Click on pic to enlarge. The foreground clutter is a spare rollabout holding baking stuff. No, Jane is not finished. But we have countertops, and our new sink.
Click on pic to enlarge. The foreground clutter is a spare rollabout holding baking stuff. No, Jane is not finished. But we have countertops, and our new sink.
Looks nice – but the link goes to the blog post, not to the photo!
@PJ – Yes, it takes you to a view of just the image from the blog post, and then you’ll need to click on the image again to enlarge it. Not sure if that’s the behavior the software mandates, but yes, it’s not what CJC or guests would expect or intend; it’s counter-intuitive.
Wow, I envy the extra kitchen space! My kitchen is maybe half that. I still need to get a hutch or other storage for kitchen utensils and food storage.
Hurray! — I will comment later. — Things got very interesting here today. There was a leak above the kitchen last night, and this morning, the sheetrock and light fixture came crashing down. So now there are two workmen from the apartment complex, removing the damaged sheetrock, and they will be putting up plastic and a temporary light fixture, until they can complete the work soon. A lady from the office is coming over so I can sign the waiver to expedite the process. It might be Tuesday before everything is ship-shape again. I did have the workman check the closet in my bedroom to see if the wall was dry, but I’ve just realized, duh, that wall is where the dryer is, not where the leak was near that wall. Duh. I had my internal geometries (room layout, floorplan) mixed-up.
Hah, and auto-incorrect tried to say it was a “floorpan” instead of a “floorplan.” Really? I’ve never seen that as a word, and would not have expected it to be without a hyphen or space; and likewise for a flour pan, haha, which, ahem, would not be a special pan, I doubt, but rather a pan for flour. Hah, that’s the sort of “down the rabbit hole” digression nand’ Bren or ker Hilfy might get sidetracked with.
Today’s going to be very…interesting, in a very off-kilter sense.
In college, we were renting a house that was not well maintained. Particularly, there was a leak from the tub (we didn’t know if it was from bad caulk around the tub or a drain leak), but there was a large water spot above the kitchen sink whenever someone took a shower. We repeatedly told the landlord about the leak for 6 weeks. One weekend, there was a large crash from the kitchen. That whole panel of sheetrock had given way, ruining the crockpot of beans we had cooking, and covering the kitchen with dirt, broken lath, wet sheetrock, and one dazed mouse staggering around the counter!
We called the landlord and left a message to the effect that until repairs were effected, we would be putting our rent into escrow. The next day we got a call to arrange for repairs.
The kitchen looks lovely, and I really like the new flooring. Does it get brighter during daylight hours?
Wow! The roof falling in—that is a moment!
My friends were by, but only picked up one pkg. from the office, so there is/are still something(s) there, and who knows if the Wacom tablet will arrive there or at my door tomorrow. LOL, but my friends also didn’t get the black-eyed peas. (Sigh.) So I’m holding out some hope that just possibly, the delivery might arrive earlier than the 2nd to 5th predicted. I think even without, I’ll manage through the New Year, as luck would have it. Man, yeah, I’m taking whatever easy route for cooking until there’s more light in there. Sheesh.
That gives me even more appreciation for what it must’ve been like before electric lights. I went through using a kerosene lamp or candles for the month and a half after Hurricane Ike, when we were back to 19th century pioneer era conditions, no electricity and cooking on a gas stove either when there was sunlight or with said lamp. But this was darker. So, imagine what it must’ve been like for folks in 18th century homes or back in the Renaissance and earlier, in some Tudor-style home or a castle, and no kerosene lamps yet. Wow.
I just watched the Doctor Who Christmas Special 2017 as a reward for an odd day. Yay! And no spoilers. — But a reminder of how good storytelling and good storytellers turn things around in ew new ways to look at them from those angles and to tell another truth, or an interesting, thought-provoking fiction. The Doctor Who specials usually catch me unawares about something. This one did, had me thinking and feeling, and I liked most of what it had to say. (I’ll say the climax and resolution felt a little rushed, which is a common problem with the show.) The Doctor regenerating and Companions going in and out are usual for the show, and I’ll curious to see what they do with this new Docor as a Time Lady. (Still curious to see if we’ll ever run into Romana again, or what else might happen.)
Hah, the cats think that a quiet, settled household once again is a much better situation. (I do also, and I recall Bilbo Baggins was of that opinion.) Little do they know that there’s still work to be done, so tomorrow, or Tuesday, or some day next week, it will be very busy and noisy around here for a while before things are fixed up.
I have a couple of things to look over, delayed arrivals, and then I want to read some tonight and relax.
I’m still chuckling over Chondrite’s description of the dazed-and-confused mouse. Maybe it’s the Christmas season, but somehow, it has me thinking in Disney-esque terms, of talking mice as story characters. Oh-là-là.
Re: trouble getting to the grocery store. Since you are in a major metro area, does AmazonFresh operate where you are? If they deliver to your apartment office and you can get down there, that might take some of the trouble out of arranging for rides to the store. (they don’t touch Hawaii with a 10 foot paddle!)
I’m not sure if AmazonFresh serves my part of town. I’ll need to check. (I hadn’t looked into it, and I haven’t looked to see how/if their buyout of Central Market or Whole Foods Market, whichever it was, has affected that yet. I expect they’ve rolled out AmazonFresh somewhere in town, as it’s a major market. (Hah, Amazon should give me stock in the company, as much as I (over-)-use them.)
The sheetrock guy swung by after 2:00pm. He said his friend the painter’s car broke down and was at the mechanic’s and was supposed to be fixed today. So he asked if I’d be OK with them coming by tomorrow, to do the sheetrock and painting. Then the light fixture will have to be done Tuesday. Hey, I’m very interested in not having a plastic-sheeting covered hole in my kitchen ceiling, and getting that light back in ASAP. I said yes, please. He said, even though it’s Saturday before a holiday? I said yes, sure. I’m not sure if he and the painter are thrilled with that, but it’ll get it done and out of the way. If they don’t mind getting the work in before the holiday, and if the apartment complex thereby pays them any sooner, then good, and I get the benefit. So, yay. I wish it had been done this morning or afternoon. But as long as it gets done soon.
The Wacom Smartpad gadget did not make it as fast as expected. It might or might not get here tomorrow. But as of noon today, it was still in a small (?) town in Kentucky, so it’ll be tomorrow or Tuesday.
But! The black-eyed peas arrived today! Haha, I will have them for New Year’s after all. Yay for them getting them here super quick. — I ordered Nonesuch Mincemeat pie filling (minced fruit, dang it, not meat, but the traditional name is used for both, which confuses some people a lot). That’s not getting here until after the New Year, but that’s fine.
I’m going simple for New Year’s dinner: I’ve already chopped up the ham. That will go with cole slaw. Black-eyed peas on the side. Cranberry sauce. Leftover pie. Leftover stuffing, or else the other packet of stuffing, with the meal. Tea (of course). It feels like there ought to be another vegetable; I think I have canned green beans. So likely that. I’d fixed yams for Christmas, but expect to eat the rest tonight or tomorrow. Keeping it simple and easy.
The little Hawaiian figure, I’d put up to save for Christmas and…I put him someplace no longer so obvious. LOL, I’ve looked several places and haven’t yet found him. So I’ll still be looking. Darn little fella is probably out somewhere much warmer, surfing or scuba diving. Here, it’s chili and damp and dirty-cotton cloudy out.
On the plus side, no dazed meandering mice, Martian or Terran have visited. I have nothing against Martian mice or talking Terran mice per se, but, y’know, visiting versus staying, there’s rent to consider. 😉
The apartment complex does have another two resident / stray cats around lately, which friends saw yesterday when the friends dropped by, but which I have only heard so far, at odd hours. The report was, one black and one orange, so, standard feline fare.
Very elegant. If a little dark in color scheme, everything seems to work together very well. Now with countertops you’ll be putting up backsplashes where the white plaster board is seen? Glass tile? The doorless slideout shelves look to be very convenient and would have stuff in pretty constant use, but I wonder if they wouldn’t need pretty constant cleaning?
My neighbor’s little Tuxedo I call “Groucho” for her black upper lip, is sitting in my backyard this morning. (Smallish for a “him”?) Haven’t seen her since summer. We also have neighborhood coyotes, so “outdoors kitties” tend to come and go.
p.s. Tried to make it through the night without meds–not quite. But I didn’t loose another pound to nightsweats either. (Cracked 200# a couple days ago, while moving average had been 206#.) Ears are clearing. I can hear my local Classical Music station “unmuffled” (streaming on allclassical.org for the rest of you with similar tastes). And while still coughing up a lot of sticky phlegm, my voice is a little more normal than croaky.
It’s a little lighter than I’d have chosen, but matching the tones in the kitchen including the bronze fixtures is a bit of a problem: there’s actually a color change between the dining area and the kitchen: kitchen is apricot and dining area is peach, but they’re so close to each other you can be tricked by the light. It has to do with which shade matches what wood…
Woot! Woot! You have countertops; Paul has a voice and the beginnings of normal functioning body returning and BCS has, well, a different looking kitchen himself.
We still have the down-to-studs, roughing it look in our own bathroom. The electrical rewiring passed inspection just before Christmas but now we have to wait until the plumber can actually make it here (and given the 0 degrees Fahrenheit temps we’re having in Boston, that will be many emergency calls by them to others later) for installing new tub/shower, sink and toilet.
Enjoy cooking… And storing stuff in your new kitchen!
Yeah, it was a hard ride, but I’m getting close to home finally.
Very nice, it hope it feels as good as it looks, I do like the door design too. Happy New Year Ladies…
Beautiful! Looks great, but where is everybody? Every time I’ve been there the kitchen had a dozen people in it!
Hahaha, no wonder that mouse was dazed! It’s a wonder he/she made it (relatively) unscathed. Hmm, perhaps also a wonder the mouse did not sample the crockpot of beans. ::snicker:: “Rowdy human housemates!” Hahaha.
I think I’d like a bank of open shelving for the most frequently used kitchen tools. It would need cleaning/dusting anyway, but if it’s in a handy spot, that’s not such a problem.
I like bronze (or copper) for fixtures, and am keeping things in mind, in case I can lease or buy a townhome eventually. That will not be for at least another year, maybe three. My eyes and teeth, and then trying to save again, are priorities first.
Heh, yeah, my kitchen sure does look different! The workmen are gone for now. There’s plastic sheeting until it’s sheetrocked and painted. The “temporary light fixture” is (groan) the simplest old-style screw-in fixture with a bare bulb, maybe 60 watts, and if I thought it was dark in there before, oh, hahaha, it’s fit for dark-dwelling folk.
And as I typed that, there was a knock on the door. The guy came by to see how much sheetrock to do, but said he’d need to get the apartment upstairs done, and then mine. I’ll be surprised if it’s done by the end of the workday today, but maybe tomorrow. Maybe. Or I’m just wishful-thinking, and it’ll still be Tuesday before things get done. Heh. OK, I suppose I should be glad it’s not still leaking and there’s stuff being done.
Hmm, I’m debating whether I want to bother much for New Year’s dinner. Currently leaning towards as little fuss as possible. But after washing the countertops, I cut up a small cooked ham, and that may go in cole slaw as salad, with something or other veggie added. I’m also in the mood for stir-fry. I’m nearly through my Christmas leftovers, so I scaled down just the right amount, and I’m kinda happy with how it worked out.
However, I did not know I was out of black-eyed peas, and I’d ordered on Christmas Day, but, hmm, they’re not expected until Jan. 5th. So I’ve called a friend and asked if he can swing by the store for two cans, in order to have black-eyed pease (for luck) for New Year’s dinner. That tradition dates back at least to my grandmother’s day. She didn’t remember how she’d first heard it or if her own parents also did that and passed it down.
Also — A calligraphy set and paper I ordered arrived yesterday, and Conté crayons and pencils are still due, plus maybe another item or two. I splurged and ordered these post-Christmas, but the prices were the same, no real bargain there. I opted not to get the portrait or sketching set, as it’s been ages since I used Conté crayons, so I want to see how I do before I buy a larger set. My current iffy color vision plays into this too.
My iPad is now very old, and I looked about an “electronic notepad,” as a way to have the best of both worlds: to save paper and clutter, and to get notes and sketches more immediately into computer files. I’d looked at, tried, and rejected, an earlier model, which was way too unclear on what it needed to be able to do (save files and allow moving through them, have bright screen contrast between page and “ink,” and so on). The reviews I saw were uniformly still saying that, from people who’d tried them. — Except for a rather straightforward hybrid, which lets you take notes on paper and scans it as you go, from the graphics tablet beneath. Then there’s an app for your Android or Apple iOS phone or tablet or iPad, that will try to turn the handwritten notes into text, and saves the notes/sketches (per page) as files. This works something like laying a paper on a graphics tablet and tracing it, or like the fancy electronic whiteboards which scan as the lecturer writes notes on the whiteboard. (I don’t know how much those cost now; they used to be prohibitive except for a corporation or research university). — The product I found is from Wacom, who have made graphics tablets for decades now, such as the Bamboo and Intuos I’ve used before. — They offer a Wacom Bamboo Smartpad Digital Notebook, in either a Folio or a Slate model, in A4/Letter size, and an A5/Half Letter size Slate model. (I didn’t see if you can get the Folio in the A5/Half Letter size). Prices range from $179 for the letter-size to $99 for the half-letter-size. (The Folio has a cover like a notebook or binder. The Slate is like a slate or clipboard, no cover.) — This seemed like it would be well worth a try. I tend to want to write notes or draw better I sleep, as I relax and my brain gets creative again; and sometimes I wake up in the night and need to write down something. And lately, often, I wish I could just jot down the notes or sketches and have them immediately on my computer. So…I really splurged. But if this works as well as I think, then it’ll be well worth the cost, and might save me time, effort, and money in the long run. — For example, font ideas or other drawings could go more immediately onto my computer to work with. — So I will let people know what I think of the thing when it gets here. I’m eager to try it out. — Oh, I did not think about ink color, whether it’ll take notes in color via, I guess sensors telling the software, “this is a black pen, this is a red pen, this one is cyan,” and so on. (I presume that’s how electronic whiteboards do it, a clip with a sensor around the marker or pen and you’ve got it)
If I find it’s a really great tool, it might be very handy for some of you. Until they get a really great color screen you can read in any and all lighting conditions, bright as a page or better, I suppose we’re likely to be stuck with a compromise. (Ah, there are several things like the “Boogie Board” tablet that have very poor contrast and only let you swipe to save the current image or swipe it clean, little more than a fancier Etch-a-Sketch, which is, ah, insulting the great Etch-a-Sketch).
Try the Wacom Smartpad instead. I’ll let you all know what I think once I’ve given it a workout.
Today, I’m working on a draft font idea which had been floundering around before, and is now finally clearer as to how to achieve what I want from it I kept the prior two drafts, in case I want to do something with them after all. Once I have a basic set of typewriter characters, (the old lower ASCII) I’ll have a firmer idea of whether this idea is coming together in this draft or still not what I’m aiming for, without a scan and trace of a hand-drawn sketch. — The font program I use has (finally) gotten a major upgrade to its bigger and more costly cousin. They’re likely doing away with Fontographer in favor of FontLab Studio. The upgrade price is steep, but I’m doing it in order to stay current and get more productive. No idea yet if it will fully import old Fontographer files’ features (foreground font itself, background for vectors and bitmaps to trace or use for construction, guidelines for grid and guides placement, and so on.) I may have to save in the older FontLab format, which did not always save and transfer in the other data, meaning users had to keep both files around.) When I do plunk down and get it, I will let people know how it’s progressing. But this has to happen. I need better tools and I need to be able to produce faster,
Look very nice.
Jonathan up in frozen NH.
Jane and I have both been using the kitchen today, and cleaning is itself a pleasure if you have had the mess we have had to cope with over the past few months. We love the new sink. Way deep. And with a traveling faucet—ie, it swivels. and extends and sprays.
What’s the plan for backsplashes?
glass/ceramic tile mix, grey rocklike ceramic with copperized glass interspersed which sometimes goes purple. Yep. Purple.
Sounds like dichroic glass. My SiL played with that for a while at a community craft house. It takes on different colors depending how the light hits it.
“Dichroic or dichromatic?” I’m going to look it up. — So, do you also get a sea-green or verdigris election from the flecks? Coppery orange, sea-green, a purple, that would make for a pretty effect.
Dichroic is the term of art when working with fancy, glass jewelry, etc. My cousin makes fused glass jewelry and has begun to dabble in the (expensive) dichroic stuff.
Blue or purple; or copper or brass.
Oh, my! The kitchen looks lovely *and* functional. Congratulations!
Ahh! Good News: The workman (different ne) was by today to do the sheetrock and sparkle and paint. Everything’s ship-shape again, and he mounted the “temporary light fixture” (most basic screw-in bulb) nice and square and flush, ready for them to put in the fluorescent light fixture on Tuesday. He was surprised, and maybe a bit humbled, to get a big thank you from me. But hey, I’m really glad to have my kitchen back in order before the New Year, no leak, no chance of “critters” or bugs getting in (I have not seen any yet, though, and there are at least two stray cats around the complex). So of course I’m thankful. I’d figured, despite assurances, it wouldn’t happen until Tuesday or Wednesday. But yay, now it’s done, all but the light fixture, which I will be very, very glad to have again.
That Wacom Smartpad (for note-taking and computer input) arrived today, as did the mincemeat. I’ll let you all know how the tablet does upon some testing. Hoping this was a good idea. If it’s as good as Wacom’s usual graphics tablets, then it should be fine. (I suspect this is their standard tablet plus some hardware to scan and trace and save and transmit files, with an added clip for a legal pad.)
I did draft work on a font idea today, one I’ve had ongoing, but in three versions, because they were not quite getting what I’d hand-sketched. I did enough today and yesterday that I know what’s off about this draft. I’m closer to the look I want with it, and now to fix it up. I’m keeping the other two fr now, in case I want to use them after all. All this for a draft of one style in the type family. That’s what happens sometimes!
I have two used books on the Greeks on order. Those should be in by early January.
Very short on sleep, so I’m crashing for a while, and then font work again before some time off to read or watch a show.
Um, it looks like WP had a hiccup this morning and linked an unrelated post from a completely different account. Unless you requested someone to do a guest post… I’m seeing a ‘page not found’ from a minister in TN?
I saw that yesterday – or maybe Friday – and I suspect it’s spam and held for moderation.
Wot! Swallowing posts now? A criticism of Gravatar’s change so’s trying to change my costume throws me into a full-up WP account master update isn’t allowed? Sucks, IMNSHO.
If this magically makes it through, there’s another post stuck somewhere.
So anyhow, let the party begin! Happy New Year! I may not be quite up to it physically yet, but count me present in spirit.
Paul, alas, there is nothing, nada, snagged by the filter! But we are glad to see the penguin in festive form!
And a very felicitous New Year to all associates! Do the Atevi make note of the year’s turning in any way? Their calendar is obviously different from a Terran one, and they do observe birthdays, whether auspicious or not…
We are preparing to batten the hatches and hopefully keep Zorro and Junior from freaking out about the loud booms and clouds of smoke coming soon. Our celebration was last night, because staying up until midnight at a party isn’t as tempting as it once was.
The day itself is my holiday. Family feasting!