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Archive for the ‘Home’ Category

When the holidays get weird, the weird get festive

Posted in Home, Photographs, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 9, 2015| 1 Comment »

reindeer

The filigreed reindeer built for themselves a primitive god, not recognizing the power they had unleashed until it was too late to dash away.

Because all Christmas decorations should come with a backstory.

A friend embellished the legend for me, complete with a short “Repo Man” reference:

And the caribou deity proclaimed, “For I am Reednier, and I have become Yuletide! Thou art my minions. Let us go forth and rejoice, defy gravity, eat apples, fine cheese and chocolate, and pause for decaf lattes! Yes, and not pay.”

Because everyone should have friends who add delightful details to your weird backstories.

 

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The joys of non-homeownership

Posted in Home, tagged , , , , on September 22, 2015| Leave a Comment »

True confession: I don’t miss being a homeowner at all.

Turns out I despise yardwork. It’s like laundry: It never ends. Except it’s worse than laundry, because it has to be completed outside in the 90-degree heat, and it never looks as good as it could unless you plow thousands of dollars into chemicals, machinery and just plain starting over with new landscaping. And I can at least wear my clothes, whereas I only entered the yard to maintain it. Futility at its finest.

I also don’t miss the feeling of having never done enough, knowing that you should find a stylish chair to go in the corner opposite the couch so you can have that conversational nook you always read about. Only whenever anybody comes over you end up chatting at the kitchen table over coffee or cocktails or wine, because everyone knows that’s where the best conversations happen.

The constant pressure to be refurbishing something, with an eye toward styling it to suit the tastes of some unknown future buyer, who prefers creme-colored walls and, uh-oh, your color selection was closer to a light beige? No thanks.

The awful realization that the one thing tying me to a city I need to leave is a house I don’t want anymore? Deliciously non-existent.

I suppose I’ll get back into the real estate business one day, but there are no guarantees. I’ve tasted freedom, and it is sweet.

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Post-cat, fresh flowers are a household thing

Posted in Cats, Home, tagged , , , , , on April 20, 2015| Leave a Comment »

tulips

One side effect of owning a cat for the better part of 18 years was a strict no-flowers-in-the-house rule. Yang loved nothing more than calmly sniffing a bouquet and then suddenly snatching a flower between his teeth, ready to chow down like a champion.

When the husband brought home a gorgeous bouquet of lilies for Valentine’s Day, I actually left them at home instead of hiding them in the closet until I could secrete them away to the safer confines of my office. They were a lovely, colorful addition to the condo.

During my next trip to Trader Joe’s, it occurred to me that people actually buy flowers for their homes, all the time, without holidays, birthdays or anniversaries as a prompt. Five dollars later, I had the perfect little bouquet of tulips to add a touch of spring to the living room.

It’s a small indulgence, but $5 every couple of weeks is money well spent to lift the mood of our small space. I’d trade them in an instant to have my cat back, though.

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Flood prompts furniture purchase

Posted in Atlanta, Home, Huntsville, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , on March 19, 2015| 3 Comments »

When we moved out of the house in Huntsville, I left my “china cabinet” behind. An IKEA shelf-turned-cabinet via the addition of a few doors, it was still in great shape (although mysteriously unphotographed), but entirely too heavy to move. Taking apart IKEA products seems inadvisable, especially products with hinges because, man, those things are hard to get right the FIRST time.

Thus, my favorite sunflower-patterned plates and bowls have been trapped in storage for the past year because buying furniture is THE WORST. Last month’s storage room flood destroyed one of my boxes, however, so the need to unload everything became a little more urgent.

Another trip to IKEA, another shelf-turned cabinet. This time we went for wide instead of tall, and chose a design that required six tiny doors instead of two or four larger ones. The hinge installation actually went pretty smoothly after we got a rhythm going – we almost went for eight doors, but figured out the liquor bottles were pretty attractive on their own.

Is it going to be too heavy to move? Oh yeah. But at a price of around $150, I can afford to pass it on in a couple of years if necessary. Our building has a healthy IKEA-reselling network, and not feeling obligated to move heavy furniture all over the place makes me extremely portable.

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Flooded storage room? No problem

Posted in Home, tagged , , , , on February 25, 2015| 1 Comment »

Weekend epiphany: You know you’re organized when your storage room floods and you’re not worried about losing a thing.

I got the call at around 1 p.m. Sunday: There was water in our downstairs storage room (it comes with the condo) and they needed us to come check it out STAT.

Ah, the struggle of donning pants on a Sunday afternoon.

The storage room contains a kayak, a couple of wetsuits, a few dishes, a plastic box of Christmas decorations, miscellaneous garage stuff and most of the husband’s books.

The books can be a contentious topic. We’ve designed rooms around those books, although “designed” is a misleading word, since we end up with ugly industrial-strength shelving wherever it’ll fit because there are SO MANY BOOKS. There’s simply not room in the condo for the whole collection, and I can’t stomach any more walls lined with wire shelving and plywood.

I had just brought the last box of my books upstairs a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been culling books for a couple of years, treating them like living treasures that yearn for love, adventure and respect. There are only so many that I’m going to re-read, and the ones that have sat on the shelf, year after year, awaiting their first read? They need some love, and I’m obviously not the person to give it to them.

Thus, I have one eight-section IKEA Expedit shelf filled with my literary treasures. I’ll invite the husband’s books upstairs (and we recently bought a smaller under-window shelf for his nicest publications), but the whole unedited collection is just too much.

A flood can be your best friend. He only lost a few books, the ones on the bottom of a couple of boxes that rested on the floor. Those got tossed, usually with a comment along the lines of “I don’t even know why I still have this.” My hope is that more introspection occurs.

But the best part of the whole adventure? Knowing that everything (and I mean that in the true sense of every THING, not including people and animals) that I love is within the walls of the condo with me. Photos are scanned and/or in one plastic tub next to my desk. Books are culled and shelved. Important paperwork is in a small safe, not scattered throughout random boxes. Artwork is hanging, not leaning against the wall downstairs, awaiting spot selection and, perhaps, flooding. Furniture is in place, not in storage for if/when we get a bigger place (fingers crossed that we don’t).

Can I instantly place my hands on any random thing you ask me for? No. Can I figure out where it is within 10 minutes without shuffling madly through random boxes of stuff? Most definitely.

Do your worst, washing machine across the hall from our storage unit.

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Just when I thought my kitchen was tiny …

Posted in Home, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 23, 2015| Leave a Comment »

After ditching the terrible kitchen that I gladly left behind in Mobile (huge room, no counter space, two outlets on walls spaced some 20 feet apart), I enjoyed the large expanse of a kitchen built in the late 90s, complete with tons of cabinet space. Pure suburbia.

I didn’t exactly get along with pure suburbia, however, and ended up in a medium-sized condo in Midtown Atlanta with a decidedly NOT medium-sized kitchen.

I like it. I donated the china that I’ve been packing around for nearly 20 years (china that was meticulously packed away in my paternal grandmother’s home, so don’t worry that I’ve thrown away some sort of beloved family legacy). I need one more smallish cabinet to keep my own wedding china, which is actually pottery, but other than that a smaller kitchen is definitely working for me. Less to dirty, less to clean up. Less cabinet space to attract stuff that has nothing to do with food prep.

On a recent trip to London and Paris (I’m not going to call it a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, because I fully intend to go back, but yeah, it was a big deal), I realized how much less kitchen I could live without. We stayed in apartments in both cities, beginning with a laughably tiny kitchenette in Chelsea:

kitchen

It really took the concept of “no counter space” to a whole new level, but it worked. We boiled pasta and heated sauce for Christmas dinner, and we scrambled eggs one morning. We also had a water kettle, microwave and toaster, meaning we could easily make coffee (via French press) and tea, plus warm up the occasional sandwich or other bakery treat.

In Paris, we added a dishwasher and slightly more counter space to our cooking area:
kitchen2

I think the most complicated thing I made here was oatmeal (dozens of authentic French bakeries within walking distance does not prompt a girl to break out the pots and pans). I also enjoyed the kitchen’s Nespresso Senseo coffeemaker, which I was disappointed to learn is no longer sold in the United States. While I hold anything involving K-cups in utter disdain, I could live with coffee made from those little filter packets every last day.

So much more to talk about from this trip later. Right now, I have to go enjoy the wide-open spaces of my tiny condo kitchen.

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Not every house can be home

Posted in Family, Home, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 5, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I had the run of my grandparents’ home since before I could even run. I miss that sort of familiarity with a living space.

A few years ago, I realized that our house in Huntsville didn’t feel like home and never would.

Is it weird that a two-bedroom condo in the heart of Midtown Atlanta feels more like home than anywhere I’ve ever spent significant amounts of time, save my grandparents’ house?

After every major family visit, I lament the lack of a comfortable secondary family space. My grandparents’ house was like a second home for my family — we knew where everything was and how to operate the TV and other essentials. We felt free to graze in the kitchen, grabbing leftover biscuits from their stovetop perch throughout the day or snagging Little Debbie snack cakes from the stash that was inevitably residing on top of the fridge.

The house is still there, and I could still go there if I wanted, but my uncle and aunt live in it now so it’s their house. Different stuff, different people, different vibe.

I’m convinced that no one ever feels 100% comfortable in their in-laws’ house, nor do you feel like you have a refrigerator-privilege kind of relationship when there’s a step-parent on board, even when they’re beyond awesome.

This not-being-able-to-go-home-again notion? Totally a thing.

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Finally, grown-up chairs

Posted in Home, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 29, 2014| Leave a Comment »

photo

Say what you will about Pier 1 Imports, but their director’s chairs will last FOREVER if properly maintained (by which I mean not having children or dogs in the house).

A little too long, really. We bought a set of four about 20 years ago, after we figured out we didn’t have enough money for the kitchen table we loved AND the chairs that went with it. We planned to replace them within a few years, only they never were really worse for the wear, and picking out furniture is HARD, you guys.

So they stayed. Only the little plastic tips started wearing out, and proved nearly impossible to replace (thanks for that bit of built-in obsolescence, Pier 1). Soon, we only had three functional chairs. After the move to Atlanta, that number dwindled to two.

IKEA to the rescue. A little over $400 (which is about what we paid for the on-sale table at a fancier Swedish furniture store two decades ago) and we had four perfectly functional, and quite stylish, dining chairs with replaceable covers. IKEA items run the gamut from flimsy to unbelievably sturdy, and these appear to be running toward the sturdy. No squeaking, no rocking, no signs of instability.

Plus, just look at them: all clean lines and comfort.

Meanwhile, two director’s chairs lurk in the storage room downstairs, awaiting a movie production company or a couple of extra guests.

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Bodum adds functional style to kitchen counter

Posted in Eats, Home, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 2, 2013| Leave a Comment »

The Bodum Bistro Universal Knife Block: definitely on my list of Favorite Things right now.

The new cookware we bought a couple of years ago came with a set of really groovy, really sharp knives.

I began using them in place of the set of less exciting knives that have been getting duller by the minute in their wooden block ever since someone gave them to us nearly two decades ago.

Where do you keep loose knives, especially when you want them to keep their edge? I was reduced to keeping these in the silverware drawer and trying to keep them from butting into each other.

I really like the look of a magnetic knife rack, but I don’t trust Yang, despite his advanced age, not to go smacking shiny knives off the wall in the middle of the night.

Amazon.com to the rescue. I found the Bodum Bistro Universal Knife Block during my search for a solution. It’s STUNNING, and it takes up next to NO room on the countertop. I love the bold color (it was, at some point, also available in black, orange and lime green), and the functionality can’t be beat. It contains hundreds of narrow plastic sticks, which allow the knives (and scissors) to easily slide into place. My largest knife is too tall to drop in vertically, but it goes in quite neatly at a slight angle.

A view from the top: Although it currently houses only three knives and a pair of scissors, the Bodum knife block has plenty of room for more occupants.

At nearly $50, it was a bit of an indulgence, but what’s better than an indulgence that actually solves a problem?

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Tiny bowls simplify the cooking process

Posted in Eats, Home, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 6, 2013| Leave a Comment »

A few years ago, I discovered that cooking is a lot like painting: The more work you put into a project before you start, the smoother everything goes once you begin.

I had always noticed that people on cooking shows had premeasured ingredients at the ready, but I figured they needed to do that so the camera didn’t have to follow the mundaneness of the measuring process. At some point, however, I realized that premeasured additions made a lot of sense. What’s easier: Scooping out various amounts of spices while standing at the stove at the very moment those ingredients need to be added to your concoction, repeatedly glancing back at the recipe, or measuring out all of those ingredients before you start so you can dump them in at the appropriate time, all at once and with no double-checking of the recipe?

A lot of the recipes I frequently use call for tiny amounts of ingredients, meaning it was hard to justify dirtying even my smallest bowls for premeasuring. I had been using wax paper for these smaller measurements, but tearing tiny squares off the roll made for an untidy rectangle when I would finally need a larger piece.

IKEA to the rescue. During my going-away trip to the Atlanta megastore, I stumbled across the BLANDA bowls. At $2.99 for a pack of four, these 2-inch bowls are the perfect size for my small additions of herbs and spices. One bowl will hold approximately four minced garlic cloves (provided, of course, that you haven’t been tricked into buying some monstrous head of garlic with supersized cloves) and maybe 4 teaspoons of herbs and spices.

I almost bought the stainless steel version ($4.99 for four), but I could tell that they were going to scratch easily, since every package I picked up sported at least one bowl that was already pretty roughed up.

So far, the most bowls I’ve used at one time is three. I took the photo above during Cinco de Mayo’s fajita-making festivities; one holds minced garlic, another holds oregano and thyme, and the third holds salt and pepper. All in all, probably not that much to measure out midway through the cooking process, but dumping a tiny bowl of premeasured ingredients into a pan filled with sizzling onions makes me feel like I should have my own cooking show.

Iron Chef Haggerty. I like it.

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