We had a partial kitchen in the basement laundry room of my parents' last house in the burbs of Detroit (I lived there from 8th grade until I left for college). The laundry room had a large double sink (laundry room type, not kitchen sink), an old electric stove (probably about 42 inch with 2 ovens), an old sxs frig, and a large pass through/serving counter area that could be used as a prep area as well as staging area. It was very useful when we had large parties (about every other month). Our upstairs kitchen was fairly small and only had room for my mom & I to work in (we had a great system worked out so we didn't run into each other). Some basements in our area (1970s & 80s suburban homes mostly 2 story) have partial kitchens in the basements. Our next door neighbor has a large ranch home so the basement is quite a bit larger than most in our subdivision. The original owner who we were friends with put in quite a nice basement kitchen. It was almost as nice as their upstairs kitchen, just somewhat smaller. They entertained a lot and used both kitchens to the max. I think a second kitchen would be great, especially in the summer to keep the heat out of the main living spaces. Ideal place for canning, too.

aok27502 wrote: Are those pictures from naturallycurly.com? I browsed through there a while back, but to me every style just looks messy. The first two look a little like mine if I go to bed with my hair wet! I just grabbed them from a google image search of medium-length curly hair. They do look messy in some eyes, but I can't find a way to make curly hair like mine look neat without a significant amount of time. And this "messy" look is in style now. Last weekend, I was at an outdoor sporting event and took a break from the wind by getting a coffee at a local shop. My hair looked like the first photo I posted--I literally had just gotten out of bed and did nothing to it that morning. The young girl who served me coffee complimented my hair. Her words were, "By the way, I love your hair." (I wanted to hug her... they probably train them to say that to women my age!) I'm 45, and to have someone more than 20 years my junior give me a compliment--trained or not!--made my day. Yes, I'm both vain like that and appreciative that, at my age, I still have some flair. Call it messy. For me, it's easy and makes me feel good. I'll take it!

I love the orange shower! It reminds me of a field of California poppies. What a great way to start the day ^_^ I had an orange kitchen sink in my very first apartment as a grown up. It was otherwise a very traditional space, so the orange sink was an unexpected surprise that got lots of comments from visitors. My husband isn't nearly as adventurous as I am, so other than lots of traditional stained wood trim and built-ins on our first floor, we don't have a lot of fixed color in our house. He let me "go crazy" with black & white tile in our laundry room and kid/guest bathroom because he doesn't spend time in those rooms, but otherwise we went fairly neutral. Once we moved into our house and he loved the 2 rooms with the black & white tile, he said he wished he'd let me have freer reign in the other areas. The most colorful built-in item we have is our kitchen counter granite. I hadn't done any research before we made the decision to build a house together, so we had to make quick decisions on fixtures and that REALLY stressed me out, especially with the kitchen. I wasn't sold on even using granite, but our builder acted like that was the only reasonable choice there was. My biggest fear was that I'd end up hating the granite I picked, but 11 years later I love it even more than I did at first. It looks like green-blue sea foam mixed with sea shells to me. I was worried it would limit color choices (for walls and such) in our open floor plan... And maybe it does, but in a good way. We don't live near the coast anymore, but I'm still attracted to things that remind me of it. Here's a picture of it from a distance: And a close up:

Tried to post again and it still doesn't show up anywhere but in my own activity log so I copied it here. ---- I am going to post the recipe as I first started using it. For my taste, the bread was too sweet so in parentheses I will put what I use now. ---- 2 cups water - 110°-120° 3 Tablespoons sugar (1 slightly rounded Tablespoon) 1-1/2 Tablespoons Active Dry Yeast 1-1/2 teaspoons salt (slightly rounded) 1/4 Cup Vegetable Oil 6 cups flour* ---- Fit mixer with paddle. Put water and sugar in mixer bowl, stir to dissolve sugar. Sprinkle yeast over and let sit until foamy, 5- 15 minutes (I stir slightly to get the yeast into the sugar water.) I find that 5 minutes is generally sufficient. Add salt, oil and 3 cups of the flour. Mix very well. Change from paddle to dough hook, on low, add the other 3 cups of flour. Once most of the flour is incorporated, raise mixer speed to medium and mix until it becomes a cohesive whole, with no flour on sides of bowl. Turn out onto floured surface and knead 4-6 minutes, using the most minimum of flour possible, just enough to keep it from sticking to your hands. Place in a LARGE greased bowl, turn once to grease all sides of dough, then cover and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour. After 1 hour, punch dough down and form into 2 loaves. Place in greased loaf pans, cover and let rise until dough crowns to a little over 1" above pan tops. Preheat oven to 350° Bake loaves for 25 - 30 minutes, if browning too quickly, cover loosely with foil after 18 minutes. I let the loaves sit only for a minute or 2 in the pans then turn them onto a rack to cool. Let cool completely before cutting. ---- *OK so here's the thing about flour. The original recipe called for All Purpose flour. I only use bread flour and just because I got silly and ordered a bunch of durum flour and need to use it before it goes bad, I actually substitute 1/2 cup of it for 1/2 cup of the bread flour. I am not scientific enough to know if that actually does anything to make the bread soft but still able to hold together when cut or not. If anyone here knows please feel free to chime in. If it really does make some kind of difference I will replenish my supply once it's gone. If it really serves no particular purpose I will go back to all bread flour. I probably have enough durum for 7 or 8 more batches