Cuttin’ Metal

Posted on by
Reply

Recently, we’ve moved some things around in our kitchen in a way that resulted in a little less counter space than before. One item that got moved around to places that just weren’t working out was a wire fruit basket that we keep produce and garlic in. First, we moved it on top of the refrigerator, but it was in the way of some cabinets that I have to get into pretty often. Then, we moved it to the counter, but it’s so tall that it got in the way of cabinets there too. Kristen had an idea to cut the basket basically in half, which would give us two different sized baskets that would more easily fit in our spaces.

Last Saturday, while Kristen was working in the garden, I got out my new Dremel and set to cutting the basket into two baskets. I’ve only had the Dremel for a couple of months, and I’ve been trying to think of things to use it on (productive things). Turning this basket into two is easily the most productive thing I’ve done with it so far.

First, I fitted the Dremel with the cutter disc that is made to work on relatively non-heavy duty metals. Then, I just started cutting the two rods at either side as close to the bottom basket as possible. While cutting, I tried to cut around the rod in a circle (like I did with the bathroom vanity plumbing)  as opposed to straight through from one end. I don’t know if there’s a good technical reason to do it this way, but it seemed to make sense to me.

Above, you can see the bottom basket already cut away from the top one. The top basket was held up by a sort of three-prong rod (which above you can kind of see in the middle of the table, in the shadow of the bottom basket), so I cut these off the top basket right where they were soldered on. That was pretty much it for turning the one basket into two.

But. I wasn’t done using the Dremel yet. After I separated to two baskets, I still needed to grind down and smooth out the edges where I made the cuts. Sharp, jagged metal edges are not all that appealing to us.

So I swapped the cutter disc for a grinding attachment and went to smoothing the edges. This part is fun if for no other reason than the sparks. (It’s also a good idea to hold the Dremel in a way that the rotation of the grinded shoots the sparks away from you instead of at you.)

After a few minutes of smoothing out the just-cut edges, we had two baskets that would fit where we needed them and that wouldn’t draw blood from hands looking for produce. (Insert unfunny Rambo joke here.)

And here’s one last shot of the baskets in action.

Have you made any creative modifications to baskets or household items? Have any good Dremel tips or jobs?

Pin It
Share

Takin’ it off the Board: Rosemary-Pepper Salt

Posted on by
2

Remember a million years ago when I posted some Pinterest inspiration as though I might actually do something? Well, I finally got around to one of them. It’s amazing what you can make yourself do when you’re avoiding things like homework, cleaning out closets, and such. I’m taking some classes just for fun/professional development, and it’s amazing how quickly that good ol’ college procrastination creeps back in.

So in place of homework this past Saturday, I decided to do the following: go for a walk with the dogs, go to the local co-op to check out the seed and seedlings out for the spring, buy a number of said seeds and seedlings, plant a large bed full of spring goodies, watch MSU basketball, and make rosemary salt. On any regular Saturday, I might read a little, do some piddling around the house, and watch trashy TV, but not when I have homework to do. No sir, I can get productive real quick and in a hurry.

Turns out, I didn’t need much time to make the rosemary salt. It took all of 3 1/2 minutes. Well, 5 minutes if you count walking to the herb garden and clipping the rosemary.

Side note: If you aren’t currently growing your own rosemary, what in the world are you waiting for? Seriously, folks, this stuff is the easiest thing to grow ever. Ever. I recommend going to your local nursery, buying a small plant, and sticking that sucker (out of the pot, of course) in the ground. Better yet, find a friend who grows it and just cut some off and root it. You could grow it from seed, but there’s really no need for all that waiting.  You can also grow it in a pot, but I find mine does much better in the ground–overwinters better and grows more rapidly.  We’ve got good dirt, so we don’t do a single thing to ours apart from clipping it when we want to eat it, but if you grow it in a pot, you might want to add organic fertilizer and compost a couple of times a year. End side note.

And now on to the main event: Rosemary-Pepper Salt

You’ll need:

  • 4-6 long stems of rosemary, depending on your taste
  • 1.5 cu of kosher salt
  • 3-4 tbsp crushed black pepper
Here’s what you do:
  • Wash and pat dry the rosemary, then pick off the leaves by running your fingers down the stems backwards
  • Grind peppercorns in a spice grinder if whole (or just use pre-ground pepper)
  • Add rosemary leaves, salt, and pepper to food processor
  • Pulse in food processor until well mixed, about 30 sec

And there you have it — homemade, all-natural, flavored salt. You can add it to anything you would normally add salt to, but I think it’s especially good on homemade chips and roasted potatoes. Yum.

I’ve only had it a couple of days, so I’m going to watch it to make sure nothing moldy or weird happens in there since the rosemary is fresh and carries some moisture with it. I suspect it may get a little more rosemary-y over time too as the herb infuses the salt, but it’s good already. The picture below is the truest to what it actually looks like — pretty and white, not yellow-y like above.

I’m so glad I finally pulled out one of my hundreds of pins and used it at home. I did have to eventually do that pesky homework though. Hmph.

What are you pinning lately? Any simple foods like this one? Or perhaps you’re finding inspiration in other ways. Tell me about it and feed my pinning addiction!

 

BTW: I used this recipe as inspiration but altered the amounts to fit my tastes. 

 

Pin It
Share

Vinegar and Grapefruit Peel Cleaner

Posted on by
Reply

As a follow up to my last post about using vinegar as a cleaner, I thought I’d post some pictures of the grapefruit/vinegar experiment that I mentioned in DIY Vinegar and Baking Soda Cleaner. We’ve been making grapefruit and orange juice lately, and since the juicer doesn’t handle the peels well, we’ve been able to save a good bit of citrus peels this week. I’ve looked up things to do with grapefruit peels in the past but never actually tried anything out—the peels just ended up in the compost. But this time, I saved them and crammed them into a jar with vinegar.

Here’re the peels. I’d guess there are 2-3 grapefruit peels and 3-5 orange peels here.

Then, like I said, I crammed them all into the jar. Turned out to be just the right amount.

Next came the vinegar. We figured that not very much vinegar would fit in the jar with the peels, but there’s more in there than I thought would fit.

So far, it’s only been steeping for a day. I checked the smell, and it’s getting better, but it’s still pretty vinegar-y. I’ll let it sit for a couple more days before checking it again. If it comes out like we hope, it’ll be good to mop in the kitchen and clean bathrooms with.

Anybody have an idea of what’s actually happening with the peels in the vinegar? Is the vinegar pulling oil from the peels maybe?

Share

DIY Vinegar and Baking Soda Cleaner

Posted on by
6

Lately, we’ve tried to cut back on the amount of chemical cleaners we use around the house. Mostly thanks to the Super Natural Home book I posted about a while back, we’ve made it a point to avoid certain chemicals/ingredients in cleaners whose reputations precede them (in a negative way). Today, I’m going to talk a little about vinegar and baking soda.

One of the most popular DIY cleaners, I’ve found, is basically just plain old white vinegar, and I’ve started using it for multiple purposes. Another pretty popular cleaner is baking soda, which I also use a good bit when cleaning. I even sometimes use them together (and not just for the 2nd grade volcano effect).

I like to put the vinegar in a little spray bottle that makes it easy to use the same way I’d use any other kind of spray cleaner. The cleaning power of vinegar is pretty well documented in books and on websites, and since it kills many, if not all, of the types of germs bleach kills, it’s a good natural substitute for the heavier-duty cleaners. I use it to clean toilets, kitchen and bathroom sinks, and kitchen countertops.

But.

The smell. Vinegar’s smell is not the most pleasant, I know. However, I’ve found that when I use it to clean, the smell usually dissipates pretty quickly (like maybe an hour at most). So the smell isn’t something I worry too much about. Just for the fun of it, I’m going to try steeping grapefruit peels in some vinegar for a few days and then using that vinegar to clean. Supposedly, the peels will eliminate the vinegar smell. We’ll see (and I’ll let you know).

The other cleaner I’ve started using is baking soda. I like to keep it in a little jar.

Baking soda works toward a different end than vinegar. (Vinegar=disinfectant; baking soda=cleaner.) Since baking soda is an abrasive, it’s good at getting up sticky spots on counters, soap scum in sinks, and even oils spots on pots and pans. I even use baking soda to wash my face every once in a while (particularly before I shave). It’s a super-versatile little cleaner.

I’ll save the combination vinegar/baking soda explanation for another post. I promise to have pictures of the 2nd grade volcano science project phenomenon.

These DIY cleaners do a good job in their own respective ways, and they’re noticeably cheaper than most cleaners. Even if the kinds of cleaners we’ve given up somehow turned out to be completely safe, I’m a fan of using these cleaners because I know what’s in them and they’re the kinds of homemade cleaners grandmas would swear by.

Do you use any homemade cleaners or natural cleaners that you’re a fan of? Let us know.

Pin It
Share

The Endearing: Glass-front Kitchen Cabinets

Posted on by
Reply

Following Ed’s post about his favorite part of our house, the wood paneling, I figured I could let you in on my favorite as well: the section of glass-front cabinets in our kitchen.

In keeping with the pine theme in our house, our kitchen cabinets are true 1950s knotty pine. They’re charming, cabin-y, nostalgic, quirky, dated, awesome, blech all at the same time. Sometimes I come home and walk in through the carport door into our kitchen and think, “Ugh, it’s so dark in here. I can’t wait until we paint these cabinets” (not to mention get rid of the pine cabinets-on-pine walls thing going on up in there). And other times, I walk in and think, “Man, I sure do love that we have real pine, sturdy, huge cabinets that show the history of this house.” It’s still a toss up as to what we’ll do with those ugly-gorgeous cabinets when we renovate the kitchen.

What isn’t a toss up though, is my affection for the one row of glass-front cabinets. They were the first thing that caught my eye when we looked at the house (scratch that, they were the first thing inside the house to catch my eye–the amazingly huge backyard full of flowers and fruit won first prize).

Like this row of muscadines and scuppernongs (types of grapes, for those of you who don’t live in the South). 

And a close up (they get much larger and turn purple (muscadines) or yellow (scuppernong) in the fall.

To say that our house was not a looker when our realtor showed it to us is a bit of an understatement. We had the most awful blue walls in the addition, beige shag carpet in the den, a yellow-wallpapered bathroom, wall-to-wall carpet and other old-folks design choices everywhere.

But the glass-front cabinets were not a problem. I loved them instantly and just knew that they would be perfect to house our pretty blue and white dishes and serving pieces.

Like the rest of the kitchen, they’re a little cabin-y with that hardware, but I still think they’re so pretty. And this little bit of glass reflects light around the room and opens it up a bit. Proof, the glare in the pictures. Sorry about that, folks.

I hope you see this area is the temporary home for my new cuckoo clock too. I’m still pretty much in love with that thing. It’s amazing, I tell you.

These and the cabinets below are more shallow than those in the rest of the room, so we may decide to make them deeper when we renovate, but regardless what we decide to do, they will definitely be a part of our kitchen and home for years to come. I love ‘em!

What’s your favorite part of your home or apartment? Did something vintage like these cabinets catch your eye when you moved in, or do you have a love for something brand new and modern?

 

Pin It
Share