North Bay's Profile

We put cork flooring in our kitchen. It's great! We used glue-down, rather than "floating" cork flooring which is a little bit more work to install but less likely to cause problems if there is ever a water issue like a leaking dishwasher or something like that.

Here's a shout-out to a really great Canadian company, Lee Valley, and the ceiling mounted rack they have on their website. It works on pulleys and with some modification, might be a good way to use some of your vertical space.
http://www.leevalley.com/en/garden/page.aspx?p=63436&cat=2,42194

I know the Eames Hang-It -All is a design classic, but really, why hasn't anybody posted a DIY version? Would that be sacriligious? (Sorry, I love it, and would love to buy one for my daughter's first apartment, but wow, sticker shock.)

Link doesn't go to anything useful.

Brandy snaps were a fashionable tea party treat when my mother was a little girl in the 1920s. She used to tell us how much fun she had serving them to her mother's guests who were deeply engrossed in conversation: if you're not careful when you bite into a cream-filled brandy snap, it can squirt cream down your front!

I always use cocoa powder for our family's cocoa (to take in a thermos when we go out cross-country skiing, or back at home after a chilly walk along the lake shore.) We really like this method, it's easy to multiply for the number of servings you need, and there's no hot milk crusty pan to wash/scrub. It's hard to find really good cocoa powder where I live, but this seems to work well with Cadbury's or other brands commonly found in grocery stores.
Mix up 1 tsp cocoa powder, approx 1 1/2 tsp sugar (you can always sweeten to taste afterwards) and thoroughly stir in just enough milk or evaporated milk to make a smooth paste in each mug. Then add and stir in about 1/4 mug of milk to each mug, and microwave until really hot, almost boiling. (Cocoa powder needs to be brought to a high temperature to get rid of the slightly powdery, chalky taste.) Then fill up each mug with more milk, stir again, add a drop or two of vanilla extract, and microwave to your preferred serving temperature. It sounds like a lot of effort, but it's actually quite quick, no extra pots or utensils to wash, and is easily adaptable.

This really depends on the source of your city water supply. If the water supply originally comes from groundwater wells, seasonal changes in water quality are less likely to be an issue, but if it comes from a river or lake, there can be seasonal differences in the taste of the water. Here in North Bay, Ontario, Canada, our water comes from a very deep, cold, clear spring-fed lake, so our water is wonderful all year round. Your municipal water facility puts a lot of time and effort (and your tax dollars!) into making tap water SAFE to drink, although there may be a slightly funky smell or taste at times. A Britta filter is all you need to take away any off-taste.
PLEASE don't resort to buying bottled water: it's such a wasteful, garbage-producing way to get drinking water, and the actual water quality isn't nearly as carefully regulated as tap water is. Here in North America we are very fortunate to have unlimited safe drinking water coming out of our taps; we should realize what an amazing luxury this would be for so many people in other parts of the world.

Here are a couple of links for cheap, easy DIY food-safe, bees-wax based wood finishes. The basic formula is 5 parts oil (suggestions vary from mineral oil, walnut oil, etc. to olive oil) to 1 part bees-wax. Mineral oil has the advantage of not spoiling or going rancid, and it's cheap and readily available.
http://www.humblebeeandme.com/?p=1255
http://www.greenleafgoods.com/blog/2011/04/homemade-beeswax-furniture-polish/
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=26893

The recycled globe-into-pendant lamp is great: love it!