PhyllisC's Profile

While I Love Bon Ami and Barkeeper's Friend, have you tried Cascade dishwashing powder sprinkled on a damp sponge to clean marks on dishware? That's my go-to solution for marks on Corning Ware and Pyrex dishware. It works with minimal effort. Most of my corning ware was purchased at garage sales and thrift stores after learning that one shouldn't use plastic ware in microwave cooking. These pieces could be bought for a song since they were so scuffed up. A scrub with Cascade powder and they looked like new.

Any ideas on what to put on those white concrete block walls BESIDES posters of movie stars? Does anyone know if hanging fabric with fabric starch works?

Love the Lack stack shelves, btw. Storage is always an issue and these look great and really clever to put them in a corner.

I have seen very vibrant warm blues and even a very cold yellow so I too was hoping for something beyond an intro to the color wheel. Fortunately, I have learned a lot of what I missed getting in college from some artist friends. Here is some of what I've had the good fortune to learn. It's still not the color boards (all those gradations of colors in small squares) I saw the interior design students working on in college, but it's a start.

Artists often use a sophisticated palette of warm and cool shades of each primary color. A few examples, using art store pigments, are Cadmium Medium Red (warm) vs. Alizarin Red (cool) and Ultramarine blue (cool) vs. Cerelean blue (warm). You also have to consider the light source. If you have a warm light source (tungsten light), use cool shadows. If you have a cool light source (noon day sun), use warm shadows. Another rule to remember is that no color really has a temperature until compared with another color. It's all about light and context. So how does this translate into great interior design? You mentioned not mixing warms (ROY) with cools (GBV), but that seems so simplistic. Is that true for a warm red and a cool red? Can they work together or should we avoid those combos too?

You can also clean your dishwasher using a couple packets of lemon flavored unsweetened kool-aid. Make sure to use the kind that you need to add sugar to if you were making it to drink and check the label for citric acid. It's probably the cheapest and easiest way to find citric acid. Pour several packets into the soap dispenser cups and run on the hottest, longest cycle (no dishes of course) to clean hard water gunk off the interior of your washer. If you check the label of most dishwasher cleaners, the main ingredient is citric acid.

A borax solution of some sort was used to rinse the eyes of newborn babies back in the fifties. Not sure when they stopped that...but thank goodness they did. Borax powder makes a great pesticide, especially for cockroaches. Put it in one of those red ketchup squirt bottles and squeeze it into cracks and crevices.

If I remember correctly from watching the American Roadshow, American antiques are more valuable than their european counterparts, so I'm guessing 'A'.

Having a house with similar issues and identical avocado green double oven, I like your approach, especially the cabinets. One word to the wise however: our oven died after a few years and we found it was impossible to find another double oven that width. A previous poster was astute in saying you could have installed a cooktop & oven combo and turned the double oven space into a pantry. We designed our remodel to work with the green, then regretted it when the oven died. The matching cooktop fan hood died not too long after the oven. Maybe 30-40 years is their lifespan? Now our kitchen doesn't look as good without the vintage appliances. Love our cabinet depth refrigerator though. I'm not sure I'll ever go back to the monsters that stick out into the room no matter where I live.

We have had acrylic (corian) countertops for 12 years now. They still look great and I'm mystified by the comment that they are easily damaged. I have yet to have a burn mark on them (unlike previous experiences with formica and butcher block countertops). You do have to be careful to use a cutting board or you will get cut marks. I love how easy they are to keep clean, never need sealing, have no unsanitary grout seams. Having said that, if I ever purchase a new countertop again, I will only consider a product that is made from natural and/or recycled materials and can be recycled when time to remodel again. Acrylic countertops don't meet such a standard.

As someone with gluten intolerance the difference means I can eat one (corn) dish but not another (flour). As a Texan these are staples of our diet. Rolling enchiladas are a challenge with the corn, but if you make sure they are warmed and very slightly moistened first, it goes easier. Thank God for corn tortillas. It's been hard enough giving up pita bread.

Yes, we know it should be corn flour vs wheat flour, but don't you have better things to get your panties in a bunch about?

Wow! Love it! Thank you for showing a kitchen reno that doesn't have granite countertops and stainless steel appliances, which are so cliche. Thank you for keeping the integrity and character of the original space. Thank you for not ripping out real wood cabinets. Thank you for a reasonable budget.

As a side note, for those who think this is not a "near zero budget." When I walked into our local home improvement store with a $5000 kitchen reno budget I was laughed at. Yes, the clerk laughed at my budget. I was told that I would need at least three times that much to do a reasonable job. I left with resolve to prove her wrong. I painted my 3/4 inch plywood cabinets, bought all new appliances. a new sink and garbage disposer, replaced the fluorescent lighting with recessed lighting, and even put in new countertops. All within a budget which I thought was bare bones. This is such an inspiration. I love older homes, so next house, the challenge is on.

You will definitely have to strip to the frame and rebuild this sofa, but it will be so worth it. Amazing find and even more amazing price. Please don't touch the wood except to repair and revitalize the finish using a product recommended for antiques. Anything more will destroy it's value.

For fabric, check out the fabric selections at Mod Green Pod. I don't know your color scheme, but I think the Clara in cream would look absolutely fantastic. The Aspire in peppercorn would look great too. Grey and yellow are the newest color combo, so you could add some yellow throw pillows. If you are really daring, use yellow welt cord.

I do reupholstery for a living and love to retie springs. I wish I was there to help you.