The Endearing: Pine Paneling in the Den

We’ve mentioned it plenty of times by now and you’ve seen parts of it in pictures, but we’ve never fully addressed the pine paneling in our den, I don’t think. So our den is covered with pine paneling (which we think originally came from the pine trees they cut down to build the house–we’re the only house in the neighborhood to mysteriously have zero pine trees), and when we first moved in it seemed like something we’d want to change. To call it dated would be like calling my dog, Ripley, excitable (she’s basically wired when she’s not asleep).

But it didn’t take long for me to move in the vintage stereo system and record collection. If anything fits with vintage electronics, I think, it’s pine paneling walls. I like the paneling so much because it makes the room seem warm in the way that used bookstores or cabins seem warm. Or like a really old British-style pub that’s full of real wood and leather. Which all this seems to boil down to the fact that it’s old. You won’t find real wood as the walls in many new houses, I don’t imagine, and I like that this room makes records and 60′s style couches look appropriate.

Kristen seems to have come around on the walls as she’s gotten furniture that matches the vintage (accidental) style in the room.

As long as I can keep Kristen happy with the old-timey pine paneling walls, I’ll be happy with this room just the way it is.

Are there parts of your house that you haven’t changed and you’re nuts about? *Stainless steel appliances don’t count.

Oh, how I’ve hoarded this little gem in my e-mail inbox. I’ve perused catalogs that come in the mail, browsed for way too long on the website, and generally thought about this wonderful gift no less than once a day for the last few months. Okay, so maybe that’s an exaggeration, but I was pretty excited about what it might afford me.

Then I read the fine print. In addition to Crate and Barrel, I could also use it at CB2. Holy cow, my head nearly exploded (in a good way). I heart CB2 like crazy.

So I got on CB2′s website and started looking. My first inclination was to look through the sale items, so I could try to get as many things as possible. But then I remembered this wonderful little guy I saw in a catalog one day. Back then, Ed had dismissed it with a sarcastic little laugh, and I couldn’t justify such a frivolous purchase, so I forgot about it. But birthday money is meant for frivolity. “Buy something special!” “Get yourself something you’ve been wanting!” “Use this to get something you wouldn’t buy yourself!” These are statements people always say when they give you money or a gift certificate.

So I did.

And it’s here.

And I did the happy dance when I got home from work yesterday and found this on the counter.

I scrambled for the scissors and got to this.

I removed all the bubble wrap and pulled out a smaller box and opened it.

Do you know what it is? No? Well, I suppose I didn’t give you much to work with. I’ll give you a hint.

Still no? Okay, I’ll give you another hint (from The Sound of Music).”And up in the nursery an absurd little bird is popping out to say ‘cuckoo’ ‘cuckoo’”

Agh! I’m so excited I can hardly stand it. I realize this post is a bit too excited, a bit too ecstatic, a bit too loud, but is that not the most amazing clock? I have a thing for birds in a big way, which I think I’ve failed to mention before, so it’s yet another way I get to incorporate birds into the decor. It also will be a perfect addition to our midcentury modern-styled den. In fact, I have big plans for it to go on a custom cabinet we’d like to build to house the stereo equipment.

But for now, I will just enjoy its cuteness. And once I get some C batteries, that bad boy is going to be cuckooing all over the place. Or actually, once an hour between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.

Happy birthday to me!

Do you have a favorite Crate and Barrel or CB2 item that you’re just ga-ga over? Are you swooning for this guy like I was a few months ago?

PS. You can get your very own here.

PPS. Disregard the poor photo quality. It was dark, and I was excited.

We weren’t paid or perked to talk about CB2 or this clock, Kristen is just that excited about it.

I certainly used Pinterest during our first bathroom remodel by storing all kinds of goodness on the Bathroom board, and I’m storing all kinds of ideas for our kitchen remodel (down the road but still on the road) on my Kitchen + Laundry board. I’ve even got a board full of ideas to use all the stumps in our back yard from a tree that fell last year. It’s appropriately named Stump Ideas. It really is amazing all the beautiful things you can make out of a stump.

I’ve also got a DIY board that I occasionally drop something on. Unlike many DIYers, I am not a crafter. I’m not. Not crafty in the least. Every now and then I’ll get an idea, but it’s usually short lived and way over my head. Case and point: Last year I thought I’d take up quilting. Just take it up, like that’s something you can just sit down in front of the TV and do in the evenings. I never even made my first stitch. Perhaps I should have started with cross-stitching or even knitting, but no, I chose quilting.

Anyway, I was browsing my DIY board recently and realized that there are a few things I might actually be able to do. So here I am sharing my I-just-might-try-one-of-these pins. Here goes nothing.

1. Mason jar garden: What an adorable way to  have an indoor garden. It would be great for edibiles and nonedibles alike. This may have a home in our new bathroom.

2. Drink trough in a picnic table: This is just genius. It eliminates the need for centerpieces, and it means everyone at the table can always reach the drinks. It could even be filled with water for floating candles or flowers.

3. Rosemary salt: We have rosemary overload in our herb garden, and this would be a great way to use some of it. These would make great hostess gifts for parties or even wedding favors.

4. Light art: How fun and whimsical is this updated version of Lite Brites? I think it would be the perfect bit of romance in a bedroom or pretty if paired with a mirror on a buffet.

5. Wine cork coasters: We have quite a collection of wine corks taking up space in a galvanized bucket. We also have quite a lack of functional coasters around the house. This would be a great way to use all those old corks and get ourselves some coasters. I love the wine stains that are all different colors from all different wines.

So there you have it, folks. Pinterest finds I’m actually considering pulling off the board and into real life. I think I might just find the time to try one this weekend.

What about you? Are you on Pinterest? If not, holy cow, why not?! If so, you can follow me on Pinterest here. 

All images via Pinterest and originally from here, here, here, here, and here.

Shower area before and after.

  Toilet area before and after.

  Built-in cabinets turned built-in shelves before and after.

Sink and vanity area before and after.

Pretty amazing huh? So, now, here’s the cost breakdown of the project.

• Floor tiles……………………………………..322.80
• Beadboard…………………………………171.50
• Shower tiles………………………………155.53
• Shower fixtures, caddy, rod and rings…………246.97
• Sink and faucet…………………….231.03
• Vanity, mirror, and light fixture………….164.32
• Bath mat, soap dish, towel bars, hooks, and basket………135.91
• Paint, primer, polyurethane……………….66.49
• Caulk, mortar, and grout…………………….158.64
• Various supplies and tools…………………………232.82
• Crown molding, baseboards, and quarter round……………88.45
• Cement board…………………………………….69.30
• Plumber…………………………………………385.00
• Tax………………………………………………102.20

TOTAL………………………………………………$2,530.96

That’s right, folks. We did a complete renovation for $2,500 and some change. And about $300 worth was on stuff we can use again, like grout floaters, extra screws, extra tile, various tools, and so forth. Considering the average cost of a complete bathroom remodel ranges from $10,000-15,000 if you hire out the work, I’d say we got some serious bang for our buck.

By putting in some elbow grease, we saved major cash. We felt comfortable learning to do most everything ourselves, but we did leave one task to the professionals. We had our plumber come in and replace the pipes in the shower and convert the two-lever system to a single lever. It is the biggest line in the budget above, but we think it was worth it to make sure the job was done right. Possible leaks leading to mold = not something we want to worry about.

$2,500 is certainly nothing to sneeze at in this household, but we saved up for the project for a long time and were able to do it all without charging a thing. Did we have to compromise on some things? Well, sure. I didn’t get the sconces I wanted, and we had to hunt around for deals, like our $90 vanity and consignment shop mirror. We think it was all worth it though. The room looks great, and we don’t owe a dime to a credit card company. And we’ll leave you with one last before and after.

Anyone else out there done a bathroom remodel on the cheap? If so, please accept our cyper pat on the back and put a link in the comment section, so we can see what you’ve done.

If you want to see our bathroom project from the beginning, check out demo, cement board installation, beadboard installation and painting, subway tile in the shower, honeycomb tile on the floor, flea market vanity and finishing touches.

Or you can read Ed’s tutorials on these tasks: hanging cement board, tiling and grouting, installing a sink and faucet, installing crown molding and baseboards.

I would like to say I’m a big gardener, but really, I just want to be. Every year, I have big plans to have that garden you see in the magazines. I order seeds, sometimes I start them early, and when it’s time, I transplant them or direct seed them into our 25′ x 50′ garden. Yeah, it’s pretty big for someone who is merely wishing she were “a big gardener.” I have visions of one day having a garden like this one. See all those beautiful rows and how the grass is kept in its place (i.e., not in the garden)?

Oh it all looks fabulous the day I till and plant, but two days later, the grass has starting sprouting. And let’s be honest, folks, 25′ x 50′ is entirely too large to hoe. I’ve tried everything, mulching between the rows, laying down paper made specifically for weed prevention, and so forth. Mostly, I just let the grass win every year. Some plants tolerate the grass, some don’t. It looks pretty terrible too once the grass gets out of hand.

I don’t mean to suggest it’s a complete failure. Last year, I put up over 20 jars of pickles from cucumbers I grew, ate fresh peppers from the vine, and had a few other success. Things grew, they just weren’t pretty covered in grass.

This year, I’m trying something new. I should back up though. Here is what you need to know: We have amazing dirt. Seriously, amazing. It’s perfectly crumbly and full of all kinds of earthworms and other bugs.

That may not seem like much, but to an organic gardener, it makes all the difference. Practically anything will grow in our yard, and I’ve yet to kill a single thing we’ve planted in the ground. We have huge amounts of birds, butterflies, honeybees that frequent our yard because there are plenty of berries, bugs, and pollen for them, and we occasionally have a rabbit prance around foraging (and fertilizing) as he goes. To say our yard is desirable to all manner of flora or fauna is a bit of an understatement.

This is all well and good except for the grass. I welcome all of it, every last weed and lettuce-eating rabbit, but that grass has got to go. So after three attempts (with extremely low success rates) at keeping the grass at bay, we got angry, infuriated that our vegetable production was being held up by something so boring as grass. Gorgeous flowers or towering trees? Fine, I succumb, but to the grass I will not bend.

So after reading and talking and reading and talking, we decided just to do it. We’re killin’ it.

I know, it sounds harsh. After all, we really try to do our part for Mother Earth: We use wool balls in place of  dryer sheets, avoid factory-farmed meat, and have more than one natural home book on our shelves. And I’ve been known to drag 20+ bags of pine straw the neighbors put out by the road over to my place to keep them from going to a landfill and to mulch my own garden.

We like to think we have a nice relationship with the good Mother. We tread relatively lightly, try not to trample her, and she helps us out by giving us flowers for beauty and scent, trees for shade, and (sometimes) vegetables for food. But we just have to usurp her on this one. That grass has got to go.

We haven’t completely lost our minds though. We aren’t going to go out to our healthy little garden plot and pump it full of petrochemicals or anything. Believe you me, friends of Monsanto we are not.

Instead, we’ve covered the garden plot with thick black plastic (Visqueen, to be exact). Our plan is to smother out the grass, kill it at its roots. This should (dear God, please) greatly reduce the amount of grass sprouting from now on. It won’t keep it completely out, but there won’t be some intricate root system under there just itching to send up new grass shoots all over the place.

For the nitty gritty, here’s what we did:

• Went to our local building-supply store and talked to nice young man at the counter
• Bought a roll of 12′ x 100′ Visqueen (which cost about $50 and is enough to last us quite awhile)
• Went home, rolled it out to desired length, cut it, and unfolded it to cover a section
• Repeated last step for second section
• Placed bricks we had on hand around edges and down middle to hold down Visqueen
• Had a discussion about why we didn’t do this sooner

The whole operation took about 30 minutes. Seriously, it was so easy. Here’s what we have for now.

Pardon the sogginess–we’ve had a lot of rain lately. It’s not the prettiest thing in the world, but it’s doing miraculous work under there. As I type, it’s keeping that pesky grass from breathing, which, I realize, sounds pretty terrible, but that’s just life (err, or death, actually).

We’re a little sad that some of the bugs and microorganisms will also not make it through the Visqueen treatment, but they’ll come back in the spring when we uncover the spot. Ed prefers to think they will just temporarily move.

So we’ll keep you posted come spring time (or maybe before if we just can’t stand it and have to peek under the plastic). If the grass is gone, we’ve got big plans for neat little rows of tomatoes, eggplant, beans, and more.

What about you? Do you plan to plant a garden this year? Anyone have a similar experience fighting grass? 

First image from here, second from here.

The Crown Moulding (CM):

First, in case you’re not familiar with difference between moulding and CM, CM is the type that doesn’t sit flat against the wall. When it’s installed, it connects to the ceiling and wall at a 45 degree angle–so there’s actually open space behind the CM. This difference in how it is installed translates to a difference in how it’s cut on the miter saw. (Normally, with regular moulding and baseboards, the wood is held flat against the miter saw and cut at a 45 degree angle, but with the CM, the wood has to be set against the miter saw just as it will be installed in the room except upside down.)

Before starting to cut pieces of the CM, the best thing to do is create a few short test pieces. These pieces will be cut so that they can be held up against the ceiling and wall to mimic how the real CM will be installed. This might seem like a step to skip, but, trust me, it is not. Using these test pieces saved me from haphazardly cutting pieces that would turn out not to fit. On each of the test pieces, I labeled the edges (inside or outside joint). Also, I made sure to have enough pieces to mimic and inside or outside joint piece coming from the left and right directions.

After getting my test pieces ready, all I had to do was measure the pieces I would actually install, then match the test pieces up with the CM and cut. The other important trick to cutting CM is that when you put it against the fence and table of the miter saw (fence is the vertical backing, table is the horizontal base), you have the CM upside down. So imagine the fence is the wall and the table is the ceiling (I even labeled mine the fence ‘wall’ and the table ‘ceiling’ just to remind myself). Now when the pieces are cut, the joints will match up seamlessly (or mostly seamlessly in my case).

Installing the cut pieces of CM is sometimes a two person job: one person holds up the sometimes long pieces of CM while the other person uses a nail gun to nail the pieces up. (I’m sure CM can be nailed up with just a hammer and nails, but if you’ve got access to a nail gun, the process will go much faster and the CM won’t be damaged by flailing hammer hits.)

After all the CM was up, we filled in any gaps (and since my measuring skills leave something to be desired, we sometimes have gaps) with wood filler, let it dry, then covered it with some paint touch-ups. Pow. Crown moulding demystified.

In full disclosure, I watched several videos about cutting CM before I was confident I really understood what I was doing. This helped a good bit.

The Baseboards:

Cutting the baseboards (especially after cutting CM) is fairly simple. I didn’t even use test pieces for the baseboards, although if you haven’t cut baseboards before, the test pieces will probably help. Basically, I set the baseboard pieces against the fence (see above if you’ve already forgotten (I’m sure you haven’t forgotten though)) and cut at a 45 degree angle to make the inside or outside joints. My miter saw doesn’t bevel–it only swivels left and right to make angled cuts, so that’s why I set the pieces against the fence instead of the table. When cutting the baseboards (and CM, for that matter), measuring the pieces is the most important part. My new adopted rule of thumb: measure everything twice (or even three times).

Installing the baseboards is the same as the CM. One person holds the baseboards against the wall, the other person nails the pieces to the wall. Easy.

We filled any gaps in the baseboard joints with wood filler and then touched up with paint. Just in case you’re interested, the paint we used for the CM and baseboards was Homestead Resort Jefferson White 7006-1. We used this paint for all the trim around the window, door, and shelves as well.

Things to keep in mind:

1. Make test pieces to be sure the joints are cut correctly.

2. Always set the CM upside down on the miter saw when you cut it.

3. Measure everything twice (or if you’re especially bad at measuring, like me, just go ahead and measure it three times).

Installing the CM and baseboards makes a huge difference in how the room looks, so whether the room lacked them before or just during the remodeling, the end result can still be pretty impressive.

If you want to see the bathroom remodel from the beginning, check out demo, cement board installation, hanging and painting beadboard, tiling the shower, and tiling the floor. You might also want to take a look at my How-To’s: cement board, tiling and grouting, and sink/faucet installation.

We want to extend a big, huge “Thank you very much” to Lindsay over at Me, Ed and Pea for giving us The Versatile Blogger award! We just couldn’t be more thrilled!

In place of gushing too much about ourselves (which we could definitely do), we thought we’d gush about Lindsay instead.

We love Lindsay because:

• She has an Ed too (!)
• They are renovating a 1956 home, just like us
• She has cute, easy craft tutorials like this one
• She shares our love of a vintage find (her love, our love)

See? She’s pretty awesome. And if you have room for one more Ed and one more 1956 ranch in your life (and you do), head on over to Me, Ed and Pea to find lots of other reasons to love her.

Thanks again for the award, Lindsay!

With the old sink and cabinet removed, we realized that the two water lines didn’t have shut-off valves. So I picked a couple up at the hardware store. These first two valves didn’t fit. So I went back to the store, returned them, and got two more. These also did not work (I can’t actually remember why now–probably a mix up with inner diameter vs. outer diameter measurements, which I’m not so good at). My third trip to the store got me two shut-off valves that fit just fine. These valves allowed us to turn the water back on at the meter without water making a mess in the bathroom. (If you don’t have shut-off valves on your sinks, I highly recommend putting some in. As long as you get the size that fits, all you have to do is screw them on the water line.)

When we were ready to put in the vanity and sink, we had to decide where the vanity would be and where the sink and faucet would be in relation to the water lines. The faucet ended up offset so it sits about 2 o’clock on the sink. The water supply lines that came with the faucet were just long enough to reach from the lines to the faucet.

After we knew where the sink and faucet would go, I had to drill holes in the sewing table for the plumbing. I used a 1/2″ speedbore drill bit and had a hole for the faucet and a hole for the sink drain in about 15 minutes. Drilling through the solid pine boards went somewhat slowly but without major issues.

With the holes drilled, installing the faucet consisted of basically (1) screwing in the water supply lines in the bottom, (2) threading those lines through the hole in the table, and (3) connecting them to the shut-off valves I’d installed earlier. The supply lines that came with the faucet were helpfully color-coded blue and red for cold and hot water, respectively.

Installing the sink was arguably the easiest part of all of this. The sink just sits on top of the hole in the table, and the 6″ waste drain that came with the sink screws in through the bottom of the table. To be honest, the sink rocks a little bit, but it doesn’t leak. (We’re thinking of either installing a sink washer or drilling a bigger hole to stop the movement.)

Then came the fun amateur plumbing part. The waste drain that came with the sink was too short to reach the P-trap I got at the store. And the P-trap wasn’t long enough to reach the waste drain hole in the wall. So I had to get creative. For some reason, I couldn’t find P-traps that had longer waste pipes–I’m not sure whether these exist or not. To make the sink drain reach the P-trap, and to make the P-trap waste pipe reach the wall, I bought two 6″ extension pipes. These pipes come with slip nuts that allow them to be attached to the P-trap itself.

In order for the extensions to fit, I had to cut them to the size I needed. I used a bi-metal blade on my hacksaw (that I used for this threshold job), and cut the pipes to the lengths I needed them. When I cut the pipes, I got the cut started, and after I was through the metal, I’d turn the pipe itself and keep in line with the initial cut. So I didn’t cut straight through the entire pipe the whole time. I only cut through about a centimeter of it at a time.

With the pieces cut, I attached them to the P-trap using the slip nuts and plastic gaskets that came with the extensions. (*I’m sure that the way I fixed this problem is not exactly up to the plumbers’ code. So I’m certainly not suggesting that this is the best way to make a P-trap reach your plumbing, but it’s working for us so far.) After a few tests to find any leaks and disassemblies to get the gaskets in the right places, I had a sink drain system that was leak-free.

Before:

And after:

If you want to see the bathroom remodel from the beginning, check out demo, cement board installation, hanging and painting beadboard, tiling the shower, and tiling the floor. You might also want to take a look at my How-To’s: cement board and tiling and grouting.

The Shower

1. To get an idea of which tiles need to be cut, and what sizes they need to be cut in, we first did a dry-run of the bottom row. This showed us two things. First, the size of the cut tile that would go in the corner, and second, that our tub was not level. So we started out the first tile of the bottom row as close to the tub as possible and kept all the other tiles level with that. We ended up with a growing gap between the bottom row and the tub, but we eventually filled it in with caulk.

2. After we got the size of the corner tile (which translated to the edge tile on every other row), I cut tiles of that size (I think the first wall’s short pieces were 4″) for every row. I used a basic tile cutter that I got from our local hardware store–it works pretty well.

3. With all of the tiles cut, we started to stick them on the wall with the thin set mortar. This part is somewhat messy, but fairly easy once you get started. Using the trowel (with 1/4″ square groves) we spread the thin set on the cement board then scored it with the grooved side. The trick is to get enough mortar on so the tile doesn’t slip, but not so much that it pushes up through the gaps. The conventional wisdom seems to be that if you put a tile up, then take it down, the back of the tile should just be covered with mortar–that’s the ideal amount.

3.2 (Actually, kind of 2.2) Before we took off tiling the whole wall, we made sure to get at least two level rows, on the bottom, set. We let this dry overnight, and the next day we had a set base of tiles that we could tile on top of and not worry about getting the tiles crooked. We did this for all three walls in the shower. We didn’t use spacers between our tiles because they had built-in 1/16″ spaces.

4. After all the tile was set, it was time to grout. Grouting is time consuming but not all that hard. We bought the kind of grout that has to be mixed, but there are premixed grouts as well. After following the mixing directions on the bag, the grout was ready to be put on the walls. The process here is pretty similar to applying the mortar. Using the grout floater, we spread on grout (at a 45 degree angle) and made sure it got in all the spaces.

5. After we’d covered a small area, we let the grout sit for about 30 minutes before wiping off the excess. After we wiped off the excess, we wiped the tile down again with a damp cloth. That’s all there is to it. Overnight, the grout dried.

Some things to keep in mind:

–Grout dries quickly, so we did small areas instead of trying to grout the entire shower at once. Scraping dried grout off of tiles is no fun.

–If the grout in your bucket starts to become hard to work with, mix it up again. I used a mixer attachment and a drill, which is much easier than trying to stir it by hand. After mixing it for a few minutes, the grout will loosen up and be easier to work with.

The Floor

1. Tiling the floor was super easy except for getting the tiles straight (as Kristen explains here). So since we’ve already covered our problem with the spaces, I’ll skip the dry-run process. After I had the entire floor covered in tiles for the dry-run, I started at one end of the room and picked up a couple of rows of tile at a time.

2. I used the same thin set mortar for the floors as I did in the shower, and spreading the mortar on was the same. The only difference is that for the floor, I used a trowel with 1/8″ V-shaped grooves (because the floor tiles were smaller than the shower tiles, this smaller groove set kept me from putting on too thick a layer of mortar).

3. After I covered a small section in mortar, I set out the hexagon tiles. These tiles came in sheets, so I really only had to get the pattern and the spaces right (I used 1/16″ spacers between the sheets of tiles).

4. After tiling in small sections, the floor was finished. I let it set overnight and grouted the next day.

5. Grouting the floor was exactly the same as grouting the shower. Spread on the grout, let it sit for 30 minutes, wipe off the excess with the grout sponge, then wipe down the tile with a damp cloth. Presto.

More things to keep in mind:

–The floor tiles we used came in sheets, so there was no cutting tiles to fit against corners or walls. I just had to pop off enough of the small tiles to get the rest of the sheet to fit. It’s important to make sure that only enough tiles are popped off to get the sheet to fit against the walls/tub–putting down single tiny hex tiles to fill in gaps sure ain’t fun.

–We used quarter round trim to cover up the gaps between the edges of the tile sheets and the walls. For the most part, we covered all the gaps.

–After the grout had dried completely (a few days), we applied grout sealer to prevent it from staining and to keep out moisture.

Here’s a quick reminder of the before:

And after:

If all this sounds too easy to be true, it’s because it kind of is, but it also kind of isn’t. The prep work (cutting tiles, getting level rows, getting spaces right on the floor) took me at least twice as long as the actually tiling and grouting. But once the prep is done, the laying of tile goes pretty quickly.

Post is linked up at One Project Closer’s Link It Up #1. Check it out here.

Pardon the picture quality. The sun was starting to set, and these were taken with Ed’s iPod Touch.

We couldn’t drive over it (thank goodness), but we were able to enjoy a short walk around it. There was a nice trail down to the water below, and even a little picnic area nearby. This was just a stop on the road, so we just snapped a few pictures and kept on going.

Isn’t it romantic and quaint?

While we were on the road, we talked over our new year’s resolutions. Unlike some people, we take these pretty seriously and try to stick to them all year, and even carry them to other years if we want. Three years ago, we gave up aspartame/fake sugar. Two years ago, we gave up eating land animals that are farmed conventionally and beer products owned by Budweiser (long story, we’re happy to share). Last year, we gave up eating practically all animals, including fish, that aren’t hunted/caught by someone we know and trust (we’ll be happy to discuss the few exceptions if anyone’s interested).

Notice a pattern? Yeah, we’re kind of nutso about food/health resolutions.

Perhaps I should back up. We certainly aren’t poster children for skinny purity. We enjoy our fair share of wine/beer/spirits, and we’ve been known to devour bags of potato chips, Rotel cheese dip, and plenty of other goodies properly deemed “junk food” on more-than-rare occasions. And I could definitely stand to lose a few pounds.  But we try to make the best food choices we can (for ourselves, for others, and for Mother Nature) on the whole.

We already buy our eggs, milk, butter, and most cheese either locally or from farmers we trust, so that was out. We try to avoid hydrogenated oils and high-fructose corn syrup as much as possible, but giving both up completely would be nearly impossible, especially if we plan to go to restaurants (and we do — see below). We make our own bread products and buy our bagels from a local shop that doesn’t use preservatives. We shop at the farmers market and are members of a CSA, so most of our vegetables are grown locally. We were at a loss. What would we do?! Had we reached perfection? Ha, hardly.

In the past, our food choices have been largely based on ethical concerns about food production and health (not weight loss, health). We wanted to resolve to do something that would honor those same convictions, but broad generalizations like “be healthier” or “eat better” weren’t going to cut it. If you can’t measure it, you won’t keep it, I say. Everything needs a number or measurable standard. Either you cut it out completely, or you decide a particular amount you can have.

So we decided to limit our out-to-eat ventures each week. We both love to cook, but we also love going to local restaurants for drinks and appetizers, lunch, brunch, etc. We like to go out with friends, and that usually means going out to eat. Due to our only-eat-what-is-hunted-or-caught-by-someone-we-know-and-trust stance, we eat vegetarian dishes at restaurants and dinner parties. Friends usually whip us up some amazing stuffed acorn squash or delicious pasta dish, but our options at restaurants (in small Southern towns like ours) are often limited to cheesey dishes, fried food, or a Boca burger. This last option sometimes tastes like cardboard, which we’re not so into. None of these options is particularly healthy, and rarely are they as tasty as the vegetarian food we make at home.

So we’re going to limit our out-to-eat ventures, including “going out to drinks,” to no more than two times/week together and two times/week separate with friends. That means that we will only eat out a maximum of four times per week (each), for a total of six outings. And I’m not talking four times going out to dinner, ordering drinks and main courses. If I walk up the road and grab a bagel sandwich on my lunch break, that counts. Or if I meet a friend for a glass of wine after work, that counts. It’ll add up fast. But we think it will be good, and it’s something we can measure.

But enough about our food resolution. Here are a few others we thought we’d share with you:

2012 RESOLUTIONS (in no particular order)

• Eat out no more than four times a week, twice together and twice apart
• Only buy a book if you can’t find it at the library (just Kristen)
• Correct basement flooding problem (most likely, have a sump pump installed)
• Learn to successfully fish, so we can start eating fish again

We have a few others but these are the biggies. And they’re all measurable. Well, the last one is a bit general with that word “successfully,” but if we catch a fish, clean it, and eat it, I think we can call ourselves successful.

There you have it. Our plan for 2012. Buy fewer books, eat out less, learn a new activity, and fix a problem with the house. Surely we can handle that for 12 months. This will be our last post of 2011, so we hope everyone has a safe holiday weekend, and we’ll see you in 2012.