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Jackfruit Cheese Cake
I had tried jackfruit in various canned and pre-packaged dishes but had not ever considered buying a fresh jackfruit. When I saw one at the store, I had to buy it! It weighed nearly 20 lbs. and was a little intimidating. Mine cost $1.20 per pound, so it was roughly a $25 investment. After a little research, I discovered that my jackfruit was ripe and ready to be eaten. Most of the canned varieties are young fruit that takes on the marinade/seasoning you add to it, so better for vegan/vegetarian savory dishes. Here you can see what the inside looks like, seeds, fruit pods, and the flesh that doesn’t get…
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Kitchen Backsplash
On my trip home to see my parents this summer, I offered to install backsplash for my mom’s kitchen. This project is a perfect example of a room transformation on a small budget and in just two days. My parents’ house is a beautiful 100 year old home that they have put a lot of work into over the years. In the kitchen, there wasn’t any backsplash which makes cleaning and keeping a stain free wall quite tough. Here are the before pics: As you can see, the kitchen was pretty much a blank canvas with regards to choosing an accent feature. The counters and walls are a similar…
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Adding a Mudroom
Here is the front view of the recently renovated exterior, which I’ve blogged about in Lakehouse Exterior post. In this post, I will show what we did to the inside. Before we added our mudroom, I had no idea how much it would add to our home. From the exterior, it added curb appeal and character to the house and inside it added a laundry area, bench with storage, additional storage and a way we could open up the kitchen area by sinking the refrigerator into part of the mudroom. Here you can see the outside wall of the old house, which we removed the old siding and insulation. Then…
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Lakehouse Exterior (con’t) and Outdoor Kitchen
Original House Our exterior renovation of our lake house was a big job to put it mildly. I covered in my last post: addition/reno of the front of the house. A few years back we had replaced several of the windows. This made a big difference in heating and air conditiong, so we are very excited to see how efficient our “new” house is this summer when it’s 110+ degrees in Texas. To start, we extended the patio the length of the house. Making and installing the forms ourself using old 2×4’s and stakes then adding metal rebar for stability. Make sure the ground is packed well prior…
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Lake House Make Over – Front Exterior
After renovating the inside of our old lake house, it was time to tackle the exterior. The house was a boring rectangular box that needed new siding, windows, as well as, a new roof. Storage was a problem, and we had no laundry room. My husband and I decided to go all in and add a mudroom and a large covered patio. Next year we hope to add two more bedrooms and another bathroom, but that will be considered Phase 2. This house is about 2 1/2 hours from our main house, so we had to pay close attention to timeline, availability and weather. Step 1 – Foundation…
