Did ya miss me?

On a crazy whim we left the year round warmth we are blessed with here in Hawaii and went to spend the holidays at our Never Rush Ranch.

Like I said, crazy...

We had a lot of wood from the trees that were chopped down last year, but the pieces were too big and we never thought we would be back here so soon and need it, so it sat.

Poor Hubby had to bear the cold and split and saw a bunch of wood to keep us warm.

Don't get me wrong, we have the oil furnace and it keeps the house perfectly warm, but you can't beat wood heat.

His efforts were TOTALLY worth it.

We had Hawaii Temps!!

I did get some work done at the house and we found some things that need some work....I'll be posting about that in the up coming weeks.

That's all for now,

Aloha a Hui Hou!!

Fun Finds at Savers!

Things are getting back to normal and we have had the chance to go to our favorite 2nd hand store and browse around a bit. Look at our cool finds:

First, we found a Guardian Service coffee pot. 

Back in the day, the brand was the best you could buy. A pot set in todays money could run you about $2000.

You pour boiling water in on top and t has a forever filter on the bottom.

We could keep it warm by putting it on the bun baker in the cold winter months. 

I found a bit of history of the Guardian Service company and the pot:

"THE HISTORY OF GUARDIAN SERVICE COOKWARE

Guardian Service cookware (GS), aka Guardian Ware, is a highly sought after collectible these days. There are a variety of reasons: the heavy-duty construction of this hammered aluminum waterless cookware makes it almost "bullet-proof; the excellent way that the cookware prepares the food; and the nostalgia of cooking with the same type of cookware that your parents or grandparents did. The fact is, many of the pieces from the 1940s and 50s are still around, and people love it!Century Metalcraft Corporation of Los Angeles, California manufactured Guardian Service cookware from the mid 1930s until 1956, when the plant burned down. Independent salesman sold GS cookware similar to the way that Tupperware was sold during the 1960s. A hostess would host a party at their house, and invite several of their friends over. At these dinner parties, the GS salesman would prepare a delicious meal for the guests, all in hopes of selling them some of the GS cookware.GS cookware was considered to be an expensive set of cookware during the 1940s and 50s. It would cost about a month's pay to buy the full set. In today's dollars, that would be about $2,500! In many cases, the dinner party guests would only buy one or two pieces.

GS cookware is constructed out of hammered aluminum, and is considered to be heavy-duty in contrast to today's cookware. During the pre-WWII years, this cookware had metal lids. But, because of the rationing during the War, the lids were then made from oven-proof glass. GS cookware has the trademark Knight's helmet (looking left) logo stamped on the bottom of the cookware. There were 3 different designs of the logo: One had the Knight's helmet and crossed swords, the next had the helmet and 2 stars on either side, and the last version had the helmet and 3 stars on either side. The glass lids also were etched with the Knight's helmet, but they also had crossed battle axes."

Then we found a set of these. for $1.40 a piece - Look out Chinet!

We thought it would be a fun alternative to paper plates for Summer grill parties

Lastly, for $1.99, we found this cute little pitcher that I can use for a vase

(spool of thread so you get an idea of the sixe)

With it's imperfections I'm pretty sure that it is at least partially hand made. But in the end, it doesn't matter, I love it!

I did find something special on eBay too. A set of 3 Bratӓpfeln!

These are used to make baked apples. I had pizza plates from this company and I loved them. Can't wait to put them to good use and fill the house with the delicious smell of baked apples.

So, Have you found anything special lately?

Aloha a Hui Hou!

Vermont Bun Baker, revisited

You might remember the corner in the front room

and you might remember my drawing

and you might remember all my talk about it.

Well here it is now

Turned out very close to my vision and we're very happy with it. While we were there the temps dropped to the 40's and we fired'er up. Warmed up the house to a toasty 80F. Roger put in some wood before we went to bed and it was still warm in the morning and there were enough embers to get another log going in the morning.

Notice the blue, vintage coffee pot on top of the bun baker. Another antiquing find. We just used it to add a bit of moisture to the air, but we do have the insides so if we ever wanted to make coffee in it we could.
I love the smell of the wood and am really looking forward to enjoying baking in it....bread...maybe a flamkuchen!

aloha a Hui Hou!

Like Mike Holms says....

It's got to be up to code....so you do what'cha gotta do and for us that means adding a 1" spacer to the wall around the bun baker...I'll have to get back to you on WHY they have to do it - but it's what the fire marshal said we had to do to pass.

Doesn't our table look nice over there??

Another step in the right direction.

Aloha a Hui Hou!

A Quarter of the Pie

They put down the tile! 

Nice lil' corner.

Aloha a Hui Hou!

Patty Cake, Patty Cake

So now that we have the bun baker we were able to pick out what matches best and this is what we've agreed on.

Aloha a Hui Hou!

Today is the day

Today everyone is showing up at our house :o)

The carpenter is done and they will be putting the kitchen together on Monday. Once that is finished they will start putting in the rest of the new windows.

Lisa also let me know she has the tile and stone samples to hold up to the soap stone to see what matches best.

I guess once all the kitchen the electrician will come to install the under cab lighting and then they will get the painter to paint the cabs and stain the front door.

Bam! Bam! Bam! That's what I call making progress!!

Aloha a Hui Hou!

Finally Found it's Way!

After a lot of back and forth with UPS and scheduling issues it has finally worked out that our Bun Baker could be delivered today..

When I ordered the oven the people from Obadiah's said that we have to check it right away. Make sure the soap stone is all intact and the oven part is too. If anything was damaged or broken during transportation, NOW is the time to discover it.

After unpacking the pieces, Lisa and David determined that everything was intact. WOO HOO!

This is what it all looks like:

look how nice and shiny!!

Has a rack and a drip pan

Did you notice that our front room is PACKED with stuff! Time to get some more projects done so we can make some ROOM!

This is the stone you can roast and bake on

The Vermont Bun Baker soapstone surrounds are made to order, so this is totally our baby!

This is the stone surround - interesting pattern

Another piece of the surround

Now on to the next step! Which would be, determining which floor tile and which stone (for the wall) matches/compliments the bun baker best.

Aloha a Hui Hou!

All aboard!

Looks like the Bun baker is on its way! Interesting fact about our Vermont Bun Baker - The main part of the Bun Baker is from Australia. The company in Vermont adds the Soap Stone surround and the Bun Baker company allowed them to name this version of it "Vermont Bun Baker".

Guess we are getting an international Bun Baker!

Aloha a Hui Hou!

I have some good news and some bad news...

Good news for Roger is that I won't be taking his barn apart, piece by piece, to use for different purposes in the house.

Bad news, just like when we wanted to use if for our table, the barn wood is too warped and we won't be able to use it for the mantel.

Good news is we have David and Lisa. They heard of someone with an old farmhouse that was getting rid of their fireplace and they want to sell it. 

They went to take a look and it is a 4x12 (will be narrowed)...nice and chunky and wide so we can put something on it

The price isn't bad either $60....SOLD!

We now have a repurposed mantle! Yay!

Aloha a Hui Hou!

Mantel

Next week David and Lisa will be starting on the corner where we plan to put the wood burning stove. Part of that area is a wrap around mantel.

Since we're changing so much, I want to bring some of the history of the ranch back into the house and I would like the mantel to be made of wood from the wood barn we have out back. My dream was that it would kind of wind up looking a little like this:

Today they went out back to check the barn and let us know that the planks are about 2x8. We could have a really wide mantel, but it would only be about 2" thick. For us, that was too thin and sticking way to far into the room. We thought 4x4 would look much better, talked a bit about getting reclaimed wood to make the mantel and left it at that for now.

There I was, left with my thoughts and while I was thinking an idea hit me. What if we cut the plank in 2 pieces and stacked them? Not necessarily in the middle, but cut it so one of the pieces is 3 1/2" wide and the other 4 1/2" wide? Then have a small lip on the edge so that what ever we have up there won't slide off.....that could be interesting...don't'cha think?

Once again I sat down with my  beloved photoshop and my wacom and started to draw:

Side view

Front view with lip

Now its time to wait and see what's possible.

Aloha Hui Hou!

Picking the right tile

Next on the list is picking the tile that will go on the wall and the tile to go on the floor in the bun baker corner.

The bun baker is surrounded by soap stone and the tiles should go along with and compliment it. So that it pops and is a feature in the room.

We've looked at floor tile and I'm envisioning large tile, something like 16"x16" or larger, and no grout lines.

I've narrowed it down to either a porcelain tile:

or

Pro: it has a nice smooth surface making it easy to clean.
Con: and I have to guess here - the tiles won't be unique like natural tile

or slate:

I like the one in the upper left and lower right corner.

Pro: It's natural tile and each piece is unique.
Con: The surface is not flat making it a bit of work to get the bun baker level and makes cleaning a bit harder.

Summery: the pro of one, is the con of the other - It might boil down to price...but like I mentioned before it might come down to ease of cleaning.

Now for the wall. As in my drawing I really like the stacked stone, with no grout line.

I've picked out 4 different colors and which one depends on what looks best - don't want the corner to be to dark.

These are my favs:

I think this will be the one be go for, but it all has to go together - so I'll have to trust in Lisa and David.

The barn wood we'll be using for the mantle is kinda grey.

So, it's all coming together....can't wait to get it all in.

Aloha Hui hou!

Plan two

Thanks to some brain storming with my dear friend Nancy, thank you Nancy, we've come up with the look I'd like for the area around the Bun Baker.

Now the proportions are not 100%, the perspective of the bun baker isn't right, the tile on the floor is not what we want and the tile on the wall is bigger than what we want, but you get the idea of what my vision it. What do you think?

Aloha Hui hou!

We lost it

It's official, we are going to lose the built in in the front room

This what it looks like now

Was hoping to get it to look kinda like this, but now it's history.

I spoke with Lisa and David today and according to the specs for the Bun Baker, it would have to be 16+" away from the wall and any other spot in the room would just be too far into the room. It is a small room as it is, putting something in that has to stand 16" from the wall any place else in the room,  just won't work.

So now the wheels are turning again, what we could do to make it look great. I would like to have stone on the wall behind the bun baker and tile/stone on the floor. The stone would have to be light colored and I am imagining it with out grout. So many new choices!

Aloha Hui Hou!

So much more than just buying it

After we finally found a stove that we could agree on, we thought that was it. Well, we thought wrong.

Today we found out that we have to have the fire marshal stop buy to make sure it's safe. Our home owners insurance has a say too. We might have to fulfill some conditions.

Now we have to make up our minds where we want to put it. Originally I wanted to put it on this wall

but I think it might be too close to the hutch. I don't want the wood drying out and cracking or the paint blowing bubbles.

Then I thought maybe in this corner and forget about the built in, clad the walls with stone and make it a nice rustic corner with a mantel?  Or just put it to the right of the archway and still have the built in?

Will have to think about it a bit more.

Aloha Hui Hou!

I've been outted!

Today I received a letter in the mail that I should admit that I have a Farmgirl in me!

How did they know? lol

Seriously now, I somehow got on the mailing list for a magazine call MaryJanesFarm. The magazine seems to be about old fashioned values, not about the latest fashions. It covers topics like organic gardening, crafting, quilting, farming and decorating - all in a much simpler way.

We already are subscribed to the Mother Earth News magazine and enjoy reading the articles and have found some things that we might want to get for the house, like the Vermont Bun Baker.

What magazines do you subscribe to and why do you enjoy them?

Aloha Hui Hou!

Fire and Water

There are some projects that we won't be able to do ourselves and the bathroom/plumbing is one of them. This week we have a contractor starting work on our very tiny, very PINK bathroom

It's going to be totally gutted and the only thing we are going to save is the medicine cabinet over the sink. I plan to sand prime and repaint the insides. Then I'll brush the metal frame so it will match the rest of the brushed nickle hardware that's going in. The shower will have black and white tile. There will be wood look ceramic tile on the floor. The rest of the bath will be half white bead board and the other half will be pale blue. Doing this long distance is a challenge. I've spent hours and hours on the computer looking for ideas that we can work off of to create the bathroom we dream of. So for now we're looking forward to seeing my Google searches turn into a bathroom. <==click "a bathroom" to see a drawing of what we hope the layout of the new bathroom will be.

Photo from Google Earth

Another thing that will happen this week is that they will be cutting down and stacking the 14 dead trees around the house.  They will also run the branches and the wood the county left behind when they cleared the irrigation ditch thru a chipper. Home grown mulch! Anyway, as you see, Google updated their satellite maps and you can really see the dead trees.

These are in the drive way. When we were there Roger tried to save them. Watered them every day, gave them spikes, but it didn't seem to help.

This is a small grove of trees, right at the base of the irrigation ditch. Same thing - Roger really worked hard to save them. They might not all need to go, but a couple do for sure

This shows the birch and a group of 5 or 6 pine trees that have to go. They were already dead, dead, dead when we were there. I love the look of the birch and am sad that it has to go

The silver lining is that we will have lots of wood for our first winter in Idaho. WooHoo!

As long as we are on the subject, a fireplace was on our wishlist, but it was one of the things we had to compromise on. After lots of looking I found the Vermont Bun Baker. Again it is a compromise, but a  good one. I wanted one that looked good and had soap stone around it to maintain the heat, maximizing the wood. Roger wanted something that he could cook with. I can't wait, but think we will have to wait till we live there to have it installed.

Aloha Hui Hou!