16 December 2010

Do not enter.

We have a few new additions to our kitchen this week. First, the positives. Art! I love our local artist co-op shop, Chartreuse. For the past several weeks, one of the artists has had his stuff on sale, so I decided to pick up this lovely vase for my mom:


Because all his stuff was on sale, I decided to snag one of his vases for myself. And, since I've been fantasizing about it for weeks, I think it's a safe purchase (I tend to have buyer's remorse about non-essential home items) -- besides, at $18, it was a total steal. It reminds me of asparagus stalks, so its home will likely remain the kitchen.


E. girls: you'll remember me being cornered by this artist when we popped in when you were here - ha!

I've been planning on picking up a coffee maker since we moved in, but it just hadn't happened yet. When my coffee-obsessed father discovered I didn't have one, he decided that would make the perfect xmas gift. And it did! Thanks, dad!

We call it... Mister Coffee!

There was an incident a few years ago. Involving coffee OD. It was ugly. That's why I haven't had a coffee pot in the house. Hopefully I can keep things under control this time. I even followed directions...


Time to enjoy my first cup...

Hopefully I don't end up like Cornholio this time!

The outcome? Eh. I controlled the portions and only made around 3 cups, so no coffee shakes yet. But I need to perfect my proportions. And perhaps splurge on some fancy coffee. For now, it will do. Yeah coffee!

And now... Our final addition...

What'd I do?

A door.

For whatever reason (age of the home, previous use as apartments), our house is full of door-ready doorways. Nearly every doorway once held a door, and these doors are all in a pile in the basement. Why do we need an extra door in the kitchen, you ask? Our little maniac Heidi, of course.

For the past several weeks, Heidi has eaten/destroyed/terrorized numerous items in the house when we were out. So this past week or so, we decided to start sequestering the dogs in one of our spare bedrooms when we had to leave. It took a few tries (and a few eaten books) to get the room puppy-proofed, but it seemed to work. Unfortunately, I can't STAND having my super cute winter-themed spare bedroom such a disaster area, so we needed a new solution. * lightbulb * another door! The placement of this door allows the dogs full access to the upstairs den (with the office, master bedroom, and master bath doors SHUT) as well as the ability to run up and down the stairs, leaving them access to the mudroom for water drinking and backyard-window-looking-out. As long as we remember to turn the garbage can backward (extendo arms can get her paws in there), it should be pretty safe. Until they realize the door doesn't latch fully and if they push hard enough it will open....

Of course, the mismatched wood immediately drove Brad crazy, and he's currently painting the backside now while home on his lunch break. 

Seriously, what'd I do?

It also makes me laugh because it has...

I see you.

A peep hole! Ha ha ha! Keep your fingers crossed that this plan is finally the plan to work!

3 comments:

Liz said...

Our middle-aged dogs still perform wacky shenanigans if they are left alone and together. Our solution is to separate them with dog/baby gates. They get separate parts of the house and nothing gets destroyed. Dunno if that would help you or not! Heidi might not need George to get into trouble!

Stephanie said...

George doesn't get into trouble w/o Heidi, but Heidi causes trouble no matter what the situation. We wish we could use gates, but Heidi can knock over any and all gates (and ruined our walls in the old house proving it to us). Dogs! Sheesh! BUT I am glad (but sad for you) to know that ours aren't the old full-grown dogs still acting like puppies. :)

Mike Schiller said...

beavis AND a spaceballs reference in the same blog post? you're the coolest, steph.