MikeT's Profile

A big picture of white sangria for a "July in December" party.

Pryde's in Kansas City. They bring you a cup of coffee and then either leave you alone to browse or give you well-informed, low-pressure guidance, whichever you prefer.

Slice up some onions, peppers, and garlic, and put it in a ziploc with a little olive oil. Put a pouch of cooked chicken breast and a box of couscouse. Boil water, pour it over the couscous. While the coucous is hydrating, saute the peppers in a little skillet, add in the chicken, and pour over the couscous. Tasty, easy, and no refrigeration required.

I don't know about salad, but I always saute them with my aromatics when I'm making a soup. I've found that they hold their shape much better when sauted before cooking.

I had a pic of Bo and Luke Duke posing behind the open door of the General Lee until my brother pointed out that the doors were supposed to be welded shut. Dammit!

I love these salt-roasted. Rub a little oil on their skins, bury them in pickling salt, and bake for an hour at about 350. Yum!

A lot depends on the structure you have around it that you could tie into. For instance, we had an open staircase in our house like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/miket/2539032735/

And I built a railing that ties into a beam above and the stairs themselves for support:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/miket/2539070361/

The key was getting a good strong newel post at the bottom. If you could get that in place, you could put a baby gate across the bottom for ease of access, and then find something to wall off the side (or use plexiglass panels to create a railing). If you can't afford to make it beautiful, you might have to live with ugly for a while until you can. Better ugly and safe than beautiful and dangerous.

I would definitely add a couple of railings to the inside edge, including one at kid height. You can get a plain round railing at a home center for about $40 that would fit your aesthetic pretty well, or you could use a hardwood 1x4 mounted on edge with eased edges (simple, not terribly expensive, and quite modern).

Check your library, and I bet you'll find a ton of books from the mid-20th century with plans for kids. Some you'll like all on your own, and others you can probably modify pretty easily.

Rockler.com sells plans, too, along with the necessary hardware for a bunch of toys, and some of the more common pieces of kid furniture, like high chairs and cribs.

When it's time to finish the furniture, you could do what I did and email Kiersten for advice. I believe it came down to one word: "Shellac."

I have one installed in an upstairs bathroom that really only gets used when we have guests. It's handy to not have to check that the light got turned off when our guests leave. I have thought about getting three-way motion detector switches for our basement stairs, but they're so expensive that I'm not sure there'd be any cost savings.

I've had good luck with baking soda as well.