Ramblings

This blog sure has been in a funk lately. It originally lost attention because of house hunting (now house fixing up) priorities. Then our main computer broke (still not fixed) and I was left to type on a shared laptop on a TV tray or lap. Not ideal or fun.


Then the writer’s block hit. I swear I’ve been wanting to write something amazing here for a long time but it’s like all my ideas have jumped out of my brain, never to return. So then I thought I’d write about nothing. Turns out that’s hard to do as well… as you can tell from this post.

And there are always things I’d like to write about. But I can’t. Either it’s just not the right time, or I can’t find the words, or I don’t have the courage to do so. So I let those things sit on the backburner and hope that one day maybe they can be shared. Or not. Maybe it doesn’t make a difference if I write them. Or maybe it would make too much of a difference and that’s what I’m scared of. I wonder how many people have the same sort of things they’d like to say but don’t.

Do you think it’s possible that in reality we could say what we wanted to everyone but don’t because of how we think they’d react? I mean hopefully we all have at least one person we can talk to where the filters are always down… where we can say what we think or feel without fear of judgment or anger. Do you think that is possible to achieve in all our personal relationships? Or does there always have to be those people that need the filters? It just seems like there are a lot of relationships that aren’t developed into something deeper because of fear. Fear of offense mainly. We don’t ask questions or talk about certain things because we don’t want to rock the boat… but should we rock the boat? I mean for the greater purpose of deepening relationships and increasing communication and understanding? I wonder sometimes if I’m too robotic in my approach to people. Where there’s not enough giving of who I am and not enough taking. ‘Taking’ in the sense of digging deeper into people… of asking them scary questions. And at what point does that questioning become nosy and intrusive?

Wow this turned out to be a much more serious post than I thought would happen. I guess it’s hard to know what’s in your brain until you let it out. Feel free to comment on my ramblings if you feel so inclined.

How To: Refinishing Cabinets

Do you have some ugly, worn out cabinets like these?

Would you like new cabinets but don't have thousands of dollars to spend? What if I told you that you could completely transform your kitchen for under $200? It's true. I know because I did it. It's takes a bit of patience and elbow grease, but the results are well worth it. Here's what you do:

1. Disassemble and clean cabinets

Prep work is a huge factor in how your cabinets will turn out. You'll need to use a degreaser of some sort to get rid of oils and grease that may be on the cabinets. I used Simple Green because it works well and doesn't have a harsh chemical odor. Disassembling the cabinets (removing all hardware, hinges, etc.) will make it easier to paint all the nooks and crannies. And if you plan to reuse the hinges, they won't get covered in paint. Trust me, it's impossible to adequately tape over these things.

2. Pre-drill holes for knobs and drawer pulls

If you plan on adding knobs and/or drawer pulls, you will want to drill the holes for them now. Otherwise you stand a big chance of having the paint job damaged later on. I used a template purchased from a home improvement store (found in the kitchen hardware isle) to mark the cabinets. Make sure you check which direction each door is mounted and note whether you want the knob at the top or bottom of the door. You don't want to drill the hole in the wrong place. Also, be careful with any marks you make on the door. I used pen which bled through several coats of paint and ultimately had to be covered with a separate primer.

Knob/Drawer Pull Templates

3. Sand & Prime

This is another huge step. You want your final paint to stick to your cabinets. This will not happen if you don't sand and prime them. Use a fine grit sand paper (I like to use the sanding sponges as they are easier to hold) and quickly scuff up all the surfaces that will be painted, especially those that have been previously finished or are smooth. Wipe off all sanding residue.

Next apply a coat of primer. You may need to use a couple different types. A bottle of food coloring had been spilled in one of my cabinets. Regular primer wouldn't cover this. Same with pen or any other oils or pigments. If you have stains like these that need to be covered, spot treat them using a spray primer such as Sherwin Williams ProBlock Oil Based Spray Primer. This will be followed up with an adhesion primer such as Sherwin Williams Adhesion Primer which will make your paint will stick to smooth surfaces. You'll want to paint all surfaces of your cabinets with this.

 4. Paint

Now you get to paint the cabinets. I suggest using a small high-density foam roller as it covers better and will make the work go much faster than a brush alone. You will still need a brush to cut-in corners and to get any detail work. If you plan on antiquing the cabinets keep in mind it will darken the color quite a bit, so plan accordingly. I used a bright white as my base. You will most likely need at least two coats of your base color, possibly three. If you like the look of your cabinets after painting alone, you get to stop here!

5. Glaze

If you like the look antiquing gives or you want to cover up some impurities or damage on your cabinets, glaze is a great option. It's a good way to enhance details and wood grain and make dirt less noticeable later on. First you'll want to get some supplies together. You will need some latex gloves. This stuff is messy and will stain your hands. You will also need something to wipe the glaze off the cabinets. Torn up t-shirts work well, but you'll need a lot of them. For this reason I used some rags in a box (like paper towels on steroids). You can find them in the paint section of any home improvement store. You will also need some glaze. I told the guys down at the local Sherwin Williams store what I wanted to do and they mixed me up a quart of dark brown glaze which worked great.

Before you go to town on your cabinets, do a test run first. I used a spare door that I wasn't going to re-hang. This will give you a feel for how much time you have to work with the glaze and how much you can apply at one time. I found that I could do one side of a cabinet door at a time. The longer the glaze stays on the surface the darker it will be so you want to make sure the timing is approximately the same for all your doors. I suggest doing one application, then doing a second if you want it darker.

Start by painting the entire surface with glaze. This will look scary at first because it will be very dark. Don't panic.

When the entire surface is painted, immediately being wiping the glaze off with towels. Make sure to wipe off the glaze in the direction of the wood. The thinner the glaze gets, the faster you need to work as it will dry faster.

Despite all of the precautions here, this is actually very simple to do. Don't worry about ruining your cabinets. If you work in reasonable sized sections you won't have any trouble creating the look you want. And the glaze process is very forgiving. It's supposed to have a rustic look so perfection isn't necessary.

6. Allow to dry thoroughly and reassemble

Yeah! You're done painting! This is the fun part. Now you get to put on all of the new knobs and pulls and rehang the cabinet doors. You will be amazed at how much this process changes the look of your kitchen. It's a lot of hard work to get to this point but it's definitely worth it!

Ta Da! Doesn't it look great? And you get to see a little peek of the finished wall color! More to come!

Update: See the completely finished kitchen HERE!

First Run

I went running last night for the first time this year. Yes, I suck again, but not as bad as I did when I very first tried it. I love running in this area... isn't it beautiful? So great. It's amazing to get outside in the fresh air and look at those mountains for the whole run.

My favorite trail: Kays Creek

Satan's Rainbow

If you follow me on Facebook at all, you may have seen my little post about how I'd been stressing out about paint colors for the house and how I'd finally chosen a color. Turns out that color wasn't what I wanted. So we chose a couple more colors to try out. No dice. Then we changed things up and decided to go the orange route. That didn't work either. So we went back to beiges. I picked three new beiges and sorta liked one. So we were gonna go with that. At this point we had purchased 10 different samples and I didn't like any of them. I don't know how this is possible. But it was.

The Carnage

The other night we were walking around in RCWilleys (after purchasing a new fridge... yeah!).They have a lot of small walls throughout the store, all painted a different color. These colors were also labeled with a paint brand and name. So we decided to scout out the store for paint colors. Can I tell you how awesome this was? I can see lots of colors! And they're named! And a WHOLE WALL is painted, not just a 1" square on a card. Who would have known the furniture store would be the perfect place to shop for paint colors?

Well it turns out I saw an orange and a beige I liked. So I ditched the color I'd previously settled on. I pretty much had to do this because the beige color I liked ended up having the best name ever: Smoked Trout. And the orange was just what I was looking for. Seth is picking up samples of these two colors today. If these colors don't look good in our house I quit. Stay tuned.

Spam

I'm not sure what it is about my food blog that attracts the spam comments. But I get them pretty regularly. At first I was sort of angered by them, but then I found them quite entertaining. And then I thought maybe you'd all be entertained by them also. So I've been saving all the spam comments for the last couple months. It's quite a nice collection if I don't say so myself.

Keep in mind these are all in response to recipes, not political issues or brilliant ideas.

p.s. I didn't keep the spam comments laden with gobs of porn site links. I figured you could find those on your own if need be.


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"thnx bro"

"i love it" (from "Facebook"... I should be honored such a large entity loves my stuff...)

"your good"

"as if!"

"Thanks, its usefully for me."

"It’s interesting to see this point of view. I can’t say fore sure if I agree or not, but it is something I will think about now."

"it seems quite trivial to expect"

"Very informative blog here. I couldn’t have made a better one if my life depended on it." (I was very flattered that "Penis Enlargement Pills" would leave such a nice comment...)

"Once you are done trying to ‘optimize’ this routine."

The Sycamore House

It was towards the end of January this year when Seth and I decided we should start looking for a house. Our apartment lease wasn't up until the end of July, but we figured we'd get a jump start on looking to see what was available and to give ourselves more opportunity to find a good deal. With all the short-sale homes on the market and the likelihood we'd end up with a fixer-upper, there was a good chance it'd be a while before anything serious happened.

We found an awesome realtor, Heather Higgs, who seemed as excited as we were about house hunting (seriously... she was AWESOME). We spent our evenings looking at homes on Utah Real Estate and planning outings to go look at the treasures we'd found. (By the way, Google Maps is the best tool ever for house hunting!)

Fairly early on we found a cute little house we deemed the "Sycamore House." It was a cute little house in a nice cul-de-sac here in Layton. It seemed to have all the things we were looking for: a semi-private yard, two car garage, 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a large kitchen. And it had a huge Sycamore tree in the backyard. I have a small crush on Sycamore trees, so I was immediately enamored with the property. Especially because it was in the lower end of our price range!

For a couple days we mulled over what to do and eventually decided to put our first offer on a house. To our surprise the first bank accepted our offer within a week. And then the second one accepted it a couple weeks later with the stipulation that we had to close on it within a month. AHHH! This was definitely happening way faster than we ever thought it would!

The few weeks that followed were filled with discussions of paint colors and flooring options as well as trips to the hardware store & home shows to price all the different things we would surely need to fix the place up. We wanted to be ready to get to work once all the papers were signed. While the house wasn't a total disaster, it would definitely need a face-lift before moving time came.

And after what seemed like the longest month ever, we finally closed today! Woohoo! The Sycamore House is now ours and the adventure begins!

Which brings us to what you've all been waiting for: THE PICTURES! I wanted to capture the "before"  pictures of this house so you could all admire our handywork and excellent taste in tapestries when you see it finished. Actually, I'm begging you to admire it so I don't burst into tears about choosing the wrong color of taupe (you can tell your significant other/friends how much you hate it later).

The Sycamore House (BEFORE)

Back deck... they got a little carried away with the gazebos. There's also an above ground pool. Yippee.

 Living Room: The paint and floor aren't in as good of shape as they look.

Kitchen: The cabinets are disgusting. I don't think they've ever been cleaned...

 The counter by the fridge space is falling off the wall. And there's really not much cabinet space despite the large size of the kitchen.

The paint job in here pretty much sucks. All the white paint in the house could use another coat. And I hate this brown.

Family Room: There's some missing tiles on the fireplace hearth and the room definitely needs paint, carpet, and new window coverings.

Another view of the family room. See that old furnace? Yeah, it'll probably have to be replaced...

 Downstairs Bathroom: Lovely shade of blue, eh?

Downstairs Bedroom: This is a nice large room, but it definitely needs some paint, carpet, and blinds. Oh and probably a new ceiling tile or two.

Master Bedroom:  Needs some new carpet, paint, and some curtains!

 Master Bedroom: One small closet for the master bedroom, that's a problem!

Upstairs Bedroom/Office: It looks nice but the paint job sucks. As does the carpet.

Downstairs Bedroom #2: Yucky paint and carpet. And those curtains have got to go.

Downstairs Bedroom #2: I don't know why, but there are no closet doors in this whole house. (That flower is a nice touch though...)

Laundry Room: Very laundry roomy. I'll definitely be doing a spider check in here...

So there you have it. The new Hanson home! There are a few other things that may need to be fixed later such as the swamp cooler, garage doors, and aluminum windows, but it's not so bad.  Despite all of its many flaws, once we get done with it I think it will be great! We're really looking forward to all the extra space and LIGHT! We'll finally be able to have people over and not eat on t.v. trays! Woohoo!

My Obsession with Trains and Trout Continues...

This winter has proved to be very busy. Ok mainly just the last month or so. I'm not going to get into details yet, but a house hunting endeavor has been sucking up all my time. I realized how bad it was when I went to write the February book reviews post and realized I'd only finished one book. Sad. And my computer is on the fritz. And then somebody stole Sexyterra's license plate. It's been a mess. Which is why this weekend was so great.

For the first time this winter I actually got in some fly fishing. Yes, I went ice fishing several times, but it's just not the same. This weekend I got to put on my waders TWICE. And I even caught a few browns. Man I've missed those little guys (who may or may not have inspired some decorating ideas...).  Plus, have I told you how beautiful it is up on the Weber River? What? I have? A million times you say? Ok I know. I'm obsessed. But look at this... how could I not be?

Posted up at a good spot and caught these guys all day!

Seth fishing on the bridge as a train passes.

I don't think anyone could be more handsome holding a fish. It's unpossible. (Heidi, I stole your word!)



Ok fine I'll stop. Even though you're probably begging for more because I've left you high and dry for so long. It's not my fault. But I promise there is more to come. Some time. Not really sure when, but hopefully soon. Who am I kidding... the craziness is only just beginning...