Guess we decided to renovate...

Total house renovation. How's that for a Domestic Revolution?

Sexy, huh?

What started as a conversation about repainting the bedrooms turned into a conversation about renovating the entire house, inside and out. 

The house was built in 1920 and had some work done in the 1980s. Some of the work we're doing is to restore the original woodwork and character. The rest of the work is undoing the work done in the 1980s. At least they put in central heat/air!

Aaron started doing some exploratory work in the dining room to figure out how difficult it would be to patch the plaster walls. That turned into scraping the popcorn ceiling, which turned into peeling the lovely wallpaper we discovered under 87 layers of paint. At that point, we decided to conquer the dining room and living room.

Removing the popcorn from the ceiling wasn't too bad. Messy, but fairly easy. Lucky for us, there was sheetrock and not badly damaged plaster underneath.

Bye, bye tacky popcorn

The wallpaper was also easy to remove. Instead of buying fancy paste remover, we used soapy water. (Thank you, Time LIfe books.)

Very messy

Some of the original woodwork was destroyed by previous occupants, who cut it to install blinds or curtains. Much of has survived but was suffering from several layers of poor paint jobs. So we got out our putty knives and started scraping.

Or so we thought... We tried using the heat gun but we risked filling the house with lead fumes. We tried a citrus stripper but it smelled funny and made the paint gummy. Then we tried washing soda but that didn't work everywhere. Finally, we discovered Ready Strip. It's biodegradable, low VOC, and actually works. It's slow going but we're nearly done with the living room.

Some of the walls were too badly damaged and had to be stripped down to the lathe. We'll patch it using drywall.  

Dining room 

Living Room

Stay tuned... once we finish these rooms, we still have to: touch up the bathroom, redo the bedrooms, completely renovate the kitchen (my favorite part!), and remove the aluminum siding. After that, we'll have a contractor do things like fix the roof and windows.

reading The Happiness Project

I recently read Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project. To be honest, I thought it was supposed to be a funny book from the description. It was meant to be serious. oops. I did end up enjoying it overall.

While I'm not one for self-help type books there were some interesting ideas and thoughts. Here are my three favorite take-aways:

1. Buy anything you want at the grocery store. It's always cheaper to eat at home than to eat out. I don't know why I never thought of this before. Instead, I see that steak or good cheese is on sale and wish that I could have them. But because they're more expensive than chicken thighs or packaged cheese, I don't buy them. And since Aaron and I both like to cook, we get to hang out, have fun, enjoy a tasty meal and save money. Brilliant.

2. Send holiday cards at holidays other than Christmas. In the holiday rush, I never seem to get around to sending out cards. (This probably has something to do with planning my birthday party weeks in advance instead.) The author of the book sent Valentine's photo cards. A Halloween card could be fun too.

3. Keep a treasurer box instead of a scrapbook. I absolutely hate scrapbooking but I like this idea. The author bought cute file boxes for each of her daughters and labeled the folders for each year of their life. Then she put keepsakes in those folders instead of going all crafty on them with the fancy scissors and glitter.

Bringing back the Domestic Revolution

It's been a while... I got a little sidetracked but have recently been inspired by this clown. Stay tuned!

 

Where did I go?

Ooops. It's been a while since I've posted. I have lots to write about and will be back soon. Here's what I've been doing the past few months:

 A lot of this...

...and this...

...a little of this...

...some of this...

... and plenty of this.

Creamy Potato Soup

I've been on a soup kick lately. I'm sure it has something to do with the cast iron, enameled Dutch oven...

I've posted my recipe for a creamy potato soup. Like the chicken soup, you can add more or less of what sounds good to you.

Ingredients:
several strips of bacon (2-5)
onion, chopped
garlic, chopped
carrots, chopped
celery, chopped
potatoes, chopped (or tiny ones)
chicken broth
salt and pepper
thyme

milk and/or half-n-half
corn starch or flour
corn (optional)
green beans, peas, etc (optional)

sour cream
shredded cheese


Directions:
Heat the Dutch oven or a large pot. Add the strips of bacon and cook until crispy. Remove from pot, drain on a paper towel, and crumble.


Add onion and garlic to the drippings. Add carrots, celery, potatoes, salt and pepper and thyme.


Add enough broth to cover the veggies. You can use a mixture of water and broth if you want. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cover until potatoes are done. Add the optional veggies.



Add milk and/or half-n-half. If you like a thicker soup, add a little corn starch or flour. To do that, ladle some broth into a bowl. Whisk in the corn starch or flour and stir back into the pot.

Serve with shredded cheese, sour cream and bacon crumbles.


Hope you enjoy!

Homemade Chicken Soup

Chicken soup is SUPER easy to make and WAY better than anything you'll find in a can. I came up with this recipe while I was in grad school. I wanted a meal that was full of veggies, hearty and quick. 

As you'll see there aren't many exact measurements. You can add more or less of whatever tastes good to you.

Ingredients:
1 onion, chopped
2 or 3 cloves of garlic (crushed or minced)
carrots, chopped

celery, chopped
salt
pepper
thyme
2-4 chicken breasts
32 oz. or more chicken broth (or a mixture of broth and water)
potatoes or noodles
peas
green beans
lima beans
corn


Directions:
Heat a small amount of oil in a large pot. Simmer onion, garlic, celery, and carrots for a few minutes. Sprinkle salt, pepper and thyme over veggies. Add broth. Add whole chicken breasts. Remove the chicken when cooked and shred. If using potatoes, add those with the chicken. Add any of the other veggies once the chicken has been returned to the pot. If using noodles, add those and cook until tender. Milk and butter can be added near the end to make a creamier base.

 

Punch Recipes

If you're planning a holiday party this season, you should plan to serve punch. The ingredients are generally inexpensive and guests usually sip at it (meaning they don't drink as much as they would if you served sodas). Look for a great punch bowl at yard sales or the flea market. I got mine for $4 and it came with a dozen matching cups.

There are tons of recipes for punch. A few tips:
1. Add the (chilled) ginger ale or other soda just before serving.
2. Pour into the bowl by pouring punch into the ladle as it goes into the bowl. This will keep it from splashing all over you outfit.
3. To keep the punch cold without watering it down, make an ice ring by freezing some of the punch in a bundt pan. Place the ring in the bowl just before serving.
4. Most recipes can easily be doubled, tripled, etc. You can basically use the recipe as a proportion.


Here are some of my favorite recipes:


Basic Red Punch
bottle fruit punch
1/2 bottle ginger ale
 Cranberry-Orange Punch
bottle cranberry juice (cranberry cocktail is fine)
most of a bottle of Triple Sec 
bottle ginger ale

White Punch
bottle white grape juice
can  
1/2 bottle ginger ale

Ice Tea Punch
iced tea (sweet, of course!)
lemon juice
orange juice
ginger ale
mint sprigs (optional)