Christine's Home and Travel Adventures

Sunday, November 20, 2011

My Dish Room Organized

Hello all! We are approaching another week, the week of Tanksgiving. I am sure everybody is busy preparing for it.

This past few days, I decided to reclaim a walk in closet and some shelves to create my dish room. This closet is in the garage and it used to be a storage room for our luggage. Some luggage were already moved out when I took this picture.

It is also the electrical room so you will see circuit breakers for half of the house and the other one is for the centralized generator. The other circuit breakers for the other half of the house is in the guest bathroom, on the other side of the building. I also kept boxes of dish overflow here and clothes that I have not sorted and put away since we moved. I have since given 2 boxes of clothes to charity and will be delivering some more this week.

It was quite overwhelming at first.

This is one wall of the closet, on the right side as you enter the door. It already has built in shelves.

John bought all the plastic bins from Home Depot. Twice he has depleted their supplies and we still do not have enough. I like the size because they are not too big so they do not get too heavy when filled with dishes. The only problem is if the set is big, I might have to put them in up to 3 bins, which is fine with me since I just label them as such. They also close securely and stack nicely.

It is starting to look better, isn't it?

John bought this whitewashed pie cabinet from an antique store about 2 or 3 years ago. He would not give it to me to use for my dishes because he said it reminds him of his grandmother's. He used it to store cleaning supplies and garbage bags in the garage instead.

Well, I finally got it because he bought 3 big heavy duty Seville rolling stainless steel shelves for the garage. I guess he has been in the organizing mood too.

I emptied that white cabinet and cleaned it thoroughly and then dragged it all by myself (before John could change his mind, lol) into the garage walk in closet. As you can see, I filled it pretty fast.

I was pretty happy with it at first but then realized that I will have to move a lot of bins if I want to use the dishes that are in the bottom bins. And if you know me, I like to use different dishes every week if not almost everyday.

And so I measured one of the stainless steel shelves to see if it will fit that wall and it did! And I figured we can just roll it out if we need to get to the electric panels. So, I told John to give me one and he can just order more. He asked me to order 3 more. and I tried but I could not believe that they were $25 more in price, so I am still waiting for them to drop to what we paid.

Again, I dragged that shelving cart all by myself into the closet. Before I could drag it in there, I had to take down ALL the bins that I previously organized and take out the folded table that they were sitting on. Too much double work here but I better do it which I was in the mood, lol.
There was so much lifting but it was all worth it. You can see that I have the bins all labeled.

I use this basket to store my organizing supplies, scissors, pen, tape and labels. I also use it sometimes for flatware when serving buffet.

This is on top of white washed pie cabinet.

I placed some overflow plate chargers here since they are too big for the bins and they won't fit in my charger plate closet inside the laundry room. Notice some are yellow, which is my Mellow Yellow contribution.

Do you see that tall green drum to the left of the cabinet? It's a central vacuum system for the house which we never use. I don't even know how it works. It looks so unsightly so I think I will cover it with a curtain. John suggested we take it out but I think it might be a selling point if we ever decide to sell the house. What do you all think?

Now, it is easier for me to pull a bin out since they are only stacked in two's now.

This is the shelf on the right wall as you enter the door and it is also organized now.

I added a throw rug for a warmer effect.

Notice the green wood chest. It used to sit by the wall to the left as you enter the door. I never moved it because it is very heavy and I could not remember what was in it. But I finally dragged it to the right side of the stainless steel shelves.

I opened it and guess what I found it in! Yep, you guessed it right! More dishes and glasses and some placemats, lol!

I love how it looks now! Do you? And I added more bins under the shelving since.

I am really very happy with the way it turned out and it is making me breath easier even if my muscles were all sore for a while. It was definitely worth all the work and I am proud to say that I did it all by myself.

Thank you so much for stopping by. I always enjoy your visits and especially your comments.

I would like to link with Susan's Met Monday at http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/

Sally's Blue Monday at http://smilingsally.blogspot.com/

Mellow Yellow Monday at http://mellowyellowmonday.blogspot.com/

Carrie's Amaze me Monday at http://dittledattle.blogspot.com/

Mary's Masterpieces Monday at http://boogieboardcottage.blogspot.com/

Thank you for hosting, sweet ladies!

Friday, November 18, 2011

Frogmore Cotton Plantation, Then and Now

I can't believe the weekend is coming soon again. That means I get to show some pinks for Beverly's Pink Saturday and we get to tour for Sightseeing Saturday.

Last weekend, my stepdaughter Kerri and her three kids came for a visit. We took them to Frogmore Cotton Plantation, which is a working plantation in Ferriday, Louisiana. It is only about a 40 minute drive away from where we live. We have been wanting to go there but just never had a chance. It was actually Janie (Blondie's Journal) and Al who told us about it when they came to visit. They wanted to go there but we did not have time, because we had to go to the airport to pick up my daughter and 2 grandsons. Sorry, Janie! If you come and visit us again, I promise we will take you there. But for now, I hope my photos will suffice.

Before we go there, let me show you my pink. Beverly has a Thanksgiving theme for this Sat. but I already put my Fall decor away to make room for all the bins where I am moving my dishes from cabinets inside the house, in preparation for the new floor installation. I already ordered the floor but it will take around 10 days before they arrive. That will give me enough time to unload stuff from cabinets so the workers can move them but, I am going to FL for Thanksgiving. I wish John could do the rest since he is staying home but I know he is busy. And besides I don't think I want to trust my dishes with anybody else.

And so, I am showing you pitchers in our bedroom and my Coach coasters, of which some are pink. Notice my blog books under the pitcher? I print 4 months at a time since the time I started blogging in January of 2009. I finally have the whole year printed so I am moving to 2010 next. I am only almost 2 years behind, lol.

I got a new camera, a Sony NEX-C3 so I was playing with it. This effect is supposed to look like an old film with the background defocused.

And the one below is set on auto without flash. Although I have always used Sony cameras, (this is probably my 9th, I think, this one's a little different so I am still trying to study it.

Ok, it's time to go to the plantation. I had a hard time selecting what photos to share because I have over 300 pictures. I think this is one of the most interesting historical tours that we have taken. I really enjoyed it. I knew my friend Debjani wanted to go see it too so I invited her to come along.

Noah and Zoe ran to the fields as soon as they saw it and just knelt there meditating and absorbing everything. It looks like the cotton here have just been harvested.

These were the slaves' quarters.

Hog killing was an event that they always looked forward to.

Inside the quarter, you will see that they used newspapers for insulation and they white washed the walls I believe, to keep the bugs away. You will also see the work clothes of the women. Notice the shoes in the frame. I can only imagine how cold it must get in the winter. The floors are not even solid. They have gaps between them.

Tool shed.

I am so glad they preserved all the primitive tools so that we would have an idea of how they used to harvest and process the cotton.

Below is the cooking cabin. I took a lot of pictures inside it. I wanted to take so many of these kitchen stuff home but I did not want to get arrested, lol.

The tour guide said they bought their groceries from Natchez which is about a 40 min drive by car today but it took them 2 days on a mule. Imagine traveling 2 days just to get some groceries?

The oven was right outside the cooking cabin.

We wanted to experience cotton picking so I went to get a bag. That bag is long and heavy.

And so with Zoe's help, we went to the fields to pick.

They gave us a tour of the cotton gin. and how the cotton was processed in the olden days. I am so glad they had labels on a lot of these equipment or I would not remember anything.

Noah was asked to help demonstrate how they used to do laundry. After they are done in this basin, they take the clothes to the other basin to wring them out.

After the tour of the gin, we were taken to a room to watch a dvd. It showed how they used to process the cabin and how they do it now. They do have modern equipment now. They have 2 big warehouses where they store the cotton before it is delivered everywhere, all the way to Europe and Asia. There's Kerri and our 3 grandchildren.

Here's a modern equipment they use now. I believe it cost $650,000.

I did not realize that cotton is used for food also and not just for fabric. Crisco, for example is made mostly of cotton seed oil.

John really enjoyed the tour too.

Here is a cotton bale ready to be weighed and labeled. A bale weighs 500 lbs.

I hope you enjoyed the tour as I did. Thank you so much for joining me.

I am linking with

Sarah's Homemaking Link Up Weekend at http://bloggingwhilewaiting.blogspot.com/

Honey's Potpourri Friday at http://twenty-eight-0-five.blogspot.com/

Tootsie's Fertilizer Fri at http://www.tootsietime.com/

Beverly's Pink Saturday at http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/

The Tablescaper's Seasonal Sunday at http://thetablescaper.blogspot.com/

Thanks, lovely ladies, for hosting!

Monday, November 14, 2011

Playing Artists

I have been working really hard towards the replacement of our floors while working with my daughters through long distance on baby plans, making travel arrangements, working with the gardener one day a week and preparing my booth for the coming holidays. Debjani has been studying hard in school and so we both decided that we need to do something relaxing and fun.

During Balloon Festival last month, we bought an unpainted plaque with a hot air balloon with the intention of painting them. And so Debjani came on her day off from school and this became our project. It was a nice day so we did it on our project table in the garage, with music blasting from the i phone. The top oval one is Debjani's and mine is the rectangular one at the bottom.

While we were painting, I was baking stuffed pork chops with boudin. This was the first time I've ever had this and it was delicious. I bought it already stuffed at the Vidalia Cajun market.