New House Blog: Episode XXV - The Silver Edition

Here we are at another milestone - Episode XXV - the silver anniversary of our New House Blog.  Well, maybe it's not really an anniversary, because we haven't actually been blogging about our new house for XXV years, but I think it's safe to call it the silver Episode.  A lot of TV shows never make it to their XXVth episode, but here we are, going strong, with plans for many more Episodes of entertaining enlightenment, and maybe one or two Episodes of boring enlightenment.  On to the silver!

But first an update on the poppies (mentioned in this Episode).  Poppies are springing up all over the area next to the sidewalk, and a few moss roses have sprouted.  And there are now fewer "weeds" in that area, as well.

But first again, a short dissertation on utility knives.  While doing work on our house my utility knife  has proved itself to be useful in many situations and for many different types of jobs.  However, I had to get rid of my previous utility knife.  It was a yellow and black Stanley Fat Max utility knife, and it was seriously flawed.  Most of the time it would cut through stuff with no problems, but sometimes the blade would get stuck and come right out of the handle.  This seemed to me to be a bad situation, so I ditched it and got a new, white Lenox Gold retractable utility knife.  The new knife has a good hand feel, is nicely weighted, stores several blades inside the handle, and the blade has never come out while cutting.  There is no picture, and the knife does not have a name, but here's a link to the Lenox website.  I have other Stanley tools, and I usually trust the Stanley name, but I suggest staying away from the Fat Max utility knife.

Silver In The Kitchen

Our new oven/stove arrived recently, and it is silver in color, except for the parts that aren't.  The delivery men were friendly, efficient, and they took away the old, broken oven/stove (which was mostly white and not silver).  We went with the Kenmore brand again, due mostly to Consumer Reports' ratings.  We chose a smooth-top model with 4 burners and something called a warmer zone.  Neither of us has read the manual yet, so we're not 100% sure what that's for, but we think it's for keeping things warm after cooking them.  This stove is not what they call an induction stove.  As with the reefer, we chose the stainless steel finish for our range.

Yup, it's another stainless steel Kenmore.

Please notice the electrical outlet to the right of the oven.  This outlet caused no small bit of trouble.  That issue will be dealt with in a future Episode.














Another piece of silver in the kitchen is our monster Kenmore microwave. This decision was based mostly on size and not at all on CR's recommendations. We've gotten used to having a relatively large microwave in our apartment, so we decided to get a large microwave for our house.  We didn't realize quite how big it would be when it was unpacked - it looked smaller in the store. It, too, has a stainless steel finish.

Silver In Becky's Office

We now move on to Becky's office, which is now painted.  She chose a three-color pattern, two of which we will reveal the names of here, and one of which we will not yet, due to its being used elsewhere in our house.  The two colors we will reveal are Niagara Falls, and Hidden Meadow.  Niagara Falls is the blue color on top, and Hidden Meadow is the green color on the bottom.  The brown strip in the middle will remain unnamed in this blog until we have completed its use elsewhere.  The silver connection here is admittedly weak, but it is arguable.  Follow me here.  Older women with silver hair are sometimes said to have blue hair.  Thus, in at least one context, blue can be interchanged for silver, and this is how I can get silver from the blue paint in Becky's office. :)

Silver In The Kitchen, Again

The silver connection here is weak, but possibly not as weak as the silver connection used for Becky's office.  The reefer is silver and it is in the kitchen.  These pictures show the newly-painted kitchen.  Behold opal cream in all of its resplendent glory!  Yes, this is the same opal cream seen in the laundry room in this Episode and this Episode, but here you can see it with some good lighting.  And yes, that second picture is a less-cropped version of the microwave picture above.

Mmmm....opal cream

Didn't we see this picture already?

Silver In Our Garden

Okay, so there's really no silver at all in the garden, and we don't really have a garden at our house yet, but some of the plants from our apartment patio garden have started to migrate to our house.  At some point they will probably be planted in the ground, but for now they remain potted.  The orange tree came with the house - it was not brought over from our apartment.  How many of the potted plants can you correctly identify?  How many of the non-potted plants can you correctly identify?  Can you identify what species of ant is crawling on our orange tree?

And on this lovely, picturesque note we bid you a fond farewell until the next exciting (or boring) Episode.  Join us again soon as we continue making progress towards our Golden Episode.













Silver - it's the new
   bIsh