I like fun.

     Over the summer my brother turned the island in his kitchen into a karaoke stage for my niece’s birthday party. Unfortunately I missed the bash, but I saw the photos and it looked EPIC – complete with strobe-lights and nine-year-old rock stars. What a fantastic use for the kitchen counter. Ms. Hannah will remember that evening forever. That’s what kitchens were made for. They’re the heart of the home and the place where we connect with our family and friends.
     Some of the most lasting memories from my own life were made congregated around a kitchen counter. When we started our house-hunt last winter, I was searching for a kitchen that would be the perfect place to make our home. Unfortunately, a great kitchen was one of many must-haves on our first-time-home-buyer’s list. It quickly became clear that the houses that were in our budget didn’t have great kitchens. Thankfully, realtor Tracey Henkels was masterful at helping us see the potential in the spaces we could afford.
     When we first looked at the house that would become our home, I loved (L-O-V-E-D) the layout. The place just felt like us. The kitchen, on the other hand, was dated, tiny and closed off from the rest of the house. Tracey immediately suggested that we could remove the wall that blocked the kitchen from the rest of the upstairs living area to achieve the open concept that I wanted. I could see the vision, but resigned myself to living with a cramped, isolated kitchen for a few years while we saved money for a complete remodel.

     But then, once again, HGTV inspired me. A couple of weeks ago I saw The Property Brothers do a pass-through from a kitchen into a dining room in a remodel they were doing. That started me thinking that we could do something similar for virtually no money (just the cost of the trim/molding). I started pitching the idea to Brent and he convinced me that we could still get some additional counter space if we did the pass through and added a cheap IKEA wooden counter top for the base. The virtually nothing budget was suffering scope creep and we hadn’t even started. I proposed that we check out one of Portland’s many re-use stores and see if we could find a less-expensive and better quality alternative.
At the Habitat for Humanity re-use store we scored. We stumbled upon a hard-wood coffee table (someone had already removed the legs) in great shape finished in a stain that already matched our cabinets. For $25 we had our counter top and within hours there was a hole in our wall. We did the entire project for about $150 and we would have come in under $100 if we hadn’t needed some tools we didn’t have already (jig-saw, big drill bit, etc). Most of our non-tool expense was electrical wire/supplies because we had to move two light switches and an outlet.

     My husband is a super-star. He hung tough through several frustrating do-it-yourself-debacles and we ended up with an awesome pass-through that has revolutionized our living area. Our new open-concept space is exactly what I wanted and is going to be the perfect stage for a fall and holiday season full of indoor dinner parties.

     Hannah Jensen you have a standing invitation to karaoke on my new counter any time you want!

So, I hope this post leaves you inspired…

1. You’d be surprised what you can accomplish with some elbow grease and some gumption.
2. A tight budget opens doors to creativity. Don’t be scared of limited funds.
3. Look at your kitchen and think about how you can use your space to build memories with your loved ones.

I’d love to hear your great kitchen memory and/or remodel stories. Leave your comments here, or stop by for a glass of wine and check out the pass-through for yourself.

     What a gorgeous weekend in Portland! Since homeownership our lives have been full of new things like HGTV, improvement projects, yard work, AND my most favorite activity in our new house – dinner parties! We found ourselves domesticated very quickly this summer and lazy afternoons on our sunny back deck are what I’ve been craving. I spent today lounging in the sun and reading Sunset magazines – perfection. I’ve always loved Sunset, but it’s even more fun now that we own our first home.  The tips, tricks and ideas I’m reading are inspiration for our home and yard. We need all the help we can get because our yard is in serious need of an over-haul!

     Last week I stepped through a rotten board on our deck, we don’t have a picnic table and there is very little that is cute or even close to an inviting outdoor living space. The yard is pretty much a disaster area! I’ve been watching craigslist for wooden outdoor furniture and dreaming of a big dining table. The August 2011 Sunset has an awesome article about turning a shipping pallet into an outdoor table. I’m inspired and now on the hunt for a yard sale table that I can use for legs! I need to figure out our table situation sooner rather than later.

     This week we hosted two dinner parties. One on Wednesday (inspired by the Reboot your work week article from a few issues back – one of the tips – midweek dinner parties!) and one on Friday night. Our weather finally turned to reliably sunny this week and when I realized we were hosting dinners on days that would reach the 80s I started to panic a bit. The main living space in our new home gets southern exposure and tends to heat up beyond comfortable dinner temperature on warm afternoons. I’ve been dreaming of lovely summer parties with slow meals eaten al fresco ever since I read Katie Tamony’s description of the dinner parties they hosted under the stars on their patio last summer. It was the perfect week to host such a party, but all I could think about was my lack of table and chairs and the horrible disarray of the yard.

     I went back and read her editor’s note – Summer glow -  from the June issue and I got inspired. I borrowed a 6 ft table from work and bought a slew of hanging lanterns, hurricanes and candles at Ross ($30 goes a long way for stuff like this at discount stores). I couldn’t afford to run out and buy new outdoor dining furniture and fresh landscaping, but for less than $50 bucks I transformed our ugly yard into a moody and romantic outdoor dining room. We have a FABULOUS and giant Chinese Maple out back and its branches provided the perfect canopy for my hanging lanterns. I covered the folding table with a cute blue table cloth (on sale at Macys) and we hauled our dining room chairs outside. Once the candles were lit and the wine was flowing the backyard was one thing: dreamy.  Add two groups of fun friends and my husband’s out-of-the-this-world food and we had two perfect dinner parties! I have one word: blessed.

     So – thank you Katie and Sunset magazine for all of the inspiration and thank you wonderful friends and family for breaking bread with us on a couple of idyllic pdx summer evenings. They will be the first of many dinners eaten outside at our new place. I can’t wait to share a meal with more of you as our yard continues to evolve. Here’s to easy living and eating under the stars – Cheers!

See more photos of our dinner parties in my Summer 2011 album on facebook.

     It’s not a big secret that I’m pretty much obsessed with Christmas. I LOVE this time of year with the giving and the getting and the trees and the lights and the carols. It’s just plain festive and fun. I especially love the lights. I remember when I was a kid the excitement of seeing our neighborhood light up just after Christmas. We also had a family tradition that included a post-Christmas Eve church service drive around town to see the lights. This tradition got less and less popular as the three kids in the backseat got older and older. But when we were small, the elbowing and fighting would always come to a halt as we passed an especially decorated Griswold-esc house. Wide eyes and expressions that reflect the awe of hundreds of twinkling lights are pretty priceless memories.
     I think every town has that one street, or that one neighborhood that goes all out – a normally quiet cul-de-sac that transforms into a busy street for a few weeks a year.  In Portland we have Peacock Lane. I have to admit, that I knew nothing about this iconic Portland tradition until this year. Holy cow! I can’t believe what we’d been missing!

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     Peacock Lane is awesome and funkily weird all at the same time. It’s a short street of Tudor houses between SE Stark and SE Belmont (it would be 40th St if it weren’t Peacock Land). The houses are decorated to the hilt. Forget hundreds and think thousands of sparkling lights. It’s real good. But it can also be a traffic jam. Park a few blocks away and walk. Brent and I checked it driving one night and then went back on Friday and walked. It’s so much better to take it in at a stroll. Plus there are tons of people in festive moods laughing and having fun. You miss that part if you’re in the car (unless you’ve had too much wine and are hanging your head out of the car window snapping pics and laughing with people). The walk is worth braving the cold and it’s a short street so it’s quick and oh-so-much-Christmas fun.
Make this Portland tradition part of your Christmas plans this season.

     I’d love to hear of other parts of town that are twinkling with an above-average number of lights. What’s your favorite Christmas light display?

we went.

     I find myself reflective on this rainy Saturday morning in September. I’m afraid the dog days of summer are behind us and that the rain has started. I’m thinking we’re in for a wet fall in the Pacific Northwest. I’m not so thrilled about the rain, but I am ready for all that fall brings, crisp nights, leaves to crunch through, the pumpkin patch, football and much more.

     I’m waving goodbye to summer and all the good things (and places) we did. I thought I’d put together a little gallery from our summer of fun.

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          The short days of winter are almost over! Signs that spring is upon us are everywhere and I’m so excited about that I can hardly contain myself. Here’s what I’m most excited about.

The flowers.
        All this sun has coaxed in a bazillion spring colors. Daffodils are quite possibly the happiest flowers ever. I can’t help but be cheery when I see them and they’re everywhere!

The sun.
        This has been a merciful PDX winter/early spring. We’ve seen the blessed sun frequently and I’ve been soaking it in.

Avatar.
        oh man. I just typed shining, shining bright spot then stopped and deleted when I tasted the vomit in my mouth. That statement is cheeserifick, but seriously this movie was BADASS. See it in 3D (on IMAX if you can) before it’s too late. It will make you smile and all the amazing bright colors will remind you that spring is on its way. The movie is stupendous and seeing your lover in 3D glasses is hilarious – so it’s a double wammy of goodness.

The balcony project.
        Brent and I have a small balcony off of our living room in the new apartment. We were inspired by all this early sunshine and have created an outdoor living space that is bordering on totally excessive. I’m in love with it and have already logged several hours of relaxation on our new plush outdoor furniture (way too big for the tiny space) enjoying the explosion of flowers and party lights that will warm our hearts (and souls) all summer.

        So. Stop wining about winter and enjoy the longer days that are just around the corner. Spring is here (despite this snap of returned winter weather) and Spring brings Summer and i LOVE summer!

        Yesterday was a good day. Super bowl Sunday is one of my most favorite holidays. We had a party at my sister’s house, catered by some of the finest cooks I know. Brent made gumbo and Whit and Taran did ribs (rubbed on Tuesday, smoked on Saturday and finished on the grill for game-time). There were also yummy snacks including Whit’s unbelievable caramelized onion bacon blue cheese dip. And here I am side-tracked by food. The point is, the game was great, the food was even better and we had fun friend time. After the game we headed to Dot’s for the Country Cat Holiday Party. Cocktails with the cats at a trademark hipster joint, complete with a gift exchange. What more could a girl ask for?

        In addition to the day’s events, two hilarious things happened. The first was a story I heard that still has me giggling. The second was an especially klutzy moment that only I could do justice to. Both were moments that I wish, wish, wish were captured digitally (video or photo). But sadly, you’ll have to rely on my descriptions.

        First. The cats always have a gift exchange at their holiday parties. We all draw numbers and take turns opening classically hilarious white-elephant gifts. Things like praying-hand book ends, a tiny glock that shocks you when you pull the trigger, aqua-net hair spray and stolen Chinese restaurant menus. It’s good clean fun. This year, everyone kept talking about “the foam finger.” I didn’t ever see a giant foam hand, so I had to ask what the buzz was about. Let me just say that the term muffin-top on it’s own makes me giggle. Make it a muffin-top story and I’m pretty much dying from laughter. I can laugh, because I have one and I going to go ahead and say that I hate it when people touch the pudge. Apparently, one of the dish-washers at the cat is a muffin-top toucher. I find this even more hilarious because the girls at the cat are thin and beautiful, but it just goes to show you that even the thinnest of girls can have a little roll bulging out of the top of her jeans. So the story goes like this. Alison, one of the waitresses, was dropping off a pile of dirty dishes and as she bent over to deposit her table-ware and trash. The tiniest of love handles popped out from below her shirt and that dishwasher’s pointer finger stretched out and gave it a poke! While she told me the story, I stared at her in amused horror. She laughed at my reaction and said – that’s the same look I gave the dishwasher! After the incident she went to the front of the house complaining that her muffin-top had just been violated and found out that this particular dish-washer is a multiple offender. He’s got some kind of muffin-top obsession and she wasn’t the only one getting muffin touchin. So…on the list for next year’s gift exchange: A giant foam finger, perfect for poking everyone’s pudge.

        Second. After Dots, we had friends over for an after party. I noticed as I walked through the kitchen on the way to bed (roscoe in hand), that I’d missed putting away Whit’s BBQ sauce. She makes the wonderful goodness from scratch and calls it crock-pot BBQ. It will make your mouth sing. She had the leftovers in a margarine tub. I scooped it off the counter with my free arm and planned on popping it in the fridge on my way by. As I went to open the fridge door, the tub slipped out of my hand. Before I could blink, I had a face-full (and two eyes-full) of crock-pot BBQ sauce. What was music to my mouth was a sand-storm to my eyes. I immediately started hollering and made my way blindly to the sink. I slid Roscoe on to the counter, turned on the faucet and started flushing my eye-balls with cool soothing water. When I could finally see through my blurry, burning eyes, I couldn’t believe what I saw. The kitchen was covered in carnage from the bbq sauce explosion. Roscoe, whimpering on the counter, also had a face-full of sauce. I started the clean-up by shoving him under the faucet. Then I turned to deal with the rest of the disaster. There was sweet and spicy brown sauce splattered all over the walls, all over the floor and dripping from the cupboards and the refrigerator and the dog and from me. I’m still finding remnant drops today. It was an epic mess and all I could do was laugh and wipe it up. So yesterday was a fun, funny, messy super-bowl filled story-provoking day. What kind of tales to you have to share from your football holiday adventures?

        I was standing in line at the Wal-mart today and the woman in front of me was purchasing $200 worth of home work-out equipment. The clerk scanned, a balance ball, a yoga mat, some kind of weird contraption that fits in a 12 by 24” box that is supposed to simulate stair-stepping and promises a hawt bum, and a few more miscellaneous items. When the checker gave her the total, I shook my head (I’m a judger) and thought about my own closet full of workout equipment that is gathering dust. I’m sure those things she bought today will be abandoned to the same fate and she’ll find that she wasted her money. During my judging moment, I looked at my own cart and then I stopped criticizing and started laughing. I was spending $200 (thanks auntie and uncle for that belated wedding card) on a full tilt, full motion wall mount for our flat screen TV. The work-out gear buying woman in front of me is kicking off 2010 with fitness (despite my cynicism, I wish her well) and I’m starting 2010 making sure I can see my TV from every angle of our new apartment. This is wrong on so many levels. Maybe I can redeem myself if I start using one of my many dust-collecting video work-outs.

        Unfortunately I don’t think at-home fitness is very fun, which is why I don’t ever seem to stick to a program. Whatever happened to the Jane Fonda workout? Now Jane in her leg-warmers doing the bicycle was freaking awesome! We had her workout album on vinyl and I used to get up early in the morning with my mom to do aerobics while Jane called the steps. I even had the leg-warmers, but I rocked purple. Her burn-building mix of dance steps combined with aerobics would get your heart pumping and it was FUN. My favorite move was what Jane called the fire hydrant. Think about a dog lifting his leg to whiz and you have a mental image of the move. It wasn’t until a few years later that they decided that particular position combined with the motion was bad for your back, so we had to stop doing that one.

        Since I’m not sure what ever became of our Jane Fonda workout record, I have to come up with a different fun way to get in shape. How come no one tells you that the first year of marriage is pretty much just like the first year of college? The freshman 15 totally sneaks up on you, only it sucks even worse now. Getting fit in your 30’s is a heck of a lot harder than in your teens. As a result, I’m committed to start a running plan in the next week or so (let me get through this move first). It’s going to be HARD because I’m horribly chubby and out of shape, I’ll be re-starting the Couch to 5K program. It starts easy – run for 30 seconds and then walk for a minute and then repeat (even my fat butt can handle that). I should be running a 3K in 8 weeks or so, which is good because I’ve got about 10 weeks until the Shamrock Run (which I committed to run with friends). The Shamrock is milestone 1 on the road to the Helvetia half-marathon. I’ll also be on track for the first Portland Fit training run (3 miles) which starts in April and is the program I’m doing to train for the Helvetia.

        This all seems like work (lots of it), but I think I’ve put together a plan that should be manageable to chunk (pun intended) out and provide some fun with friends and opportunities to reach small goals which should keep me going. 

I’ll keep you posted.