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Tag Archives: kitchen

Kitchen Backsplash

April 28, 2010

I was looking for something quick and easy to cover up some holes in the wall where I removed a spice rack from above the stove in the kitchen. I found these large plastic faux tin tiles at Lowe’s that easily affix to most surfaces. They aren’t the cheapest thing, but I only had to buy one sheet for $20 and it was enough to cover the area. When I got it home, I had to cut it to the shape I needed it. I affixed it with some foam squares that were sticky on both sides. The nice part is this is a quick fit until I figure out what I really want to do with the backsplash and it looks nice. I might even like this for the backsplash – who knows – it has been added to my list of options.

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Reupholstering Chair Cushins

March 12, 2010

Other than watching TV design shows, I had no other education or real life experience associated with the upholstering of chair cushions – until the last few days!

I asked one of my friends if I could upholster her dining room chairs for her. She has two small children and has had the chairs for a while. The frames are in good shape, but the cushions, well, could use a little work. I knew it wasn’t something she would do for herself, and we have been to so many parties and dinners at their house recently that I wanted to do something nice for them.

After one of the parties knowing that we would be back for dinner in a couple days, I took the cushions with me (with permission of course) and planned to get them back to her before we saw them next. I had already purchased the milk chocolate colored vinyl since I wanted to make sure it was okay with my friend before actually starting the project – she liked the color and that it wiped off easily.

The next day, I took the fabric off the chairs and realized the foam was in bad condition. I had anticipated this, but hadn’t purchased anything yet just in case the foam was in good condition. I headed out and found options at Hancock Fabrics. I don’t know if it was the right choice, but I had two things to choose from: Soy foam or Poly-fil. I felt the better choice was the soy foam since it was similar to what my friend had before, it seemed more cushy, and I liked that it was made of soy with less chemicals. The price was almost equivalent at only a $2 difference for the amount I needed.

Taking the fabric off of the cushions was not fun. With Robogrip pliers, hammer, and mini-crowbar, I managed to get all of the staples pulled from the wood. The staples that wouldn’t come out of the wood with the Robogrips were hammered in so that they wouldn’t catch on anything. I sanded the wood with a sandpaper block to clean it up. My hands were tired from all of the pulling/gripping and my knees and legs were tired from having to stand on the wood part of the cushion so that I had enough leverage to pull the fabric off and the staples out – I felt the jolt as each staple came out. After the hour it took to remove the old materials, I had had enough, and I left the reupholstering for the next day.

The next phase was to cut the foam and vinyl to fit the wood and then staple the vinyl on. This part of the process took 1 hour 45 minutes. The first one took me the longest at about an hour with getting set up, the measurements just right, and the staple gun to work; but after that, it only took 15 minutes for each of the other 3 cushions.

This evening, we took the cushions to my friends’ house and their 4 year old daughter helped me by handing me screws while I attached the cushions. She even slid the next chair into the room when I needed the next one. All of the chairs were fixed in time for dinner and then used in conjunction with 2 sheets for a tent later that evening to play under.

The process of reupholstering the chairs was harder than I thought, but my learning curve was steep so it didn’t take me very long at all – a total of 2 hours 45 minutes (not including shopping time). I think they look really nice and I know my friend and her husband like them too. Now I can say I have reupholstered chair cushions! I have two chairs of my own that I have wanted to do this to but didn’t know if I could. They are just hardwood and I would love cushion on them – I think that will be a project for next month or later this one if I get the other things done on my list.

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The G5 George Foreman Grill

February 7, 2010

For Christmas, from my parents, we received a G5 George Foreman Grill.

It came with 5 interchangeable plates; and after the holidays, we purchased two more – the omelet plates. We now have 7 plates and about 4 different combinations:

#1: Grill plates. Anything you want to drain fat off of is best cooked on these. I find that it doesn’t drain as well as I would like with it set to the highest tilt setting, so I add an upside down drippings tray behind the back support and then it drains perfectly. We grill chicken pieces and 2 lb slabs of ground turkey on these grill plates the most. We tried something a little different and cooked some tater tots the other day. I call them tater squats since the heaviness of the top plate squished them – but they were still really good and crispy too.

#2: Waffle plates. This is an obvious one. It makes waffles. We make organic whole grain waffles that come out beautifully. Heat the grill on high until the green light goes off. Fill with batter according to directions – I think it says 1/3 cup and I use that on each side. Close. The green light will come back on shortly and then when it goes back off the waffles are done. I think it takes about 3-4 minutes for them too cook. Much better than my Waffle Maker which is going bye, bye. Any takers?

#3: Flat plate. We have cooked tater tots on it so far. But the booklet says it can make pizza, eggs, cookies, biscuits… well, just about anything you can cook in a pan where you don’t need the fat to be drained. We plan to make corn bread on it next and see how that goes. I would love to try pizza. With this plate orientation, the flat grill goes on the bottom and then the top grill/steak plate goes on top. In the picture below, the top omelet plate was used since I wanted to see if it would work too and it did.

#4: The omelet plates. These have to be the coolest plates. So far, we have made egg white omelets and brownies. Making omelets on this grill has to cut breakfast prep time in half. I saw in the booklet that brownies could be made, so I HAD to check it out. I mixed up the batter like usual and filled the 3 reservoirs to the top (should have put a little less but it still worked out) and closed the lid. I think it took maybe 9 minutes and they were done. They are about twice the size of a normal brownie, so serving size would be 1/2 of one of these. Also, if the reservoir was filled only 1/2 way, the brownie would have a really nice curve like the 3rd picture below that was the last of the batter – just about a serving size. As I was taking them off the grill and putting them in a container, my husband told me how appropriate they were for the day we were making them. We aren’t football fans and we made them on Super Bowl Sunday – and they look like footballs!!! Almost like I did it on purpose but I definitely did not. These really would be perfect for football fans with some white icing for laces.

So, I highly recommend this grill. The energy savings alone is worth it and it varies in the time it saves depending on which plates are used. It would have taken 10 minutes to heat up the oven and then another 15-20 minutes to cook the brownies. This way it took 5 minutes to heat up the grill and around 18 minutes total to cook the two batches of brownies. I can’t make a $ savings equivalent since I don’t have one of those energy calculators for electrical outlets YET, but I know there is definitely a substantial savings between heating a small grill and heating a standard sized oven.

If you are looking for an easy way to cook stuff, this is it. Within 5 minutes, it is warm on high and cooks fast too. The practicality far outweighs its only negligible shortcoming I have found so far. If you aren’t used to the interchangeable plate type grills, the plates take a little getting used to but once clicked in, they are secure. I have used this type for a while and I think it is easy once you get used to how they fit.

I think if we lived in an apartment, a small space where we couldn’t have a kitchen, or were remodeling a kitchen, this would be one of my top 3 items along with a microwave and fridge. One of the best gifts we received for Christmas!

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Kitchen Faucet Install

September 22, 2009

My dad and I installed a new faucet in the kitchen. My back always got sore when I washed dishes and I felt like it was because our faucet was too low and close to the sink. The faucet was high enough to fill tall glasses but everything always had to be filled in the center of the sink. I was looking for a faucet where I could move the neck and possibly one with the sprayer hose in the faucet neck. Well, once I went out looking for a kitchen faucet and realized how expensive they are, I decided to go with a gooseneck one that had a sprayer separate. I still purchased a brushed nickel one like I wanted to replace our current chrome one. I did forget to take a picture of the original faucet but found a month-old picture of the faucet – it is just a standard builder-grade chrome kitchen faucet.

It is amazing how much stuff is under the sink that needs to be removed when replacing a faucet. I took the opportunity to organize those items into a large bin. It looks so much nicer.

IMG 2241 300x225 Kitchen Faucet Install

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Kitchen Drawer Mod

September 1, 2009

We have these 2 drawers in our kitchen that are in the corner of our cabinets. You can’t open them up at the same time due to them being at a right angle to each other. This never used to be a problem until I decided one day that I wanted knobs on my cabinet drawers. The doors had them and I was tired of either grabbing under the face of the drawer or, like I usually did, grabbing the top of the drawer face and snapping a nail or making my finger tips sore. Once the drawer knobs were on, the two doors perpendicular to each other would each only open almost 1/2 way. Well, that is loosing more than 1 total drawer and that was completely unacceptable, but I wanted my knobs, so I went to the drawing board.

It took me two tries to get it right and the first attempt was a more complicated mistake so was not ashamed of it (not that you should be ashamed of creative mistakes, but I was proud of how far I got until the mistake happened and sometimes mistakes happen early that you just want to kick yourself about). The first attempt was flawed by the hinge placement. I forgot that if I wanted to hinge the drawer face that I needed to place it at the bottom of the drawer not the bottom of the drawer face since there is an overhang between those two which results in a gap that forms and a hinge that won’t open more than 45 degrees. It is all angles and I forgot about that one.

It was easy to fix though and when everything came together, it was awesome. So, what I did was use magnetic catches on the inside of the drawer and hinges on the bottom so that the drawer face could hinge down and be flush with the bottom of the drawer. This allows the drawer with the hinges to be pulled out and not conflict with the door knob that sticks out of the drawer that is perpendicular to it. Also, it allows the perpendicular drawer to be pulled out completely without running into the other drawer knob.

Some pictures to explain my possibly confusing explanation…

Even my kitty Veda helped out – well, not really, but she was there for moral support as I tried to figure it out

Updates: My dad came to visit in November and loved my solution to the drawer problem. My mom and dad came to visit for my birthday in January. I showed my mom the cabinet drawer and she was so proud of me!

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Tip-out Tray

August 24, 2009

One of the nicest “drawers” in the kitchen is the tip-out tray. They are those little trays that fit in that small space right in front of the sink.

I searched to see what I could find but wasn’t sure what to call them at first. After being told what they were called and that they would cost $150 by Home Depot, I thought I would never be able to have these neat little trays in my kitchen. I finally found them at Lowes and when I did, I bought enough for all of the sinks in the house. I installed two in the kitchen and plan to install the others in the 2 1/2 bathrooms that we have. I’m not sure what I will put in them in the bathrooms, but the kitchen ones were planned out before purchase. I am very happy with them and they are exactly what I wanted. It took a little bit of time to install but it wasn’t difficult.

They come in two sizes. The trays come in white plastic or stainless steel. Either click the links in this post or search for “tip out” on Lowes or Amazon’s website. You will see many options. I went for the plastic ones since I could get 2 for the price of one and since I was purchasing 4 sets of 2, it was a lot cheaper. Plus, all of the ones I had ever seen were the white plastic type.

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Lamp Install

August 13, 2009

I have been wanting to do something with the pot lights over our kitchen peninsula, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with them. While looking at the Lowe’s circular for this week, I saw conversion kits that fit in the light socket of a pot light and create a pendant light fixture. I thought I would try them out, so while I was errand running today, I picked up two kits and shades. I was so excited about them that after dinner, I decided to install them. I only made one mistake – I forgot to get CFLs bright enough for the counter when we are cutting up veggies and such – I will get those tomorrow when I go out.

img 1727 1 225x300 Lamp Install img 1725 1 300x225 Lamp Install img 1729 1 225x300 Lamp Install img 1730 1 225x300 Lamp Install img 1731 1 225x300 Lamp Install img 1763 1 300x225 Lamp Install img 1764 1 300x225 Lamp Install