seekingserenity's Profile

I'd go with a floor to ceiling chandelier, like one of these:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-4wvRD-5PDVQ/TXEYIlKydCI/AAAAAAAAFJI/cMRHejuslk4/MIT+chapel+Saarinen1.jpg

http://blog.arcadianlighting.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Crystal.jpg

http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00WCQaAjoGrebm/Modern-Chandeliers-MD7059-.jpg

http://i00.i.aliimg.com/photo/v0/320278262/contemporary_crystal_chandeliers.jpg

They'd both light up the corner and give amazing visual interest

Cooking as little as possible this weekend - it's a boiling hot summer in Cape Town. We're down to cold pasta salads, ice-cream and as many other cool things as we can lay our hands on. As much as I'd like to bake and cook and go crazy - just no :-)

I only ever add one teaspoon of salt to pasta water - and so far it's never been too un-salty. On the contrary, it helps to make up for any over-salted sauce.. :-)

We've recently moved into a home that has a mist system installed above the patio - a network of "irrigation" pipes with misting nozzles, and a turn-to-activate lever right within reach of the seating. Although we're currently freezing through a southern hemisphere winter, I'm looking forward to using that come summer :-) The one or two hot days we had have shown how handy that particular "water feature" is going to be - especially when the built-in BBQ is fired up on the other end of the space...

I'm about to move to a new home where there's no landline. With two businesses (one being an ISP) to run from home and on the road, we've converted all our fixed landlines at the old location into an internet-based PABX rackmount system - routed through to our IP, cell and smartphones to reach us anywhere we can pick up wireless service on our own network. We've put it into practice ahead of the move already to test - works fantastically, even though in this country we don't get more than a 4MB internet connection.

I've stuck mine in a chicken marinade in the past - works beautifully.

This stuff has its disadvantages... I've seen it used in construction - lived next door to a building site where two of these houses were going up. The exterior walls were plastered on completion - the plaster fell off in large cracked chunks within a few months as it doesn't adhere to the foam very well. We tested a piece of the foam with a match - only to discover it burnt with a horrible black choking smoke - I'd hate to see what happens when there's a stove or electrical fire near one of the walls. I'm also not convinced that the foam doesn't release toxins over time with the help of heat from the sun and any heating inside.

Personally, I wouldn't want to build with it at all. I simply don't trust its safety or durability.

As a wireless internet service providor, we've discovered Google Maps Street View is an indispensible resource when it comes to quickly checking whether a location has line of sight to one of our access points or antennas. We may still need to physically go climb on a roof, but it gives a great initial idea as to whether there are trees, hills or buildings in the way that may affect signal - and we can immediately respond with a yes or no to a potential client while they're still on the phone.

Attics are not something found readily here in South Africa, however, we do have quite a bit of "unused" space between plasterboard ceiling above the rooms and the tiles/slate of the roof.

In our small townhouse we've made full use of this - we've collected old pallets and planks, cut them narrow enough to fit through the manhole / access hatch, placed them across the beams and we now store an entire self-storage room's worth of stuff there - for free!

I did wonder at first if it would come down to "meet" us while we slept, but we've made sure those beams are thick and strong, nothing is resting on plasterboard, and they are able to take the weight of the extra toolchests, out-of-season bedding, camping gear, filing boxes and all the other junk that doesn't fit anywhere else in the house that we may not use often. We merely need a quick trip up the ladder to retrieve whatever is required, while living "downstairs" with a load more space.

Next in our plans? We've rescued the sections of solid wood flooring a business ripped out and will be nail-gunning down a permanent floor up there so we no longer have to creep around picking up splinters in our knees to get at stuff :-)

I usually re-heat it just until liquid, then crumble a crust of bread, chuck the grease (and pan scrapings) over, mix to coat, and stick it in front of my very-grateful dog, who has been begging for a bite since I started cooking anyway! :-)