Pantries Past, Present, and Future

Swedish dish pantry

I am not a good cook. Sure, I can follow a recipe and even improvise a little; I can plan a dinner party and have everything ready to serve at the same time; and I’m told the dishes I serve are quite tasty.

But what I can’t do—or rather what I haven’t yet learned to do—is plan meals ahead of time, creatively use all the food I purchase, and whip up meals based on whatever is in the cupboard. Those skills, in my opinion, are the hallmarks of a good cook! And I feel quite sure that one of the keys to becoming a good cook is a well-stocked pantry.

The Perfect Laundry Room





In my mind, the laundry room is in the same category as the root cellar, the pantry, the mud room, and the linen closet--often overlooked but actually the nerve center to a well-functioning home.

Rather than seeing laundry as a dreary chore to do in a dreary place, I get a kick out of dreaming up the perfect laundry room for keeping our belongings clean, mended, and organized! (Sick, I know...) 

The new house will have a laundry closet instead of an actual room. It is located off the second floor hallway and has lots of light flooding in from the adjacent sunroom windows. All my previous laundry areas have been in the basement, so I’m anxious to see how this 2nd story version will work out.   3XANPUVY95X9

Here’s my idea of what the perfect laundry room should include:

Designing for Dogs

Lately I've started thinking about how to best accommodate our little Maggy the Wonder Pup (or Magpie as she is also called) in the new house. Living in temporary quarters has made it far too easy to let things slide as far as house rules and manners. All of us have gotten a little sloppy, but no one so much as Maggy who is still too young to have even acquired any manners.

How and where Maggy will fit in at the new house. Where will she sleep? Where will we keep her food? Will we have the discipline to always bring her in and out through the mudroom? (That's what it's designed it for, right?) Not having much experience with dogs, I turn to you, dear readers, for some advice.

Basements, Cellars, and Scary Places, Oh My

All the houses I have lived in have had basements. Typical Pacific Northwest basements—dank, with low ceilings, prone to seepage and flooding, sometimes only halfway dug, and usually home to a sump pump in the corner sitting in a perpetual pool of smelly water. For these reasons and others, we decided to forego a basement in the new house, opting instead for an attic with view potential. But things have a way of turning out differently than planned...