Author Archives: Deborah

Banana Bran Muffins – Or How to Eat Healthy and Still Have Your Sweets

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I know you have some overly ripe bananas in your house. We all do. And there are only so many smoothies you can make before you want do do something else with them. Here’s a recipe I found elsewhere and adjusted a little bit. It does have some sugar but not a whole lot. The really good bits are whole wheat flour, bran cereal, low-fat buttermilk and of course, the bananas. Coninue reading…

The Half Bath – Finito

When we left off, I had finished the floor and needed to wait another day for the grout to set up. D— jumped in to help me with the painting and the moulding. He painted all the bead board panels and moulding. The biggest tip I have for anyone who takes a room down to nothing like this is to paint all your moulding before you install it. It’s far easier to touch up nail holes and caulk than it is to paint it on the wall.

paneling before moulding

paneling before moulding

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The Half Bath – Days 2 & 3

There wasn’t much point in showing you all Day 2 all by itself, because the only thing I did was to patch holes and rip out the subflooring. And while that was intense, it doesn’t look that much different from the floor you’ve already seen.

But I got anxious to see what the tile would look like, so I laid it all down to test the spacing.

rough tile layout

rough tile layout

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The Half Bath – Day 1

Hot on the heels of finishing (more or less) the guest room, I am launching into the downstairs bath. This is probably the one that gets used most often, but it is also the one that still has a regular – as in “uses a ridiculous amount of water and still doesn’t always do the job” – toilet.

This is my annual Memorial Day week remodel. I’m making up for lost time, because last year there was no project. Instead, M— graduated from college, so we used our vacation for that. SO worth it! But now I’m super twitchy to get this thing done. It’s the last room on the main floor for the Grand Treatment. Continue reading…

The Guest Room – Part 5

Let’s recap. We bought our house in 2006. It was built in 1978. Prior to our taking ownership, I don’t think very much had been changed. I did discover a second layer of vinyl flooring when I did the entry. And we suspect the windows were replaced at some point, although they could stand it again. But other than that, probably not much.

It has taken me until this year to finally get to the guest room. The very first room we did was M’s bedroom. She was in her Junior year of high school, and we knew she wouldn’t be living with us much longer, so we wanted to make sure she was comfortable for the time she was here.

So back to the guest room…it had burnt orange carpet with bleach stains. It had the same delightful brown “woodwork” – and I use that term loosely – as the hallway, and it had cream walls. Now, while there is nothing wrong with cream walls if they have a striking baseboard and window frame to spice them up, this certainly didn’t. Here are a few pictures to remind you what it started out looking like. Continue reading…

The Guest Room – part 4

We’re in the home stretch. When I left off, the room was stripped down to the bones, but there was no color yet. Now there is color.

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Trip Around the World Quilt

Or how I can’t just seem to work on one project at a time.

Those of you who have been following along in the past few weeks know I am working on a T-shirt quilt for step-daughter M—. As interesting as it is, it is pretty dark overall. When I saw a package of pre-cut fabric strips with the tantalizing moniker of Sea Glass, I just had to have them. Not only are they pretty colors, but they are batiks. My absolute favorite kind of fabric to work with. It irons crisply which makes it easier to line up all the edges and points.

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