De Leon Projects

There are two things that I can guarantee are always going on at our house.
1. I am either working on a house/craft project or planning one.
2. Teri is either cooking a delicious meal or planning one.

This post is dedicated to some our recent projects.

Kitchen:

This is what our kitchen looked like when we first saw the house. It was old, had a huge hole in the ceiling and needed to be completely gutted.

The double oven completely blocked the view of the living room.

Check out those curtains! I think they'd been there since the house was built in 1940. In this picture you can see part of the ceiling laying on the floor.

View from the living room into the kitchen. We took almost this whole wall out to open up the area. In pictures from the Lost Party further down in this post, you can see how we now have lots of counter space for entertaining.

Kitchen After:
My project for winter break was painting the cabinets. Our cabinets were bought at an architectural salvage store and had to be reworked to fit in our kitchen. We really liked the old finish but opted for a green instead taking the color cues from the pomegranate painting. I like the green, it's a color but it's really very neutral.

I can however, in the future hear Vin say, "Hey Mom, remember those awful green cabinets we used to have!"

Curtains:

I had totally fallen in love with this Pottery Barn design but it was very expensive. Last week I ran across a terrific fabric & trim sale completely by accident. I found this fabric and which I thought was pretty close and I could afford it.

Hard to see the color because of the lighting but here is the finished curtain. James described it as "very Kam De Leon". I think that's a good thing.

Valentine's Day

Since my house has very little curb appeal I've got to work with what I have. Right now that's a bench and a flag pole. I've decided to change out my front bench pillows according to season or holiday. At Christmas I made gingerbread men pillows and now of course hearts for V-Day. There is a house in Llano that changes out their front decor seasonally also, Patty and I just love to see what she's going to do. The ultimate goal for front yard design is for people to say, "I bet she's an interesting person. I'd really like to see what that house looks like on the inside."

My helper. I feel a cape project coming on very soon!


Lost Party - this past Wednesday was the Final Season Premiere for Lost. We've been watching from the start and have a group that almost always comes for dinner/viewing party. For the kick off we had a tropical themed meal, drank Pina Colada's and wore lei's.

Menu:

Fried Rice, Coconut Sweet Potatoes, Chips with Mango Salsa, Spinach, Strawberry and Feta Salad, Red Curry Shrimp with Pineapple and Snow Peas, Ribs and cupcakes for dessert.

Random Food Pictures - I think it goes without saying that we eat well around here. I'm fond of saying that my hips are not due to eating junk but rather delicious and indulgent meals that come from my kitchen. Teri has been cooking a lot with barley lately, it's an easy substitute for rice and much better for us.

I take food pictures all the time and I plan on posting them from here on out.

Marinated skirt steak with barley and garlic spinach.




Saturday's lunch: Roasted pork tenderloin and a red bell pepper stuffed with barley, cheese and garbanzo beans.
Random picture I found from last spring. It's an herbed cheese with marinated onions and roasted garlic. In the back there's a roasted chicken breast with lemon and veggie pasta.