The pie baked for around 45 minutes and came out beautifully!

 

Grape Pie Filling 
and  
Perfect Pie Crust (from Elise on Simply Recipes)

Perfect Double Pie Crust Recipe

Prep time: 1 hour, 15 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling
• 1 cup (2 sticks or 8 ounces) unsalted butter, very-cold, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 6 to 8 Tbsp ice water

 

Directions

1.  Combine flour, salt, and sugar in a food processor; pulse to mix. Add butter and pulse 6 to 8 times, until mixture resembles coarse meal, with pea size pieces of butter. Add ice water 1 Tbsp at a time, pulsing until mixture just begins to clump together. If you pinch some of the crumbly dough and it holds together, it's ready. If the dough doesn't hold together, add a little more water and pulse again.

2.  Remove dough from machine and place in a mound on a clean surface. Gently shape into 2 discs. Knead the dough just enough to form the discs, do not over-knead. You should be able to see little bits of butter in the dough. These small chunks of butter are what will allow the resulting crust to be flaky. Sprinkle a little flour around the discs. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour, and up to 2 days.

Use this time to make the pie filling (recipe below).

3.  Remove one crust disk from the refrigerator. Let sit at room temperature for 5-10 minutes in order to soften just enough to make rolling out a bit easier. Roll out with a rolling pin on a lightly floured surface to a 12-inch circle; about 1/8 of an inch thick. As you roll out the dough, check if the dough is sticking to the surface below. If necessary, add a few sprinkles of flour under the dough to keep the dough from sticking. Carefully place onto a 9-inch pie plate. Gently press the pie dough down so that it lines the bottom and sides of the pie plate. Use a pair of kitchen scissors to trim the dough to within 1/2 inch of the edge of the pie dish.

4.  Add filling to the pie.

5.  Roll out second disk of dough, as before. Gently place onto the top of the filling in the pie. Pinch top and bottom of dough rounds firmly together. Trim excess dough with kitchen shears, leaving a 3/4 inch overhang. Fold the edge of the top piece of dough over and under the edge of the bottom piece of dough, pressing together. Flute edges using thumb and forefinger or press with a fork. Score the top of the pie with four 2-inch long cuts, so that steam from the cooking pie can escape.

Grape Pie Filling

Prep time: 25 minutes

Ingredients

• 5 cups grapes
  
• 1/2 cup water
  
• Juice of 1 lemon
  
• 1/2 cup sugar
  
• 1/4 cup flour
• A pinch of salt  
• Egg white
  

 

Directions

1. Place grapes, water and lemon juice in a pan over medium heat and bring to a boil.  Boil, uncovered, for about 20 minutes.  Turn off flame.

2. Add sugar, flour and salt to grape mixture and whisk until there are no remaining flour lumps.

Set aside until crust is ready.  

3. Pour filling into first pie crust and top with second crust.  Brush top of pie with egg white.  

4. Bake at 400˚F for 45 to 50 minutes.

Enjoy!!

Fern Gully: Part II

This past weekend Aaron's mom, Robin, came to town and gardening ensued.  In fact, Gardenstravaganza (that's what I'm calling it) is still going on.  Right now, I'll just focus on the ferns though.  If you're reading this, it is fairly likely that you have already read Fern Gully: Part I in which I told you about pulling out some ferns growing in the small front bed under our living room window.  Well, this post is about pulling out the biggest fern(s?) I have ever laid eyes on.  Now, like most people I tell my plans to, you maybe cringing at the idea of me removing large amounts of ferns.  You may be saying, "But ferns are so pretty," or "Oh, why are you pulling those out?  They're so expensive!"  Well, this behemoth had taken over most of a 5 x 15 foot bed and had overgrown a rose bush, two camellias and some plants I have yet to identify.

So this weekend Aaron and I got to work.  We got all of the ferns removed and hauled them to the dump (green waste, not landfill).  The largest piece we pulled out measured about 5 x 2 x 3 feet and some of the fern fronds were nearly 5 feet tall.  I'm sure they'll come back; sword ferns are tuberous and there were thousands of tubers/bulbs/whatever you want to call them underneath the mass of plants.  We removed all we could, but went down too deeply for us to reach them all.  I will be diligent in pulling new growth when I discover it.  And that's definitely 'when' and not 'if'. 

As you can see, having the ferns out makes a huge difference.  The rose bush is now without support, but it had fallen over in some strong wind we had a few days prior to the fern removal.  We just need to get it staked back up and it will be fine.  We still have a lot of work to go though.  Eventually we will be moving some of the white rose bushes (Iceberg) from the backyard into the bare place on the left.  We're hoping the camellias will fill out a bit as well now that they get more sunlight and have a little extra growing room.  The unidentified plants have beautiful flowers, but they multiply rapidly so they may eventually be replaced by another white rose bush so we don't end up with a bed full of those.

Cellar Door

Well, not a cellar really, but a pantry.  A couple of weeks ago I painted our pantry door with chalkboard paint.  It is the perfect place to write the menu for the week and remind ourselves of ingredients to put on the grocery list.

 Before:                                                                                                     After:

Fern Gully: Part I

Just a quick post for today.  Yesterday I spent a little time outside in the front yard and pulled out some ferns that were covering azaleas.  There are a lot of ferns that have overgrown much of the front yard flower/shrub beds.  So here's a quick before and after.  For only spending about 20 minutes on this, I think it's a pretty big improvement; I'm satisfied.

Before:


















After:

Open-Door Policy

This weekend marked one week since moving in, and those who have been over know all about our garage door issues.  For those that haven't or don't, let me just tell you that it was made of solid redwood (yes, beautiful), weighed about a gazillion pounds, worked on a single pivot instead of sliding sections, and had a broken opener and springs.




All this meant that lifting it manually was a bitch and a job for at least two people, although Aaron somehow managed to lower it himself a couple times.  And since the springs were broken it had to be propped up with something so it didn't come smashing down onto our heads.  On move-in day it took about five of us to test out miscellaneous sticks and scrap pieces of wood around the garage to see which was the least bowed, most stable, and could best hold up the gazillion-pound garage door.  After some not-so-great tries we settled on a large stick that was found in the backyard.

After a few days of risking being smashed to death by the garage door Aaron and I decided to saw down a long, steel pipe that we found in the garage.  Aaron and I lifted the garage door, he locked his elbows, and I notched the pipe into place.  This became our routine when garage access was needed.  (There is a door to the backyard, but it is really far out of the way and isn't big enough for some things to fit through.) 
   
Well, the issues (and sadly, the beautiful wood) are gone; yesterday we had a new garage door and opener installed.  We went with a very lightweight steel version in a cottage style, and while I was sad to see the solid wood go, I know this will end up being a good exchange.  I absolutely love the new door!