Category Archives: Intentional Spending

The kitchen is finished! and other projects

Homemaking, Intentional Spending, Micro Homesteading

Though we’ve had tremendous progress on the kitchen, Wednesday evening the boys and I were all really tired and felt a bit disappointed that we hadn’t accomplished as much as we hoped to that day.

I have a tendency to want to get the tasks on my list done and then do the relaxing or enjoyable things. That’s fine on a normal day when there’s time for everything, but at times that there’s a huge amount of tasks to do, the time for rest doesn’t come and it can lead to burnout. I’m protective of myself from these tendencies, and despite the many things piled high in the kitchen waiting to be organized, when I woke up the next morning I resolved to begin the day with ample quiet and calm.

I headed to the chicken coop.

I take care of the chickens daily and sometimes spend long minutes in the coop, but almost never take time to sit down. Yesterday morning I pulled up a chair next to the brooder housing the week old chicks, and took out three chicks to hold.

It’s very relaxing being with chickens. It’s also very interesting watching them; someone coined the term ‘chicken tv’ and that’s accurate. The more I watch them, the more interesting it is to learn their behavior patterns and understand more of why the do what they do.

I spent over an hour sitting in the coop, and all three cute balls of fluff climbed right up from my lap to perch on my shoulder.

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Yesterday’s goal was to finish the kitchen. It was the last day the younger four kids would be in school before Pesach vacation began, and once they’re home, my ability to get things done goes down quite a bit.

There’s a lot of work that had to happen between the last post when big pieces were in place, to having all of the small details finished. Those details are what make a huge difference between an end result being merely functional or really nice.

The kitchen cabinets were adjusted so they will be higher for our tall family. The hanging cabinets are hung. The toekicks are installed.

The countertops are cut and installed.

The countertops were my biggest concern, since this isn’t work we have any experience with. It was dd28 who encouraged me about this – last year (thanks to our example), they put a new/used kitchen into their rental apartment, doing all of the work themselves. However, they also cut the countertop, something I had considered outside of our capacity in all of our past kitchen renovations. She told me it was easier than she expected, and it was her confidence that made me willing to try it.

Before the boys began working on the countertops, I asked them if they would be upset if they did the work, but then wasn’t happy with the result and wanted to get new countertops. They said it would be okay. Then, when they were taking off the first countertop from the island, something happened and for a long minute they thought it might have cracked. At that moment, it was really important to me that they not feel pressured about this project, and I told them that if something cracked or didn’t turn out well, it was okay – we would buy new countertops. (It didn’t crack.)

The countertops were a huge project that took two days. Though they all worked on it together, it was ds17 who made all of the cuts. Ds17 was exacting in his work and he did an amazing job, with an end result that was better than the best I hoped for.

When the plumber (who’s also a general handyman and has been for decades) came back to finish the final bit of work he had remaining , he was very impressed by how the countertops turned out. He told me he’s never tried to do work like that and exclaimed, “Your boys are really something, they really know how to do the work!”

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We began the kitchen on Monday morning and…drumroll….. Thursday night it was finished! I am super pleased with how the kitchen turned out; it was worth all of the effort.

I’ve reorganized all of the cabinets and cleaned them for Pesach; what’s left is to put away the odds and ends that don’t quite belong anywhere. It was a long and productive day for us all; today it will be so nice to do all of the cooking for Shabbos in our new kitchen.

Though there’s a bit less counter and cabinet space than I previously had, the space is much more usable. Everything feels bigger and better. We now have a spacious kitchen with plenty of workspace and storage space. It’s light and airy and has a beautiful view. I love it! In addition to other smaller advantages that I’m happy about, we achieved our two main goals: since it’s a mostly open floor plan with the living/dining area, it will be more comfortable when hosting guests, and finally, people won’t enter our house directly into our kitchen anymore!


The final detail remaining to do for the kitchen is to tile the backsplash. The tiles will be delivered on Monday, and I don’t want to push to get it done because there’s still plenty to do before Pesach. I also ordered some tiles to fill in the broken area on the floor of the old kitchen area where the plumbing pipes were. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a perfect match but since the entire first floor of our home has the same tiling and I’m not interested in retiling all of it, that small area won’t be ideal but it will be done. I do hope to tile that before Pesach.

I kept reminding myself and the boys, “Done is better than perfect!”

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We’re now turning our attention to finishing the area that the kitchen used to be in, that is now the living/dining room.

The staircase railing has been installed.

Here’s the progression of what that looked like:

Starting to take apart kitchen wall units
Wall units down, starting to take down wall next to stairs
The wall is down
The railing is finished!

The next big project is removing the wall tiling from the old kitchen area and repainting the walls.

The tile backsplash before

Once the cabinets were taken out and the tiles were off, an even bigger project remained- with the tiles gone, there was a broken thick layer of tile adhesive stuck to the wall. In order to paint, the wall would need to be spackled, but to spackled, all of that tile glue had to be chipped off with a drill. This was a tremendous amount of work, all of which was done by ds15. Once the adhesive was off, the walls looked quite beat up.

Here half of the area has the first layer of spackle. Note the table piled with all of the tools and hardware in use.

Ds15 has done all of this project and did a lot of the spackling before he and ds18 switched places. Ds18 had been working on building the chicken coop while ds17 finished the last part of the kitchen, so ds15 went out to finish the coop while ds18 did more spackling. The wall is going to need several layers of spackle before it will be smooth and can be painted; each layer has to dry and be sanded before the next layer can be applied. It’s not a one day project.

Also before painting, the electrician needs to finish his work insetting the electrical outlets. When he began moving the outlets and light switches, he made them with visible tracks and plastic boxes that sit on top of the wall. I didn’t see this until he had done several and asked him to change it so that everything is set in the wall. Otherwise it looks tacky. We’ll need to spackle all of the areas that he works on when he finishes. As I said previously, it took him quite some time to get here so I don’t know when he’ll finish up.

Another project is the area under the stairs.

This area has been used for storage, and that was concealed by the kitchen wall units. Once they were moved, the storage space is visible and it doesn’t look nice. I’d like to close it in and put an access door there, using the door that was part of the separate entrance that we took down. You can look above at the pictures of the stairs and the railing and you’ll see what I’m referring to.

Yesterday afternoon one of the boys cut it down to fit the shorter entrance area but I’m not at all happy with how it looks. I’m concerned that once it’s installed no one will later be willing to replace it with something that looks better. My husband and the boys all think it looks fine but I’m the most visual person of them all so that’s not surprising. At this point, redoing the door means a huge amount of work that no one, including me, is interested in right now. So I once again I remind myself, ‘Done is better than perfect!”

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One day midweek, ds15 took out our welder to try to figure out how to weld. This was providential timing since the plumber arrived right after that. Seeing the welder and the pile of metal beams that had been taken down from the porch, the plumber commented that now they can build something with it. Ds15 told him they don’t know how to weld very well.

The plumber used our welder to finish installing the railing. Having seen how good the boys were at other building related things, when he finished working he took the time to give ds15 and ds17 (ds18 and I were gone that day) some instruction. Just ten minutes was all they needed to move beyond what they already knew how to do, to really being able to weld properly. This is a skill that we all felt our family was missing. We can build with wood, and building with metal is somewhat similar except you melt the metal together instead of screwing wood together.

Ds afterward cut pieces of metal and practiced welding them onto a post, and when the plumber came back the next day, he looked at it and said it was well done.

Now ds15 and ds17 have learned to weld, and they’ll be able to show ds18. We’re all pleased to have a new skill learned.

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Not only was the kitchen finished yesterday, so was the chicken coop! It looks great. Ds18 did most of the building for this, with ds15 helping out. It’s a really nice coop. They used our scrap wood supply to build it, and the supply is now almost completely finished. Ds15 used some scrap metal that we had (not a weldable metal) and made a beautiful door, lightweight and strong. I marvel at how they get things done.

It’s been a productive week, but it hasn’t been all work. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!” Each morning the boys spend several hours in shul learning Torah before coming home and starting on our work projects. One afternoon they took a hike with friends midday; last night they had a singing circle at a local spring with other friends. They always stop whatever they’re doing before it’s time to go to shul for mincha/maariv and don’t resume after coming home at night. While it’s been busy, it’s been balanced, and as I said previously, it’s a really nice energy when they work together.

Avivah

The old kitchen is fully taken apart and beginning to come together

Homemaking, Intentional Spending, Parenting

The electrician came back and put in the new outlets, and though there’s still more work for him to do, it no longer requires us to wait on installing the new kitchen.

New outlets in, the island before it was dismantled

Having the go ahead to get busy taking apart the kitchen unleashed my sons’ energy and they all got to work. While I cleaned up the kitchen so the boys could dissemble it all, they took the countertop off of the island. This wasn’t easy because it was securely glued down on all sides, but perserverance is a good quality to have and they got it off.

Ds17 – left; ds15 – center, ds18 – right

Once that was done, they took the countertop outside – it’s a huge and heavy piece of stone – and then turned to dissembling the final part of the kitchen. The hardest part of a kitchen renovation is when the sink is taken out because that’s the heart of food preparation and cleanup. Here they are soon after they began.

The kitchen countertop was much easier to remove than the island countertop – it’s always nice when it happens that you’ve done the harder thing first and the second time around it’s easier. They removed it from the base cabinets while separating the two sections that had been seamed together.

The kitchen is almost completely taken apart! All that’s left to move are the top hanging cabinets.

I had to change my original (exhaustively thought out) floor plans after finding out how expensive it would be to have a professional refabricate our existing countertops. We decided we would try to cut the countertop ourselves, and to keep the current double sink that is already installed in the countertop rather than have two separate sinks along two different walls. (Cutting the sink spaces would require specialty equipment that we don’t have.)

That meant big changes to the intended layout. It was a little stressful to make changes at this point since the gas installation had already been done, the plumbing already begun, and I had detailed my plans to the electrician. It’s not comfortable when your plans suddenly need to be changed but I feel good about the changes and it’s going to be great.

Here are the cabinets reassembled in their new location.

The countertop to the left is what used to be on the island, but now is cut down to fit these cabinets

Ds17 enjoys working with the router (remember my last post when he was the one to take apart the metal pergola?), so the other boys said he should be the one to cut down the countertop from the island. Working with big pieces of stone isn’t a one person job, though – they were all involved even though he’s the one who did the cutting.

After they took apart and rebuilt the cabinets, ds17 cut down the large piece that topped the island so it’s the right depth. He told me after doing it that it made him feel like there was nothing about renovating a kitchen that was hard.

You can’t give a child confidence, but you can give them opportunities to stretch and learn new skills, and the resulting competence builds confidence.

The plumber was supposed to come later in the afternoon to connect the water pipes, but then called to say he forgot he had a dentist appointment so he couldn’t make it. I told him it was fine, but if he had even a little time to stop over after his appointment, we’d be glad to be able to use the water. I didn’t expect him to come until the next day, but he showed up and our water is now connected!

I’m so grateful and delighted that the hardest part of the renovation, not having a sink, lasted just a few hours. It’s been uncomfortable living with things in disorder for the last two and I’ve felt some discomfort about having to continually remind workmen about coming, but having the sink back in use so quickly makes the entire renovation feel so much easier. I’m not yet using the sink because the counters aren’t in and it’s not sealed for water, so I don’t want to damage anything with water leaking through. But just being able to get a drink of water is helpful.

And of course, one more important piece that needed to be finished is off my mental list.

Tomorrow I’m going to make a trip with ds18 to Beit Shemesh. He’s going to meet with someone there, while I go to the carpentry shop and buy toekicks (the covering for the area under the cabinets). If you’re wondering why I’m not buying closer to home, I went to a carpentry shop locally and he didn’t have the size I needed, and the Beit Shemesh store has what I need and will cut it to size while I wait. I know from experience that when you delay finishing touches while using your kitchen, you may never get to them – we never put toekicks on the part of the old kitchen where the sink was – and I didn’t want to make that mistake again. Hence a long trip at a busy time when there are many other things requiring my attention.

From there, I intend to look for wall tiles at an outlet store in Petach Tikva, as well as another large item for another project that we definitely won’t begin until after Pesach. I’m going to leave right after the kids go to school, with the hope I’ll be back before they get home. With Pesach so close, I want to get this done now because otherwise I’ll have to wait until after Pesach to make the trip.

I’m not planning to do the tiling before Pesach – my focus will be on taking down the tiling in the old kitchen area and getting the area spackled and ready for painting before Pesach. It may get painted before then, I’m not sure. It would be nice but I want to be realistic about what is doable – it’s important to go into the holiday feeling calm and rested, not worn out and stressed.

For tomorrow the focus will be to continue working on the countertop – the sides of this large piece that was cut needs to be trimmed flat on each end side – they’re currently rounded slightly since they were the edges of the island and it needs to fit snugly against the next piece. Then there are two more pieces to cut. One is for the area to the right of the sink, which has a curved wall next to it. The second piece will be to cover the 20 cm gap between the end of the counter and the appliance garage on the left.

Avivah

My teens are home and things are getting done!

Homemaking, Intentional Spending

My three teen boys all have vacation and I just love when they’re home together!

The hazard of having them home is they like to all congregate together in my room at night to hang out so it’s hard to do any writing or go to sleep. The years go by quickly and I don’t want to lose this time with them.

Yesterday was the first day of them working together; it’s so, so nice because first of all, I love seeing them together, and secondly, every single one of them is really helpful and knows how to get things done. When they work together, they’re an amazing team. When I ask them to do something, they do what I want in the time frame that I want. I have yet to find anyone I can pay who works nearly as well as them; my daughter who lives here has had the same experience.

The progress of my kitchen renovation has been very delayed. The first stage of the electric work needed to be completed before any cabinets could be put in place, and the electrician finally came two weeks after he said he would come. That’s pushed everything off, and though I’ve felt some impatience to get this going and get it done so I can move on to Pesach preparations, it’s been okay that it’s taken longer.

This is how it’s looked for almost two weeks while we waited for him to come; there’s a light switch and outlet behind where the wall units that needed to be moved.

Once the electrician came and moved the light switch, ds15 and ds17 were finally able to put together the wall units. It was so nice to have them in place.

I still need outlets above where the new counter area will be, before moving the base cabinets and countertops into place; the electrician said he would come back in a few days.

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I had to go out for a few hours in the morning and since they didn’t want to take apart the kitchen if I wasn’t there, the boys found constructive activities to busy themselves with.

Our porch upstairs is a nice size but as a porch it doesn’t get much use (other than the teens sleeping there at night since they like the fresh air) since we have so much outdoor space downstairs. As the families of our married children grow, it’s harder and harder for parents to share a room with all of their children. When they come on a weekend when no other married siblings are here, it’s no problem to give them two bedrooms, but when we have other guests, we don’t have that option.

For the last five years we’ve been paying higher property tax for the open porch as if it’s an enclosed part of the house and that’s kind of annoying, so I’ve often thought there’s some additional incentive there to rebalance things (ie and close in the porch) so we have the benefit of what we’re being taxed for.

My mother-in-law and sister-in-law will be coming from the US to stay with us for all of Pesach. This year we had four married children who wanted to come for the Pesach seder but even after the teens agreeing to vacate their room for my mother-in-law and sister-in-law to stay in, we only had two more guest rooms. Obviously the math doesn’t work out for everyone to be here at once!

I didn’t want to tell anyone not to come but we just didn’t have space for everyone at one time. This is the first time I’ve been unable to accomodate everyone, since my local daughter has guest space and was able to host our overflow guests for sleeping.

After several weeks of feeling stymied, I finally decided that we’ll split the hosting of the married kids. Two of them will come for the seder, and the other two will come for the end of Pesach. One family will come for the middle days of Pesach. One has lived locally until this week (they’re moving to RBS-D near my oldest son’s family) so they aren’t coming for Pesach. Then next year, those who came for the last days this year will come for the seder, and those who came for the seder will come for the end of Pesach. So the plan is to alternate guests for the seder every year, instead of having everyone at once.

You can see that we can use some additional sleeping space!

My teens were enthused about closing in the porch but my husband requested a pause on it, explaining that when there’s a project with details he wants to be able to oversee it. With the kitchen renovation still very much in progress, he asked that we not have two big projects simultaneously taking place.

I could see the logic in that but felt it was a shame to waste all of the manpower available during this very short period of time, since if we don’t do it now, they won’t be available until the summer. With so much family coming for Pesach it would be nice to have more hosting space but I respected my husband’s preference and we put the porch project to the side.

I don’t know what changed when I was out for just four hours – my husband said when he was watching the boys work he saw how competent they were and that made him more comfortable with them doing the porch now. But when I came back, I heard very loud noises from the porch and as I came into our yard, looked up to see my sons taking apart the metal pergola.

That took me by surprise! It was a huge job, since it’s constructed of heavy duty metal pieces welded in place, and it took several hours to cut it down. The three of them started working on it together but then ds17 did most of the work to cut it apart. They recognize their strengths and tend to assign jobs according to who is best at/ enjoys what the most. They joke that ds17 is best at deconstructing and ds18 is best at constructing, but the truth is they’re all good at everything.


Here’s what it looks like once the metal pergola was taken down:

Now we have a large amount of high quality metal to work with – believe it or not, I don’t yet have any projects in mind for them

The next step is to order the building materials to close in the porch. My husband spent a couple of days working out the specifics on exactly what we need, and will place the order tomorrow (assuming they have what we need in stock – if they don’t, they said we’ll have to wait until after Pesach).

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While ds17 was working on that, ds18 and ds15 began building a new chicken coop for the Brahmas that we bought a few weeks ago. I planned to build it in our small backyard but then I changed my mind, and decided they’ll need more room than we have there since we’re planning to expand the Brahma flock.

Our first three Brahma chicks hatched a few days ago – ds17 had been planning to incubate a new batch of eggs at the end of the week they arrived, so we stuck in the few eggs they had laid along with the rest. Now we have a batch of 70 new chicks. We’ll start incubating another batch of eggs probably this week, this time mostly Brahma eggs, and in all likelihood that will be the final batch of chicks that we’ll hatch out until next year.

They made great progress on the coop and it’s looking good. They needed more supplies and weren’t able to complete it, but in the next couple of days I’ll make a run to the hardware store to get what’s missing so they can finish it.

But before that, tomorrow I want to work on the kitchen, and take out the sinks, counter, base cabinets, detach the top of the island from the cabinet part, then cut down the stone counters and hopefully reassemble it all together. That’s the plan!

Avivah



Kitchen renovation -Opening up the space even more

Homemaking, Intentional Spending

Here’s where we were up to in my last post – the kitchen island was taken out, the wall units were dissembled and moved, the tile backsplash for the stove was taken down, and the small wall and doorway to the stairs was removed entirely.

My teens told me that the drywall was badly damaged when taking down the tile wall, and I told them it’s not a big deal, we’ll replace it. They had a different suggestion – why not take down the entire wall closing in the staircase?

I had to pause to think about that. One advantage of having the door and the walls there is it makes it much easier to heat and cool the main living area. If it’s wide open to the second floor, that’s going to be much more challenging (read: expensive).

The door and wall made the two floors of our house more separate from one another, and provides our guests with a lot of privacy when they come to visit. We sometimes host guests of others for sleeping and the guests appreciate how much privacy they have, with a separate entrance to a completely separate apartment. But with the door already gone, the privacy and separation our guests had was already diminished.

Taking down the wall wouldn’t give us any additional space. The only thing it would do is make our living area feel more spacious.

Some people like cozy little spaces. I don’t.

I love, love, love open space. I don’t like to feel crowded. A friend visited a couple of years ago and commented that ever since she knows me (about twenty years), I’m always finding ways to maximize our space and make it more open. I had never been conscious of how consistent I’ve been about that.

Interestingly, since taking down the little wall that was behind our kitchen sinks, it’s much easier for me to keep the dishes washed. It wasn’t until that wall was down that I realized I had reluctance to stand in an area that felt constricting for me to wash the dishes and would therefore put it off.

Here’s a view of the stairs and the wall in question.


Having a feeling of more space was a gain for me – I gave the go ahead to take the wall down!

My boys were delighted. There’s a feeling of accomplishment that’s different than doing a little repair or hanging a picture when there’s a big project like completely rehauling the kitchen.

Assessing what needs to be done to release the top of the wall

The bottom of the wall separated readily but the top wasn’t coming down so easily!

Teen boys need a lot of physical activity and challenge. During their last vacation, our three teens organized a two day bike trip around the perimeter of the Kinneret/Sea of Galillee with a few friends, and I was very supportive of a trip like this. Teens need meaningful activity and challenge; they get bored and into trouble when they don’t have it.

“One, two, three, push!”

I left them figuring out what to do to get the wall down while I ran a couple of errands. When I came back, the wall was gone, the rubble was removed and the floor was swept. And they felt very accomplished!

View from one side
View from the other side

I am so happy with how this changes our space. Most of the year I keep my front door open to allow light and air in, but I’m now keeping the side door open instead. I have a nice view of our yard, great airflow and it feels much more spacious.

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Now that the wall is down we have another project. As nice and open as it now is, we can’t have a staircase with no railing! So ‘install staircase railing’ has gone onto the to do list.

I found a railing that I wanted on Yad2, a second hand site, but it was in a location I wasn’t comfortable driving alone to. And it was a huge heavy piece of railing that even with help I was afraid I couldn’t load onto my car. And once it was on, I was concerned about getting it securely lashed down. And then once it was tied down, I was worried about driving with it.

I don’t usually worry much about getting things done but once I had found and called about it, all of the other parts of it were outside of my comfort zone.

Bless my husband, who agreed to leave at 4:15 in the morning to drive there and get it, and then come back home and get to work.

So the first big part of the railing project is done – buying the railing. The next step will be installing it, and metal work unfortunately isn’t something the Werner family knows how to do. We asked the person doing the plumbing if he can help us get this done and he agreed. He said he’ll try to do it on Friday morning, when a friend of his who is a metal worker is available to help him.

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The new gas line has been laid and the stove moved from next to the staircase to its new location, and we were able to move the loveseat into the area that will be our new living room.

Here’s what it looked like before
Here’s what it looks like now. In addition to putting up a railing, we need to reorganize the under the staircase storage and move the shelving that’s still there.

Here’s the stove in its new location, in what used to be our living room. The island next to it is temporary; there will be a long counter with a sink in it once we’re done. It’s nice to have the stove piece finished. Right now we’re keeping the curtains tied back so there’s no fire hazard; I’m going to replace them with blinds but that’s still on the list.


Yesterday afternoon the plumber began digging and drilling to put in new outlet points for the sink drainage to the main sewage line. Each of the two kitchen sinks will need their own lines. The sewage line for the first sink is finished.

Tomorrow I’ll be going to Beit Shemesh to attend the siddur party for my oldest granddaughter. I got notice this afternoon that ds7 will not be allowed on the school bus tomorrow and will have to stay home. Usually I don’t mind – he’s not hard to have around when it’s just the two of us – but tomorrow I won’t be here. I was feeling stressed trying to figure out what to do. I didn’t tell my granddaughter I’m coming, but I’ve had it on my calendar for weeks since she first told me about it and it’s a priority for me.

My husband can’t work and supervise ds7 (he needs constant supervision, it’s almost unbelievable how much he gets into and how quickly it happens). Our original plan was that he would take over for me at 2 pm when ds12 and ds8 got home – he can set them up with an educational video while he works. (Between the drive there, the party and then the drive back, that’s most of my day.) Then at 3 the twins come and at that point he would be fully available and take off of work.

Knowing how important it is to me to go to this party, he’s going to take the entire day off of work.

The electrician said if it rains he’ll come tomorrow and do some work for us. I’m the one taking care of the this project so I’d really rather be here when he’s doing the work, but I’ll leave detailed instructions for my husband in case the electrician shows up – it’s hard to get him here, and once he’s here I want him to be able to make progress! I have one place where if he can move a light switch, it will enable us to reassemble and attach all of the wall units so if he has even a small amount of time and can do that, it would help us move forward with putting things in order.

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I’ve had a question come up about my plans for the countertops. It turns out I need a small piece less than a meter long to cover a blind corner (the one to the left of the stove above). I contacted the business I bought the countertops from and he no longer does the cutting and installation. He does have the design that we bought so we can buy another piece, but we need to have a different company cut it to size and install the sink in the island countertop for the opposite wall. This has thrown a wrench into my plans.

I went to see the other company today to get a quote for the work and it’s going to be much more costly than I expected. That leaves me with a dilemma. It would be great if laminate countertops were an easily available option in Israel, but they’re not since stone countertops are the norm. I don’t want to spend this amount of money adding on to used countertops; the purpose of using the countertops was to keep costs down. Now we’re considering if we would be better off spending more and getting new countertops put in. Well, I’m considering it – my husband thinks stone countertops are a rip off.

Whether I add on to the current countertops or get new ones, the factory that cuts them won’t be able to have them ready until a few days before Pesach. I can find a way to work with that, but it delays finishing the kitchen well beyond my latest projected target date.

Avivah

My new project – kitchen renovation

Homemaking, Intentional Spending, Parenting

Over five years ago we were house hunting, and one thing that struck me as not making sense about the house we ended up buying when we saw it was the location of the kitchen. I couldn’t figure out why in the world the builder had made it the room you entered into when you open the front door.

I decided we would swap the kitchen and living room locations. (I later saw the floor plans and it was supposed to built in the area we wanted to move it to – apparently the contractor took a shortcut and placed it where he did because it was easier.) We intended to do these renovations before we moved in.

But then covid happened, and that changed all of my plans. We moved from Ramat Beit Shemesh extremely abruptly, arriving on the first day of the most draconian lockdown that Israel was to experience. Instead of the freshly renovated home we had planned to move into, we moved into a home in need of a lot of work. We got busy working on that as soon as we got here. However, it then became complicated to do a kitchen renovation of the scale that I previously planned while we were living there.

Additionally, it was a time of extreme physical isolation and getting workers to do the work we weren’t qualified to do was difficult. When I had the gas line moved, we all had to vacate the house so the worker could do the work – he said that was the covid guideline that he had to work under.

That was work that took less than an hour, but we couldn’t stand outside for hours a day, for days on end, in order to have new plumbing laid and new flooring put down. Additionally, one wall in the adjoining room where I wanted to move it to is asymetrically curved, and I was having a hard time figuring out how to use it well. Taking into account the reality and constraints of the world at the time, we decided to keep it simple, and put in and extend the kitchen in the area where it was already located.

This was the fifth of the kitchens that we’ve renovated and it was the hardest to figure out the design for because of the awkward space we had to work with, but it’s been a very functional kitchen and served us well. But I’ve never been able to make my peace with people entering our home directly into the kitchen, especially since our kitchen is very heavily used. There’s always some kind of cooking or eating or project going on, so there’s always some kind of activity in progress. It never looks like a still life photo for more than ten minutes at the very most, and you know the likelihood of visitors coming in during those ten minutes, right?

I’ve finally decided to do something about the ongoing discomfort I feel about this set up. I’ve gone back and forth about how to renovate – once we’re doing the work, it would be nice to change the cabinet color and style (what we got was also a covid decision) to something that is more my preference. But I have a financial goal of paying down my mortgage and a major renovation would definitely set that back.

My reasons for doing this renovation are two fold: having a more private kitchen and opening up the floor space so there’s more room for hosting. When I reminded myself what my priorities were, I realized I can achieve what is most important to me and keep my costs reined in pretty tightly.

The way I’m going to make the numbers work is to use the existing kitchen cabinets and countertops. Everything will have to be reconfigured to fit a very different space. Right now I have one double sink; the new kitchen will have two separate sinks on opposite walls. I’ll use the current double sink and attached countertop on one wall, and I’ll have the large island countertop refabricated with a sink installed in it for the opposite wall. There will be costs for plumbing, electricity and having the existing counters custom cut, but that will be much less than a new kitchen.

A week ago I spent a morning doing renovation preliminary work: arranging for the electrician, plumber and gas installer to come. Then I moved the fridge, freezer, island and couches. It was gratifying to see some movement in the direction I want to go.

A few hours later, I got the call from the social worker letting me know they were having the meeting at our home a couple of days later, and with some frustration about all the time and effort I had wasted, moved everything back in place and cancelled all of the workmen. I didn’t want the foster care agency representatives to come for a visit in the middle of a big renovation.

Fortunately with another week comes another beginning….:)

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This morning my seventeen year old son and I moved the appliances, island and couches. He’s rarely around and it was nice to work with him.

By the time I thought of taking a ‘before’ picture, the counters were covered with things that we had pulled out, the fridge and freezer had been moved to their new location, and the cabinets were beginning to be dissembled – and there was no way I was going to undo all that we did just to take a neat picture even though it pains me to show my kitchen looking like this. Mess happens when you take a kitchen apart, and I really wanted to share our starting place as I document what we’re doing.

The fridge and freezer were against the wall on the far side of the island, where the couch is now

Once we got started, it changed very fast!

Since it was Shushan Purim, all of the younger kids were home from school. It’s really not ideal to start a project like this with young children who get into everything, but my seventeen year old is rarely home with time to help out with something like this and I wanted to make the most of the opportunity.

Ds17 put ds12 to work as his assistant and he was helpful doing real work, not the kind of fake jobs you give to kids to make them feel like they’re helping.

The island was moved, next job was to take apart the wall units

My fifteen year son came home while the wall units were being dissembled, and he got to work with us, taking down the tile backsplash behind the stove. It’s so enjoyable to work together as a team – there’s an energy that’s really different from each person doing their jobs separately.

Ds15 told me it was a little sad for him to remove all of the tile, remembering all the work they put into tiling the kitchen.

Backsplash and wall units are gone

Once that was done, the teens both wanted to take down the small wall behind the section of the kitchen that has the sink. It’s an annoying little wall but necessary to have a private side entrance to our home that leads directly to our second floor, which used to be a vacation rental apartment. We decided to get rid of the private entrance so we could open up the space more, so ds15 took down that door, door frame and wall.

Ds15 taking down door frame

The wall is down!

I mentioned that the younger kids were home, didn’t I? They were very interested in all the changes being made.

They continually found ways to actively participate!

Can you see below how removing that wall made it feel more spacious? It also lets in so much light and air, and makes access to the side patio from the house more convenient.

After taking apart the little wall and looking at how damaged the wall was where the tile backsplash was, we were inspired to go even further in opening up our space. I’ll share more about that in my next post.

We’ve made wonderful progress today. The electrician will come tomorrow morning to see what needs to be done, and then I’ll schedule with him when to come. The plumber will start the work on Tuesday, and once the plumbing is done, I can put all the base cabinets in place, which has to be done before the countertop fabricators can come to measure for the recuts for the countertop.

My last kitchen renovation took just five days, which was super fast, but I don’t anticipate that this time around. Just the plumbing alone will take four days. My hope is to be finished by the end of next week, so that there will be time to get ready for Pesach without having renovations going on at the same time.

Avivah

Don’t wait for the crowd – Pesach clothing shopping now

Intentional Spending, Pesach

Last week I took my fifteen year old son shopping for a suit for Pesach.

On the way there, we unexpectedly found traffic had come to almost a standstill. Soon we saw what the delay was.

I appreciated the entertaining sights on the way!

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For us, Pesach is the most expensive holiday of the year; last year I spent 5000 shekels on food and 5000 shekels on clothing. For you it might be a different time of year that you have a lot of extra expenses, so you can apply this idea to your personal circumstances.

What I do to be prepared for the clothing expenses for the holiday is to set up in advance a reserve fund (some people call them sinking funds but I dislike that terminology). What that means is for the months before Pesach, I set aside money in that fund until I have the full amount that I’ve budgeted for Pesach clothing shopping.

Having a reserve fund eliminates the burden of huge clothing expenditures in one month, and by the time I’m ready to do my shopping, the money is waiting in the account. This makes it feel like shopping for free!

Really, it takes away all the financial pressure that a person might feel when they need to come up with so much money in a short time period, to have the money already budgeted and set aside.

Last year I did my suit shopping through Mishnat Yosef; you could purchase a coupon for around 650 shekels (I don’t remember the exact price), to be redeemed for a suit up to 1190 shekels in a given store. If you wanted a more expensive suit – and all of my boys didn’t find what they wanted in the lower price range – then you could add on in fifty shekel increments for every hundred shekels the price increased. We got nice suits but we spent more than we would have with the local seller that we’ve bought from in the past, and I regretted not buying from him because I felt concerned when I realized how much business he must be losing to customers buying via Mishnat Yosef.

I told my boys that this year first we’d look to buy from the private store owner, and only if they couldn’t find what they wanted we’d look elsewhere. My eighteen year old commented that the suits we bought last year were higher quality since they were fifty percent wool (instead of rayon/poly/viscose blends), which was good feedback since I hadn’t paid much attention to what their suits were made of when I bought them. If it fit them well, looked good and the price was fair, I bought it.

We asked the store owner if he had suits that were fifty percent wool, but he didn’t. He did have 97 percent wool, though, which was even better! When he showed it to us, it turned out to be the same style suit that I bought for my 22 year old son for his wedding in September, but there were several different colors and styles and we found something really nice for my fifteen year old son.

We checked the available suits at the stores that the Mishnat Yosef vouchers are for to see what their selection was, and my son didn’t find any suits he liked as much as the one from the private seller. The suit vouchers this year are 680 shekels, plus another fifty shekels to add on to the next level up, so we would have spent 730 if we bought from them.

This seller’s prices are good, so we got a much better quality suit than buying through Mishnat Yosef. We spent only another 120 shekels for a higher quality suit from the private seller, and had the extra bonus of buying with my conscience and supporting a small business owner. I expect my son to get much more wear out of this suit, too.

The store owner asked me if I was buying the suit for an occasion so I explained that I’m buying for Pesach, since I don’t like to wait until close to the holidays. When I stepped out to take a call, the store owner told my son how smart his mother is to be shopping for Pesach now.

I bought a suit voucher from Mishnat Yosef for my son learning in Beitar, since I was able to give him my customer number and he can buy his suit at the store branch located there before he comes home for spring break. I asked him to buy it before Purim but I don’t know if he did it yet, and honestly, it’s for him so he can buy it when he wants. That leaves just my husband and my seventeen year old, who were going to go last week to the Tiberias store but something came up, so they’ll go next week instead.

I bought clothing and shoes for all of the younger kids about six weeks ago, as well as Shabbos shoes for a couple of the teens so they’re set. For myself, I’m not much of a shopper and have things I’m content to keep wearing from last year. If I find something, there’s money in the clothing reserve fund for it but it’s likely I won’t since I don’t plan on looking, in which case I’ll roll whatever money is left in the fund into something else – maybe it will go towards a suit for my twelve year old for his bar mitzva this summer.

Avivah

Citrus compote and homemade general cleaners

Healthy Living, Intentional Spending

I realized I need to share about this before citrus season passes!

I got two boxes of beautiful clementines, and wanted to find a way to preserve their citrusy deliciousness for a different season.

My past experience with canning clementines was terrible; they were delicious when I put them in the jars but bitter and lacking in flavor when I took them out to eat them. That was in 2021 and you can see it scarred me enough that I didn’t try to can any citrus in the ensuing years. 🙂

This time I made a delicious citrus compote with pink grapefruit, clementines, pomegranate seeds and a tiny bit of star anise. So, so good.

I cut off all the pith (the white stuff left on the fruit after you peel it) and the membranes of the grapefruits, since that’s what gives the bitter flavor. We had some of it fresh and it didn’t need any sweetener, but I added some honey for the jars that I canned.

Sectioning all of that citrus fruit was a lot of work, particularly since the grapefruits were small. But the taste was fabulous!

(You can see the citrus compote in the jars in the background below.)

Then I canned clementine sections using honey and water as the syrup to can them with. Those also turned out nicely. In the winter I like to have homemade applesauce and peach/apricot compote for Shabbos dessert from the fall and summer seasons, and I’ll save the citrus compote for the summer when citrus is no longer in season. It makes it more special to enjoy it when it’s not in season.

After I finished, I was left with a huge amount of clementine peels. (I had to take my boys to an appointment in the middle of working on this. I was very embarrassed that a friend we haven’t seen for twenty years unexpectedly come to visit when I was out and walked into the kitchen to see the island covered with jars, fruits and peels.) While my goats would have gladly eaten the peels, I wanted to use them to make a big batch of general purpose cleaner.

Okay, get ready for a very complicated and time consuming project.

All Purpose Citrus Cleaner

You can use peels from any citrus fruit – lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, oranges. They all have a chemical in their peels called d-limonene that is a natural compound that removes oil and dirt from surfaces.

Put the peels in a container. Cover with vinegar so that the peels are completely submerged; you don’t want to have peels sticking out because they’ll get moldy. Close/cover the container and let sit from two weeks to two months. (It can sit longer if you don’t get around to dealing with it.) Strain. Put the peels in your compost pile (or if you’re me, everything goes to the chickens) and pour the strained vinegar into a spray bottle and add an equal amount of water.

You can use this to clean most areas – bathrooms, windows, sinks, stoves and ovens. It’s strong and effective, but doesn’t have any chemical smell or danger to your skin or lungs. (You can also use this citrus vinegar for salad dressings. I know, it’s kind of a funny thought to be able to ingest your household cleaner.)

I made a very large recipe, using all of my peels along with two – 4 liter jugs of vinegar, purchased at the bulk store for 8.50 each. When mixed with water it will result in sixteen liters of cleaner for under twenty shekels, and that will be enough to last me a very long time.

Avivah

Setting limits on gift giving

Intentional Spending, Self-Growth

Tonight I got a call from a parent of my eight year old son’s class. She was tasked with calling all the parents to collect the money for Purim gift baskets for the teachers.

There was an evening event for mothers last week, and no one mentioned the class gift so I assumed that this year I’d make my own gift baskets for the teachers. By the time I got the call, I had completed my order for everything I needed and it was too late to cancel my order.

However, I always participate with the class gifts, even though they are for the morning and afternoon staff, and my son is only present for the mornings. So I asked how much it would be.

“250 shekels”, she said.

I got a call the day before about contributing to the class baskets for ds12’s same size class in the same school, and you know how much it was? 100 shekels. Totally fine.

I told her that 250 shekels is way too much. I feel responsible in part for these spiraling prices because until a year ago, they were asking 150 shekels from each parent. At the mother’s evening last year they were hesitating about the price, and asked me and the other woman I was with if they should charge 150 or 200. The woman next to me said ‘200’ and I agreed it was fine with me. We were the first people asked and if we had said it was too much, it would have been adjusted accordingly.

In the moment I felt it was okay because I had the money and it didn’t cause me financial strain. But it caused the bar to be raised, and it’s likely it caused others to feel pressured. When they collected for the end of the year gifts and said they wanted 200 shekels from each family, I told them that I was wrong to agree earlier in the year to a higher price and they needed to hold the bar at 150 shekels.

Well, obviously that didn’t happen and the bar was raised again.

I very clearly expressed why I won’t contribute: it’s too much money and it puts pressure on parents and there has to be a limit. The person calling agreed with me completely and said she wished that I had been one of the first to be asked this year instead of the last, that if someone else had said this earlier on then the price would have been lowered. (Don’t think that everyone will send in the money – they won’t, they will act as if it’s fine with them and then not pay.)

I like to participate with group efforts and of course no one wants to look like they’re being cheap. In this case I’m not worried about how people look at me – for years I’ve consistently contributed willingly and promptly. I genuinely feel like someone has to put their foot down and I’m willing to be that person.

What will I send to the teachers instead? I’ve bought gold metal baskets and will include in each a large bottle of natural grape juice, a family size bag of hamantaschen and some fruit. I may add a can of tuna or some other canned good. I’ll wrap it nicely in cellophane and ribbons, and it will look lovely.

It’s a beautiful thing to be generous but it’s easy to be swayed by your concern of what people will think of you. It’s so easy to go beyond your limits when it comes to gift giving because of how you want to be perceived. Be honest with yourself: does it feel good to you, or do you feel you’re overly stretching yourself? Does it give you joy and are you giving in a whole hearted way, or do you feel like you have to even though you’d rather not and it’s too much for you?

Learning to be honest with yourself and respect your needs and limitations is a really important ability to develop. See requests such as these as opportunities to be respectful and loving of yourself, rather than putting the wants of others before yourself.

Avivah

You gotta have a goal!

Intentional Spending, Self-Growth

How do you motivate yourself to do something that feels hard?

You’ve got to have a goal. Without a goal, there’s no fire lit under you. You have no ‘why’ to inspire you to take action when life is already full and there are so many things that need your time and attention.

>> I have a lot of things on the “save money” to do list… more like things I can do to save money (such as hanging laundry instead of putting in the dryer & baking cookies for my kids instead of buying store bought). I am currently lacking the drive & inspiration. <<

A year ago I shared my goal to pay off our mortgage early. It was very ambitious – it felt like a fantasy when I set it. It wasn’t realistic to put aside the amount per month that I based my goal on. Not at all realistic. But it gave me so much motivation and I kept finding more and more ways to save money and put the extra onto the mortgage, even though I never hit my unrealistic target number for the amount I wanted to save each month.

As I watched the mortgage principal melting away, it was a thrill of its own. I chose to shorten the length of the loan rather than have a smaller monthly payment, and each time I paid a portion of the principal off, I saw the loan length drop. It made me want to throw every extra shekel at the mortgage, and I did.

Our mortgage was split into two parts; the first part is miraculously now paid off completely. I can tell you most definitely that if I hadn’t set that goal, it would be years from being paid off.

My original intention was to pay off the entire mortgage (ie both parts), but when the first part was paid I paused. I wanted to consider if that was still the best thing for us to do. I spent a lot of time thinking about if instead of prepaying the mortgage, perhaps it would be better to use the money for something else that could be an asset for retirement.

I’ve finally decided that having a paid for home is also preparation for retirement, and have reset my goal of paying off our mortgage completely. This has given me a financial shot of adrenaline as a result of the clarity that it gives me.

Will I hit my target goal? We’ll see. It will take a lot of determination and focus, and it will mean putting other things that I’d like to spend on to the side – like renovations – I really don’t want to wait until the mortgage is paid off. But my goal is what gives me the motivation to track my expenses, budget and spend carefully, hang laundry and cook from scratch. I’m doing all of those things to achieve a goal that matters to me, and none of it feels hard. It’s the opposite of hard – it’s energizing.

Why does this motivate me so much? At this stage of my life, what’s more important to me than more money, is more time.

Paying off the mortgage shaves away years of payments and thinking about not having a monthly payment gives me a sense of freedom, flexibility and increased time.

That’s my why.

Now, sit down and write down what you want your life to look like. Brainstorm alone, or together with your spouse. (I recommend setting a shared financial goal if you’re married.) What is really important to you? Why is it important? What do you want instead? What would that look and feel like?

Clarifying and setting your personalized goal is what will give you the incentive to change your habits and do something unfamiliar or uncomfortable.

Avivah

Excuses I made that kept me from saving money

Intentional Spending, Self-Growth

Years ago, I saw this message on the propane pump when I was filling up my car.

Here’s a close up of the notice.

Translation: the price of propane for subscribers is cheaper than the price displayed on the pump. For details, call.

I noticed it and casually wondered what it was about but didn’t take down the number.

I use this gas station regularly and a year or two after seeing this message, finally saved the number to my phone.

I didn’t call. After all, how much of a savings could it really be? They probably wanted to sell me something, and wanted to hook me by signing up for a puny discount on gas.

A year or two ago, I asked someone at the pump next to mine filling up at the cheaper price how he got that price. He told me he signed up and saves a half a shekel a liter. I resolved to call to ask for details.

I didn’t. More excuses – I didn’t want to set up a direct deposit to a gas station, I wouldn’t be able to track my spending, maybe they would compromise my bank details. Maybe it was a scam.

There was procrastination and then forgetfulness, forgetting to write into my planner to make the call. (What I write down gets done, what I don’t…well, it might get done eventually – or not).

Did I mention I’ve been using this gas station and seeing this message several times a month for years? That was a lot of potential reminders but I didn’t act on any of them.

Almost five years later, being inspired to keep my savings rate stable even as prices are going up and seeking options to do that, I finally called.

The person who answered told me there were two ways to get the discount and it sounded like both of them entailed setting up a direct monthly payment. She told me next time I was in the area to come into the office, fill out some forms and I would be signed up.

One day soon after I went to the office and told them I was there about the discount for propane. She asked me, “Do you want to set up a direct monthly payment or would you prefer a discount card?”

A card sounded better to me, but how would that work – wouldn’t I need to sign up to get it?

“You don’t need to sign up for anything. Take the card, insert it in the machine and it will set the price to the discounted rate, and then pay with your credit card like usual.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes, that’s it.” She handed me a discount card, and within two minutes I was in and out of the office. So incredibly easy and fast.

This is one of two gas stations that I regularly use – I don’t want to think of how much money I could have saved in the last five years if I had just picked up the phone and asked a question when I first saw the notice.

We all sometimes make excuses and tell ourselves stories, rather than getting information and taking action. Is there anything you’ve been postponing dealing with that might save you money?

Avivah