A pretty space where bricks used to be!
{Don’t miss the update about my book set, The Summa Domestica, in the bits & pieces section below!}
The meeting will come to order!
Old business (i.e. quick responses to comments from my last post):
Instant Pot hot tip: Put a folded cloth of some kind (clean rag, old kitchen towel, thick washcloth) loosely over your valve when you quick release it. That way, the grease and intense steam will go into the cloth and not under your cabinet/shelf and into the room in general!
A dear reader in a comment: “Can you please give us a picture of all your bookshelves or a closer look at the next to the curing squash? I need to be inspired to have all the bookshelves in all the places in our new to us house with no built-in anything!”
She means between the kitchen and the pantry — the squash is tucked away but I still have a basket of sweet potatoes curing on the radiator!
That door on the left opens to the back stairs, upon which I had to sit to take these pictures! So please forgive the bad lighting etc…
Here you go:
A place for travel books and nature guides — need to quickly access the bird books! The feeder is right outside my kitchen window.
And the bannetons are handy there; the basket holds our tea. Those things need to be a tad closer than the pantry! In my opinion!
Those are just old wine crates on their sides, and a bookcase from Habou’s room that I painted when I did the other bookcases for the upstairs hall and my sewing room (which got moved from the pantry to the playroom/”rec room”/Rosie’s bedroom of previous iterations, right above the kitchen, up the back stairs).
(Do peruse the other comments in that post — lots of good discussions! And by the way, I just refuse to promote my accounts on Instagram and so on, so you will note that my followers count over there is quite low, compared to that of others. I don’t even love posting reels on IG, just because of how reels work — you watch one and then you are sucked into the reel vortex! I don’t like enabling that, even though it would increase my following. I really do rely on you sharing my posts here and elsewhere to offer what we have here to them!)
We turn now to new business!
The electrician came and worked his magic, and I sweet-talked a kind contractor into fixing the corner-where-the-bricks-of-obstruction used to be! (You will understand if you have tried to get work done. Everyone is crazy busy!)
The floor: Trim will be placed where the two planes meet. This house is full of patched floor areas just like this one; I will try to remember to round up some photos at some point. It was built in 1860 and people were just not OCD about such things back then! When the kitchen is done, the floor will be refinished and this will all be something your eye smooths over!
How about that little shelf? His idea, since the wall behind is concrete, was to make this as a box that fit into the space, taking advantage of the few extra inches that I was thinking we’d just cover up with a piece of bead board. I did get the bead board in, though! I’m not sure how I will use it, but I do like it a lot. Any ideas for what could go there (I can add little pieces of trim to keep dishes, for instance, safe)?
Here is the before, as you will recall!
He’s coming back to finish the drywall up, and some of the final details won’t be taken care of until the whole kitchen is done (e.g. fake beam left hanging haha), because might as well do it all at once. (If you go to my IG you will see my highlight about this part of the project, which includes a video comparing how you used to come in vs. how it feels now! And befores and afters.)
More kitchen design principles:
Another pattern from Christopher Alexander’s book (I will continue to post them occasionally):
Pattern 129: Common Areas at the Heart
“… Place [the common areas] on the sunlit side to reinforce the pattern of Indoor Sunlight (128)…
Fortunately, the kitchen is one room deep and so has light on both sides (east and west).
Unfortunately, this window is too small, and in fall and spring I get no direct light at all.
We will try to rectify that with a larger window, but I think the angle will still be tricky as to direct sunlight during certain seasons (in part we are on the eastern side of a small hill and have large trees all around our property — there are good and less good aspects of these circumstances, of course).
[This pattern has lots of thoughts about placement of these common areas, some of which are not kitchens — skipping… ]
“It is crucial that it [the common area where people gather] not be a dead-end room which one would have to go out of one’s way to get to.
Not a problem in my kitchen, which has four paths!
… It must have the right components in it [mentions kitchens here]… at least some comfortable chairs, so people will feel like staying. It should also include an outdoor area — on nice cays there is always the longing to be outside — to step out for a smoke, to sit down on the grass, to carry on a discussion.
Here is the western side, and I do dearly love that we can just step onto the big deck and from there onto the grass. Light + easy access to the outside.
Every pattern has a summary at the end: Therefore: … “most basic of all to common areas are food and fire.
I never even knew about fireplaces in the kitchen until we saw this house. Now you would have to wrench it out of my cold, dead hands!
(Note for the eagle-eyed: the new board on the left is plumb. The side of the fireplace is not, a little hiccup that is exaggerated by the mortar repair that is not yet lime-washed to match the rest, and also by the wide angle of the camera. The former will be finessed later during the finishing process!)
bits & piecesA Facebook friend shared this sweet recording of children (a good boys’ choir to be fair) singing Brother James’ Air. The children’s choir at our parish, led by my good friend Molly, often sings it just as sweetly, and your children could too! (I think this is a good link for learning the choral setting — someone can correct me if not.)Laurel Bern has a fun post about unfitted kitchens in case you missed it! I think a lot of people start sharing kitchens that actually are not that different from fitted kitchens, so you have to keep reminding yourself of what it really means. But as she points out, it does not always mean “open shelving” at all. To understand the design principle, we really have to get over the worry that everything will have to be out in the open. On the other hand, it’s good to remember that having our pretty things in view adds to the cozy, charming feeling we are looking for.The Wall Street Journal reports that UTIs are becoming resistant to antibiotics, and that drug companies are working on a remedy. (If you don’t subscribe, that’s basically the story.) Why is this problem so rampant? We have to look at root causes too. I do go over a lot of it in my post (and chapter in my book!) that covers my cheap and effective remedy. (Spoiler: hygiene and also what kind of underwear makes a difference, can’t help thinking that some of the trends are really unhygienic!)Another little video of a religious foundation (if you liked the one about the Fairfield Carmelites!). This video about why “strong female characters” in contemporary movies (and books) are unconvincing and boring is surprisingly on target!liturgical living
Saint Philotheus, St. Bertilla
November is a real gift, not to be squandered. The Church in her wisdom connects the natural world, and its movement towards the death of winter, with our own consciousness of death. We are gently urged in the liturgy to pray for the dead and to ponder our own last end. The world wants us to forget this necessity, and the truth is that we know we ought to be mindful of the hereafter, but we put it off. It’s good to have a time given to us for this purpose. Let us be docile to these reminders.
By the way, all these posts are edited, expanded, and organized in my book, The Summa Domestica: Order and Wonder in Family Life!
Which is now available from Sophia in paperback! The hard cover version with slip cover should be available in time for Christmas shopping, but maybe the soft cover version is what you are interested in that!
follow us everywhere!My book, The Summa Domestica: Order and Wonder in Family Life is available now from Sophia Press! All the thoughts from this blog collected into three volumes, beautifully presented with illustrations from Deirdre, an index in each volume, and ribbons!
My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing!
My new podcast can be found on the Restoration of Christian Culture website (and you can find it where you listen to such things) — be sure to check out the other offerings there!
Stay abreast of the posts here at LMLD, when they happen:
Consider subscribing to this blog by email. In the current situation, if we can’t meet here, it would be good for us to be connected by email!
We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.
Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)
The boards of the others: Rosie’s Pinterest. Sukie’s Pinterest. Deirdre’s Pinterest. Habou’s Pinterest (you can still get a lot of inspiration here! and say a prayer for her!). Bridget’s Pinterest.
The post A pretty space where bricks used to be! appeared first on .
