where do you find your cooking inspiration?
bragu_DSM 5
3 years ago
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Sherry8aNorthAL
3 years agoediej1209 AL Zn 7
3 years agoRelated Discussions
Where do you find inspiration?
Comments (4)I was surprised to see 100 house plans between 500 and 1000 sq ft on that link. Scott, I have never had the opportunity to think about building a small house from scratch, as it were, but I have had lots of fun making the small homes I have lived in more user friendly. My advice is to think like a boat builder. Look for nooks and crannies in which to build storage. Think about the space above a staircase. Can you squeeze a closet, cabinet, or bookcase above the place where the staircase ends? My last house had a big cedar closet there that you entered by opening a bookcase in the living room. You needed a stepstool to get in, but it extended into the attic at the top. It was worth having to duck your head when you got to the bottom of the basement stairs. Another place we found room in that house was in a 10 x 10 room off the kitchen. It was once a back porch, and had a vaulted ceiling. It was too small for a dining room, since a staircase for 6 steps had to be worked into the design. On the opposite wall, smack in the middle, was the back door. On the end where the ceiling was highest, I designed a platform only 45" deep, going the 10 ft length of the room. It was level with the kitchen floor on one end, a butted right up to the molding of the back door at the other end. We had enough room on that platform to put a stack of drawers and small counter, two 3 ft wide 12 inch deep pantry cabinets, and a blind-corner utility cabinet in an "L" at the end. A railing separated this section of the room from the next section, which was the stairway going down the 30-some inches to the floor of the old porch. Bench seating under the windows there was storage space, and we even installed doors so you could get under the platform of the pantry galley for more storage. My builder laid indoor-outdoor carpet there to crawl on. Yes, we had a basement, but this storage was just off the kitchen, so worked well for roasters, soup pots and other big kitchen stuff. Our rain gear, boots, and dog supplies went into the benches, which were right near the back door. When I designed the kitchen remodel, the first two contractors I showed my diagrams to showed no interest. One told me that there was not enough space to build a platform for the pantry and room to walk in front of the cabinets. The other did not even do a bid. The third guy showed interest, took out his tape rule, and said that it would work. That, my small homers, is how I met Jim, my contractor for every project ever since. When putting the kitchen together, he added two knick-knack shelves in places that I had not considered. He worked around room contours that made for strange cabinet sizes, but since we had a local cabinet company, they could make the odd sizes at no extra cost. Just like Eatrealfood did in her kitchen design, you just work around things and be grateful when you get half a cabinet's worth of usable storage!...See Morewhere do you get your inspiration & ideas?
Comments (4)Look at other's mosaics for inspiration. I spend hours and hours and have saved soooo many pics on my computer. I have copied a picture and resized it (I use Paint Shop Pro) and then just put a piece of glass or plexiglass over it. You can pick up an ugly picture at a thrift store just for the glass and frame. That is what I'm doing with...See MoreWhere do you get your inspiration?
Comments (19)I think that my biggest inspiration for my garden was a neighbor growing up. She had beautiful mixed borders with perennials, flowering trees, and shrubs. However, I was terrified of her since she didn't like kids and would yell at me for even stopping on the sidewalk to look, so I looked from a distance or as we drove by or walking slowly as a came home from school. I also have a friend that I met when I was 10 whose parents also had mixed borders with roses and crabapples and grapes and perennials. I loved their gardens as well. My grandfather, who we visited in the summer, had a rural garden of old-fashioned cottage garden plants - Hydrangeas, poppies, peonies, iris, sweet peas, violas, asparagus, quince, roses, and an apple tree. There were many more, but those are what remain in my memory, and a few remain in my garden from divisions taken after they had both died and the house was up for sale. My folks took us to the Holden Arboretum regularly and we often detoured through a cemetery with beautiful plantings, so much of what I saw trained my eye, even though I grew up in a house of non-gardeners. Now I get a lot of my inspiration from gardens I visit (I love the Open Days sponsored by the Garden Conservancy and other open garden fundraisers), on line from blogs and here on GW, and from eye candy books from the library....See MoreWhere do you draw inspiration from in your cottage garden design?
Comments (9)Thx just having fun learning with shovel and compost and sharing as I go. I've had just 1 year to work on my yard. In 3-4 might set up a website to feature it just for sharing ideas for others. Not a large yard. Just seems large because of the design principles I am testing now. Yes indeed cottage style with lush subtropical effects too via "zone pushing tricks". i post regularly in Instagram under "alteredspace" name. I literally like altering my yard space visually and internal self space via hiking in PNW. The style of gardens you might like are featured in how to design style in the old Readers Digest gardening book "A Garden for All Seasons". They teach the evolved design of UK style Cottages Gardens where 2 to 4 season changes of interest are arranged in the same and often limited space. Tbe book is out of print now but can still get them on Amazon used, at great price. A few minutes ago I went outside to start digging again and a rain squall hit. The pond fish thought it might be a 2nd breakfast hitting their surface and became quite active. So went into the Gazebo and threw them a little more Cold Season pond food and desided to check messages. There's 15+ fish Comets and Koi and some have become larger than legal trout keeper size. Were all small a year ago. Nice quite moment here with the rain sounds, thinking about what's next to install....See Moreabzzybee
3 years agoannie1992
3 years agoplllog
3 years agonancyofnc
3 years agolovemycorgi z5b SE michigan
3 years agoLars
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agol pinkmountain
3 years agoMarilyn Sue McClintock
3 years agocarolb_w_fl_coastal_9b
3 years agoBumblebeez SC Zone 7
3 years agoCA Kate z9
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3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoSherry8aNorthAL
3 years agoLars
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoartemis_ma
3 years ago
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Lynda (Zn9b/23 - Central CA Coast)