A Girl Named Timi

That's Fantastic Honey!

But Now What?

Hey remember The House of B's downstairs family room? It's the room with that wall of ugly brick, dirty carpet, entry ways on every wall, and basically just a really ugly dull room. I had asked for advice from all of you on what to do with this room last month in a blog post.

The room we spend most our time in but yet the ugliest room in the house.

This is the ugly brick that surrounds the beautiful chocolate brown gas stove.

For the last 3 years we have been sitting every Saturday and Sunday morning in this room discussing what we should do with it. We talk, we watch HGTV, and we talk, and look at magazines, and we talk and talk some more. While I was sick laying on the couch last week The Hubs came down and said to me "what should we do about this room?" This time instead of buying in to his discussion of this room yet again I decided to take things in to my own hands and try a little master manipulation. My response..........."Do you have a hammer that's big enough to hit that brick with?" The Hubs, "Yeah, why?" Me, "Why don't you just hit the brick and see what happens, see whats behind it or how thick it is" The Hubs faster then I could blink was out the door to the garage and back in with a hammer. He whacks the wall and a huge hunk falls off. Well this gets him all excited. Another whack and the bricks just started coming apart in big hunks so he took down about 1/4 of the wall in the 10 minutes we were standing there. We discussed that maybe we would start working on this and get it down and then go from there. That brick wall is really what we hated the most.

On Saturday when I was at Barn House The Hubs worked on it a little bit more and when I got home I was shocked at how much better it looked. Even the ugly cedar paneling behind the brick looked better then that brick. Well because I wasn't feeling very well I just went to bed when I got home. Thinking "I'll help tomorrow and we can get a little more done."

OOOOOOOOOOOH NO NO NO! My Dad came down on Sunday with a big ass sledge hammer! They had that wall and platform down within an hour. AMAZING! Here is the wall and platform now in the trailer ready to go to recycling.

Here is what the room looks like now. It just looks bigger. The walls need to be re textured so I can paint them.

The pretty stove looking all tiny and lonesome in the big corner of ugliness.

How about this 1970's funky Mediterranean style linoleum we found under the platform. I bet we find it under the carpet too when we take that up. I have carpet ordered. Now I have to go pick out tile to put under the stove.
So this is what The Hubs did, or at least got started while I was gone on Saturday and then had my Dad come and helped him finish it up. This was going to be the worst and dirtiest part of this little remodel job and now it's done! I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am it's all done. Like I said we have been talking about it for 3 years and we finally JUST DID IT!

When my Dad comes down to help out with house projects, he expects lunch or dinner before he leaves. Which is fine by me! I love to cook and it's fun to have someone to cook for. Why do I think you need to know this? Because I found a great recipe I'm going to share with you. My Dad and I love clam chowder, and as you know good clam chowder is really hard to find. Here in the Seattle area we have Duke's Chowder House which I LOVE LOVE LOVE. I decided to do a little searching on the Internet because there is a recipe for every restaurant dish you love if you look hard enough. There it was buried on about page 12 of my search. The recipe for Duke's Chowder that someone had posted. They stated that way back in the day, Duke's use to sell tourist postcards with the recipe on it. I made it yesterday and it was darn close! It was great chowder and hit the spot on a cold damp day.

ENJOY!

Sorry Blogger wouldn't let me post the recipe I copied off that website. I'm going to have to retype it and try again. If you would like the recipe e-mail me or click on Duke's Clam Chowder Recipe for the link .

Sorry!

Duke's Clam Chowder Recipe
SERVES 6