afarerkind's Profile

Any bag can be a diaper bag. We used an Eddie Bauer tote I used for books in grad school. We got a changing wallet since it didn't come with a matching changing pad, and it was otherwise perfectly suited for the job. Now we've downsized to a small black backpack with a single cross-body strap. Very unisex.

This is almost identical to my parents' kitchen, and I'm here to tell you it's not the oak, it's the arches. Oak with a shaker profile is workable, but the arched panels are a country giveaway. Your lucky that your lower cabinets don't have the arches. But enough negative talk, I have some ideas for you!

1. Take off some upper cabinet doors. Not all of them because you need to hide some mess, but some of them to break up the repeating arches and oak. I'd keep the door above the appliance garage to make that feel like a column anchoring the space and take off the doors on the cabinets on either side. If you aren't allowed to paint the inside backs of the cabinets, put a graphic contact paper on them.

2. Definitely incorporate more black to help the appliances look intentional. When you can do a countertop, think honed black granite or similar. Black paint seems like a good idea gone wrong to me, but a black/onyx or just dark backsplash and accessories are a step in the right direction.

3. Embrace the country a little bit. Not a lot, but I think the commenter who warned that blue could go country is right but wrong. If it goes a little country, that might be OK. If you fight it too hard, the oak will look worse. If you embrace it a little and just skew it modern, it might look intentional. You can do this with the things you display in the upper cabinets, paint, art, etc.

Martha Stewart's houses are not so much homes as the scenery for all of her media empire. Obviously no normal person needs that kind of laundry room -- but consider that these photos appear in a blog on a site that promotes several magazines, product lines, a television show, radio show, etc. Both the linens laundered in this room and the room itself are basically sets and dressings.

Maybe part of the conceit of the Martha Stewart brand is that we can emulate her when in fact we cannot. But I find that she actually has a nice mix of accessible housekeeping advice (i.e. how to fold a fitted sheet) and what is, to be crude, housekeeping porn.

This has been said re: the Bitch Ph.D link, but I want to reiterate: The majority of the families in Huntington, W.Va., are not THAT poor. They might qualify for free- or reduced-cost school meals, but that doesn't mean they don't have properly functioning kitchens. Now some of the towns in West Virginia's southern coal fields might be another story, I don't know, but Huntington is the state's second largest city. Not everyone in West Virginia is Jed Clampett. But I digress. There is definitely a point to be made about generational poverty and food culture in America, but to suggest that these people are not in a position to help themselves is just as condescending as disregarding the poverty issue altogether.

My biggest problem with the series was the simple over-dramatization. Jamie Oliver is pretty correct in his diagnosis of the problem and his approach to fixing it: education. The problem came with embarrassing an entire city on national television and undermining his own authority with made-for-TV moments. Too much personality, not enough substance. But then, hey, it's TV.

All the comments on the Ohdeeoh post recommend Itso storage cubes from Target, and since I just bought an Expedit last weekend, I went out and got a couple Itsos after reading that post. Perfect fit. Love the look. Way cheaper than Ikea's options.

Pictures here: http://majorlifechanges.blogspot.com/2010/04/sweet-swedish-organization.html

I second the can opener and jar of peanut butter. I usually hope to avoid lunches requiring a can opener, but when I do show up at work with a can, it's kind of a desert island moment when I realize I don't have an opener. And peanut butter works on bread, crackers, fruit, and a spoon.