Friday Roundup #42

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The downstairs powder room painted in Benjamin Moore Saybrook Sage, white crown molding above and the old white baseboard still unpainted below, with afternoon light coming through the window blinds and striping the wall.
Stage one of the powder room: walls in Saybrook Sage, trim and blinds still to come.

I started a small project this week. The downstairs powder room is the smallest room in the house and one of the hardest-working: we’re in and out of it several times a day, and it’s the one guests use. We’ve been here since January of 2021 and it still had exactly what the flipper left behind, bland millennial grey with fake shiplap wallpaper on the window wall. I’ll let y’all do that math.

The wallpaper started peeling on its own, so I pulled all of it down, and once it was off, painting was the obvious next step. Saybrook Sage, from Benjamin Moore’s historical collection. Three hours.

That’s the walls, and only the walls. The trim still needs painting, there are touchups to do, I’ve got new hardware to buy and mount, and eventually there’s a new vanity and new blinds. The full plan, the steps, and what it all cost will get its own post once it’s finished. But the grey being gone and that wallpaper being off is already a thousand percent improvement.

In the meanwhile, by the time y’all are reading this I’m on the road. Shannon and I have a VRBO near Tallulah Falls for the weekend, and it’s half a working trip: she’s got a new business getting off the ground and Violet Crown Analytics is doing the web and data side, so a laptop’s coming with me. The other half is wine, charcuterie, and Shannon doing my nails. I’ll report back next week.

Friday Roundup banner in the karacooks brand style. The words FRIDAY and ROUNDUP in dark green serif type flank a small circular pepper cross-section mark in the center, with thin horizontal rules and gold dots extending to either side. Cream background.
  • Coming on the blog: Sunday is Creek House Wildlife #3: The Ones You Sometimes See. Monday’s a bonus: two years since the night the northern lights came to North Georgia. Tuesday is ham stock from the Honeybaked ham bones, and Thursday is homemade mushroom powder.
  • This past week: Tuesday was Chicken in Thai Peanut Sauce, the recipe I’ve been making since my Daring Cooks days, and Thursday I finally wrote up how I chop and freeze garlic a whole bag at a time.
  • Garden Update: Still no saffron. I’m trying not to take it personally. The collards are finally moving past the baby-leaf stage, and the Joros are still holding the back of the property. If you’re in Georgia and you’ve got Joros too, the Navara Lab at Kennesaw State is asking folks to find and photograph Joro egg sacs and report them, and they’ll come collect them before they hatch. Out front, this spring’s fawns have lost their spots. They’re still young, but they’re wandering off from their mamas now, and they are completely fearless.
  • What I’m Reading: Humble Bundle is running an Africanfuturism bundle from DAW right now, and I bought it. I’ve read most of the Nnedi Okorafor, but Wole Talabi, Adam Oyebanji and the rest are all new to me, and between the price and the cause it wasn’t a hard call. It benefits the Book Industry Charitable Foundation, which helps booksellers and comic shop workers through medical and financial emergencies. I’m going to dig in this weekend while we’re relaxing. I haven’t decided where I’m starting. I have all of them now, which is the point.
  • What I’m Watching: Tuesday night was Insomnia [IMDb | Rotten Tomatoes], the remake with Al Pacino and Robin Williams. It’s not a traditional scary movie, but it’s chilling, and Pacino plays the bone-deep exhaustion of a man who’s been awake for far too many hours completely convincingly. We’re also still working through the new seasons of Ted Lasso [IMDb | Rotten Tomatoes] and The Great British Baking Show [IMDb | Rotten Tomatoes].
  • What I’m Eating: The meat-minimalized cooking has officially started. It’s a short cooking week, since I’m out of town for the weekend, but so far so good. The standout is a pot of brothy beans I’ve been tinkering with, and Zach’s verdict was “can make again.” My version, with all my notes, is coming to the blog.

What are y’all reading/watching/cooking/dealing with this week? Let me know in the comments.

P.S. The paint is just the beginning. Zach knew from the start that when I said I wanted to paint the bathroom, it would ultimately mean replacing everything except the toilet. The man knows me.

P.P.S. The fawns have worked out that nothing in this yard has ever hurt them, and they’re now walking around like they pay the mortgage.

P.P.P.S. ‘Can make again’ is the highest praise he gives anything that didn’t come off a grill, and I’ll take it.

Friday Roundup

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