I saw this last week on Serious Eats. Brilliant!

It’s pretty self-explanatory.

Yeah, I made high-end s’meeps with the fancy-pants chocolate…so what?

Get graham crackers, chocolate & marshmallow peeps. Assemble.

Toast. I did mine for 4 minutes in the toaster oven.

Remove from oven.

Put top layer (un-toasted) of graham cracker on. Smoosh down.

Eat.

Grumpy-cat is not amused by s’meeps.

Completely unrelated, I played around with some possible new house colors today. We’ve never been happy with the grey/no contrast exterior of the house. Nothing pops. It’s kind of dreary.

Hopefully, this Summer we will re-side and paint. And do something like this (excuse the kind of crappy photoshop):

Dark orange door and accents. Green siding/paint. Bright ivory (with a hint of yellow) trim and columns. It would look . . . → Read More: Happy Easter! Make S’meeps]]>

I saw this last week on Serious Eats. Brilliant!

It’s pretty self-explanatory.

Yeah, I made high-end s’meeps with the fancy-pants chocolate…so what?

Get graham crackers, chocolate & marshmallow peeps. Assemble.

Toast. I did mine for 4 minutes in the toaster oven.

Remove from oven.

Put top layer (un-toasted) of graham cracker on. Smoosh down.

Eat.

Grumpy-cat is not amused by s’meeps.

Completely unrelated, I played around with some possible new house colors today. We’ve never been happy with the grey/no contrast exterior of the house. Nothing pops. It’s kind of dreary.

Hopefully, this Summer we will re-side and paint. And do something like this (excuse the kind of crappy photoshop):

Dark orange door and accents. Green siding/paint. Bright ivory (with a hint of yellow) trim and columns. It would look so nice…

Je Mange la Ville is going on a break until the 26th or 27th of December. I hope everyone has a great few days. My first post next week will probably be of our Christmas dinner: Roasted Cornish Game Hens, Creamed Spinach and Roasted Root . . . → Read More: Happy Holidays!]]>

Je Mange la Ville is going on a break until the 26th or 27th of December. I hope everyone has a great few days. My first post next week will probably be of our Christmas dinner: Roasted Cornish Game Hens, Creamed Spinach and Roasted Root Vegetables. Mmm!

Yesterday, we had our marmoleum kitchen floor installed and we love it. It’s completely worth not having a refrigerator in the kitchen for the next 36 hours while it continues doing whatever it’s doing before we seal it Wednesday night. We do have a fridge in the garage though, so that is helpful. I’m just not doing much cooking for the next couple of days. Again, though, completely worth it!

The Details I seriously thought this would never happen. We started by going to Marion’s Carpets, which stocks marmoleum and in the beginning, seemed that they would be easy to work with. Nope. Now, perhaps carpet through them is fine, but trying to get Marmoleum purchased and installed through Marion’s was like trying to get the kitchen floor covered in gold, with the work only being able to be completed by exotic and highly-skilled, yet surly circus . . . → Read More: Finally! And it’s Beautiful! And Happy Halloween!]]>

Yesterday, we had our marmoleum kitchen floor installed and we love it. It’s completely worth not having a refrigerator in the kitchen for the next 36 hours while it continues doing whatever it’s doing before we seal it Wednesday night. We do have a fridge in the garage though, so that is helpful. I’m just not doing much cooking for the next couple of days. Again, though, completely worth it!

The Details
I seriously thought this would never happen. We started by going to Marion’s Carpets, which stocks marmoleum and in the beginning, seemed that they would be easy to work with. Nope. Now, perhaps carpet through them is fine, but trying to get Marmoleum purchased and installed through Marion’s was like trying to get the kitchen floor covered in gold, with the work only being able to be completed by exotic and highly-skilled, yet surly circus animals. Also, Marion’s was very bad at returning phone calls. In addition, we had to put a deposit down for materials before we could get an estimate (we got this back). Oh and they are overpriced. Blah.

Plus, the contractor they sent out never left us with a bid sheet or an estimate of his costs — we just got the cost for the marmoleum (about $800!!?). While trying to get an answer as to why the estimate was so high, our salesman asked if jwa (the male) was home while the measurements were taken on the kitchen. Because, I kid you not, as a female, apparently, I may not have noticed if the contractor had accidentally measured the dining room and the living room as well. Uh. Okay. Buh-bye, Marion’s. You suck.

We next tried to get a few basic installation estimates from other contractors but without much luck. Why is it so hard to find someone who is bonded, reliable and knows what they are doing?

The marmoleum sits in the dining room…waiting

Finally, we turned to (and should have used from the beginning) Linoleum City. Their Marmoleum prices are about $10 less per square yard than Marion’s. Plus, they work with Dave from DJs Floors for installation, who, in a word, is awesome. Our materials costs came to about $450 through Linoleum City — oh, don’t ask me how the hell the Marion’s contractor measured — I’m just a girl!

About a 1/3 done…Hooray!

Dave and his son came early Monday morning and patched up the old floor where it was coming up and covered the whole floor lightly with a cement-like topping. Let it dry and scuffed it up so the Marmoleum adhesive would have something to hold on to well. Then, they started to put the Indian Summer floor down.

Almost there!

Another good thing is that DJ’s Floors is bonded and insured. Seems like a given but you’d be surprised at how many contractors we met with that were not. This is a good source for finding out that information (in Oregon — I’m sure every state has this type of information online, you should seek it out).

So, we will be eating out the next couple of days (Detour Cafe for Breakfast on Monday and PokPok for dinner that night — basement dining room opening in about a month, by the way. Oh and the new lamb skewer special is really good!)

The kitchen when we first bought the house (almost) 4 years ago and now. The counter tops are the next to go.

Resources

We recently decided to get a TV armoir to hide the television when not in use and to make the living room look a little nicer. Not wanting to spend thousands of dollars, we opted to buy something we would assemble ourselves. We did and it was pretty much hitchless. Sure, the first item assembled — a drawer — got taken apart twice (!) to fix misreading the directions (twice), but after that, it came together nicely.

And so it begins. Everthing is unpacked and laid out on the floor. Huh. That’s a lot of pieces.

jwa devises an evil plan for world domination with a Target armoir. It involves a screwdriver, wood glue and some salty language.

It’s starting to take form around 10:15 pm. We began the project around 7:00 but had an hour break for dinner around 8:00. . . . → Read More: Saturday Night Fun: Assembling Furniture]]>

We recently decided to get a TV armoir to hide the television when not in use and to make the living room look a little nicer. Not wanting to spend thousands of dollars, we opted to buy something we would assemble ourselves. We did and it was pretty much hitchless. Sure, the first item assembled — a drawer — got taken apart twice (!) to fix misreading the directions (twice), but after that, it came together nicely.

And so it begins. Everthing is unpacked and laid out on the floor. Huh. That’s a lot of pieces.

jwa devises an evil plan for world domination with a Target armoir. It involves a screwdriver, wood glue and some salty language.

It’s starting to take form around 10:15 pm. We began the project around 7:00 but had an hour break for dinner around 8:00. We had a really tasty sake poached salmon dish with udon noodles and a soy, wasabi and citrus dressing. This was topped with mango slices, green onions and sesame seeds. Don’t worry, recipe coming this week!

jwa devises part two of his evil genius plan with the help of the instructions.

Chelsea is rather unimpressed. Her plan for world domination is really so much further along.

It’s upright around 10:45 PM.

Now it’s even in the right position. And with the tv in the designated tv position!

Next morning, it’s all still standing. Hooray! Project screaming cabinet doors of freedom commences. It’s successful.

Now we just need to try and fit the stereo equipment in there too. It might involve building a new shelf. Perhaps next weekend?

So, my SHF dish is done but my extra-credit materials are not. So, SHF post this weekend. Today, we bask in the glory that is my finished (!) mosaic project — see, the last post was almost a year ago.

We live in a bungalow. When you go up the stairs, there is a counter with built-in bookshelves, a bathroom and three bedrooms. When we first moved in, I knew I wanted to do something fun with this large 12 foot by 1 1/2 foot counter top space. I just didn’t know what exactly. I just wanted to add something to the house that would be here after we left. Sort of like adding a piece of mine and jwa’s history to our house.

Then it came to me. A mosaic. There’s shattering glass involved, toxic fumes, grout, it’s some-what permanent and it involves . . . → Read More: Two and a Half Years Later…]]>

So, my SHF dish is done but my extra-credit materials are not. So, SHF post this weekend. Today, we bask in the glory that is my finished (!) mosaic project — see, the last post was almost a year ago.

We live in a bungalow. When you go up the stairs, there is a counter with built-in bookshelves, a bathroom and three bedrooms. When we first moved in, I knew I wanted to do something fun with this large 12 foot by 1 1/2 foot counter top space. I just didn’t know what exactly. I just wanted to add something to the house that would be here after we left. Sort of like adding a piece of mine and jwa’s history to our house.

Then it came to me. A mosaic. There’s shattering glass involved, toxic fumes, grout, it’s some-what permanent and it involves hours and hours (and hours) of tedious work! It’s perfect. It started well. I think I finished laying out half the glass tile designs in the first three months. But then…

I had longer and longer breaks between work sessions. Then, two years passed. Well, finally last week I laid the last piece of cut glass down and then I grouted the whole damn thing. (Very messy!)

But it’s done. And I feel a huuuuuge sense of accomplishment. Yay!