couch

Dear Old Couch,

I'm sorry to say you're being replaced.  While you've been loyal and always by our [back]sides, the time has come for someone else to enjoy you - and hopefully give you a thorough, professional cleaning. 

Regards,

Jon and Craig

From Couch

This couch has seen everything.  If it could speak, it would surely say something like, "humans are utterly disgusting". 

We really do like the couch.  If the stairwell to the basement was bigger, it would be fixed up and kept.  I feel like it's an important piece of furniture as it was one of our first bigger purchases as a couple.  Anyhow, it has a few broken bones from all the moving - Cincinnati, Houston, Cleveland, Huntsville AL, and now Baltimore.  Also, as of late, if the pillows are situated just right, you might be lucky enough to get a waft of an unknown odor prompting thoughts like, "Is that..? nah, they don't even have a cat".

It'd be great with some TLC and hopefully someone will find it at the Salvation Army to give it just that.  Unless of course one of you want it for free?

Meet Petrie:

This is the couch we just ordered from Crate and Barrel.  The Petrie is typical 60's design; big; super comfortable; clean lines; totally marvelous; and I quote, "lets you slouch in comfort".  A slouch couch - PERFECT.  We selected the Charcoal color and are regularly wetting our pants with excitement.  It won't be delivered until April (grrr) but it’s nice knowing the couch is being specifically built for Project Rowhouse.  Here are a few other pictures I rounded up from the interweb.

Thengai Podi(Coconut powder)

This is my family recipe for Thengai podi. It comes in handy when you are tired or sick or not in the mood to cook :)

Ingredients:
Coconut(fresh or frozen)-3/4 cup
Urud dal-1/2 cup
Hing-1/4 tsp
Salt
Red chillis-6(or according to your taste)
Oil-2 drops
Mustard seeds-1/4 tsp



Method:
Heat oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds. When they crackle, add urud dal, red chillis and hing. Fry till golden brown on a very low flame. Set aside and let it cool.
In the same pan, add coconut and fry well till it loses moisture and turns light brown. Let it cool.
Grind everything(including salt) together to a coarse powder.
Store in an air tight container. Mix 2-3 tbsp of this powder with a serving of cooked rice(rice should not be mushy). Add a drop of ghee and have it with pappad/vadams/chips.

basement

Sorry y’all, we concocted the most daunting to-do list ever and we failed to put ‘blog’ as an entry. We’ve been wonderfully busy with the house though and blogging is back on the list, so hopefully you’ll be hearing from us more frequently.

Now that the basement is freed up (i.e. we moved upstairs), we can start turning it into the recreation room. It has some great potential and it’s nice to be starting with a somewhat finished space.

About the basement: as far as rowhouse basements go, I think we hit the jackpot here. It’s ugly, but a good sized space and most of it has reasonable height (none of it is the standard 7’). As you can see in the pictures, there is an elevated wood floor on one half that pushes the headroom to a danger zone – about 6’2”. Not ideal. This side will be a lounge / TV / fish tank area, so it shouldn’t pose too much of a problem. Dancing and grooving will be allowed despite the risk of head injury.

I’ll do a post about the fish tank when we put it up… I talk so much about those dogs that I failed to tell you all that keeping a big fish tank is by far my favorite hobby.

The wood floor is in terrible shape – TERRIBLE – we’re not refinishing it, but because of what’s under it, we can’t remove it [easily]. Some exploring exposed unevenness and surely other yet-to-be-discovered problems. The other half of the area is linoleum on concrete and this is about 6’6”. We’ve decided to just carpet the entire space to unify and warmify.

The side with the taller ceiling is where the kitchen was. You can see some kitchen leftovers in the pictures. Our plan is to reuse a few of the cabinets and put a wet bar in the same corner with a beverage center. We’re leaving the range gas hookup in case we (or a future owner) ever choose to turn the basement in to a full apartment. The pool table will also go in this space (Thanks, Rosa!).

There is some storage and utility stuff in a separated area. Our latest thought is that the washer and dryer should be moved up to the second floor and this will open up room to put a full bath to really have an actual suite. You hear that, Mothers-In-Law?

Excuse the mess:

Does this green remind anyone of Nickelodeon? It’s ridiculously bright. It looks much brighter in the pictures than in real life – that is a COMPLETE lie. This is just the beginning and I’m not at all worried that it will be terrible when we finish, but it is a bit crazy looking right now.

The built-in closet unit on the left side was “finished” wood, but it was way too dark and in poor shape.

Priming begins: