The wife used this Buttermilk Belgian Waffle recipe for the batter. The well-seasoned cast iron didn’t smoke at all except for when we sprayed it with oil.

As you can see, the old cast iron gave the waffles a perfectly golden and crisp crust while leaving the interior soft and moist.

This thing is older than my parents and still works perfectly. Oh, and I should mention that the waffle recipe was flawless. It made a dozen waffles and we’ll definitely use it again when we have guests in town. I don’t like sweets, so I didn’t make the glazed bananas.

Fill a glass about halfway full of ice and top it off with cold water. Let it sit for a minute or two. When it starts to condensate, stick the instant-read thermometer into the ice water, making sure the tip isn’t touching an ice cube. It should read about 32°. However much it’s off, that’s the amount by which you need to recalibrate. Grab the hexagonal nut behind the gauge with a pair of pliers and hold it steady. With your other hand, turn the face of the thermometer until you’ve made up the difference. That’s pretty easy, right?

If you’re one of those people who cares more about form than function, you can pony up an additional $14 to Le Creuset for a stainless steel replacement knob that “can withstand any oven temperature.”

If there are any alchemists out there, I can personally attest to this cloth’s transmutative powers. If you toss it in the wash with a bar of *lead, you might open it later and find a bar of gold. I’ll sell it to the highest bidder.

*A bar of lead will likely destroy your washing machine, just like this rag destroyed our towels, bathmat and shower curtain.

1. Cut out a shelf to hold my wife’s sewing supplies
2. Rebuild the wheel mounts for the driveway gate
3. Build a new magazine holder for the bathroom

It just doesn’t feel like a weekend unless I paint something white.

Here are the pieces for the magazine holder. It’s the leftover plywood from the kitchen island:

I really didn’t feel like spending a loot of time on this piece, so I decided not to add any molding. A trick I use to make plywood look more like finished lumber is to smear drywall mud into the cut sides and along the seams. It usually hides the imperfections well enough:

The other items you see here are the shelf for my wife’s sewing supplies and the wheel mounts for the gate:

The shelf is made from the plywood I had left over after making the rolling pantry for the kitchen. In order to make it match the rest of the shelves in the guest bedroom bookcases, I had to rout out a curve on the front edge. It looks pretty good:

And after my last wheel mounts fell off the gate, I decided to make this new set out of oak and buy wheels that are flat-mounted to the bottom:

These should last a while. I hope the new, white paint fades pretty quickly or else I’ll have to pressure wash the entire gate.

The magazine holder was a pain. I should have painted the pieces before I assembled it, but I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. I got paint all over myself trying to get the roller and the brush into all of the cracks and crevasses inside the box. But in the end, it came out great:

The building materials set me back about $300. To put this in context, I could have made this thing for about $150 if I used knotty pine, and maybe $200 if I used select pine.

This was relatively expensive because it’s all red oak and aspen. But in the end, I’ll have a matching pot rack and island that will (hopefully) stay in the family for generations. That’s a small price to pay for an heirloom set.

The island is somewhat adapted from my original coffee table design. To minimize the use of screw holes and wood filler, I had to rely on glue to hold the sides together:

The glue is effective because I routed out channels for the oak plywood. The plywood gives the frame strength and stability, and it also keeps everything square:

This is the most precision job I’ve ever attempted. My amateurism showed through in a couple of instances. I got so frustrated with it last Sunday that I quit halfway through just to clear my head. After work on Monday, my wife helped me fasten the cross beams and glue the backboard into place:

It was at this point that I realized I had made an error. I somehow forgot to subtract the height of the wheels in my design even though I seemingly accounted for them. (See the 34 1/4″ body height in the design. It should have been 30 1/4″) As a result, the island was shaping up to sit about 40″ high, instead of the commonly-accepted 36″ counter height. After resisting the overwhelming urge to take a sledge hammer to the piece, I figured out how to rework the base to get it closer to counter height. It’ll still be higher than 36″, but just by a little bit.

I didn’t get a chance to work on it again until Wednesday. Over the next few evenings, I assembled the cabinet doors, finished the framing and installed the shelving:

I ended up working on this thing all day Saturday as well. In order to give the table-top depth, I added a 1″ x 3″ frame beneath the Aspen butcher board. They didn’t fit exactly right, so I had to sand them until my wrist almost fell off. Eventually, I got the seam smooth and even. My wife suggested that we add another shelf inside the island to hold smaller pots and pans, so I made one out of some scrap oak plywood.

Once the body of the piece was largely assembled, I dry-fitted everything. I must admit I wasn’t completely surprised that my doors didn’t nest very well. I’ve never been good at making doors. In the past, this would have been disastrous, as I undoubtedly would have messed up the edges even worse by trying to trim everything freehand with a circular saw. But now that I have my table saw, I can just adjust the blade to shave 1/8″ off the sides and bottoms. I also decided that I wanted towel racks on either side of the piece to make it more functional. The idea was to cut the dowel mounts out of red oak and use aspen for the rod, thereby maintaining the two-tone effect. It took me a long time, but I eventually cut out four mounting pieces with perfectly round edges:

Here’s what it looked like with the aspen dowel inserted:

Sadly, I had to scrap this idea. Literally. Since I don’t have a drill press, I can’t get the holes exactly plum. That means the rod isn’t square, and the piece won’t sit right against the island. So I put the towel racks in the kindling pile for when winter rolls around.

I wanted to get some stain on it so it could dry overnight. I stained the inside first, and then worked my way to the outside. While the body of the island was drying, I stained the faux butcher block piece. I hung the cabinet doors and used a box fan to speed up the drying process: (pardon the mess)

Late Saturday night, I installed 2″ wheels so we can roll the island around the kitchen. I remembered to brand it:

I got out to the garage really early on Sunday to finish the kitchen island. I was also smoking a pork shoulder, so I had to get the grill fired up anyway. I used liquid nails to glue the table-top to the island body, and I cut out and spray-painted the sheet metal that will decorate the cabinet doors:

Once the paint dried, I weighed them down in the routed channel and used clear-drying caulk to set them in place. While the caulk dried, I put a clear coat on the entire island. I only used one coat on the body, since I didn’t want it to shine too much, but I put about seven thin coats on the table-top. To get the right texture and protective properties, you have to apply a clear coat, let it dry, gently sand it with 220 grit (or higher) sandpaper, wipe off the dust, and repeat the process over and over again.

I ordered some oil-rubbed bronze hinges online and installed a flip-down down door to hide our cast iron pans (the original non-stick cookware) that are too heavy to hang from the pot rack. It holds all of our large and small pots, as well as the blender and mixer. That freed up a lot of cabinet space.

It looks great with the pot rack, doesn’t it? As you can see, it’s only 1/2″ higher than the rest of the counter tops:

You can’t even tell it’s on wheels. This might be my favorite piece of furniture so far. Except for my bar, of course.

Seriously, how cool would something like this look on your back porch?

Using the sink as a drink basin is so obvious that I feel stupid for not coming up with this myself. What’s more embarrassing is the fact that this kind of outdoor drink station was the general idea behind the bar I made a few years ago.

There really aren’t that many products out there (beyond galvanized steel buckets) that fill this niche, and the ones that do are overpriced. For example, guess how much Frontgate is selling this plastic thing for:

$1500. Can you believe that? You’d think for that amount of money, you’d at least get something made out of teak, rosewood or some other exotic hardwood.

I could have made something better than this for about $100, and that would include some cabinet space, a drainage spigot, and a hinged tabletop that would allow the station to serve double-duty as a cocktail table. Kind of like this:

I officially have an itch to build this thing, only now I’ll have to buy a used sink on Craigslist or at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. I still have to make the island for the kitchen, but this will be my next project after that. The upside about this piece is that I can use up some scrap wood and paint it whatever color I want. I think I might stain the table top and the surface area around the sink the color of espresso beans, and then paint the rest of the piece a pale blue color. Maybe.

Our new kitchen is all about utility. If something isn’t being used, it isn’t staying in the room. And if it does stay in the room, it needs to pull double-duty. Many of our lower cabinet doors also have storage racks attached that hold wax paper, foil, ziplock bags, etc… So we decided our upper cabinets should be just as versatile. We installed these magnetic spice containers and threw some labels on them:

These things are working out great. They have two openings on the side of the lid so you can shake or pour out the contents. Still, I usually just take the top off and pinch what I need. We still have plenty of spice containers, but we’ll pare those down as they run out. And we can always add more magnetic rows if the need arises.

In case you were wondering what’s in that dish on the stove top, it’s eggplant parmesan:

We had some homemade sauce left over, and eggplant is in season, so…

You’d be surprised at people’s reaction to this thing. It’s like taking a shot of nostalgia for most people.

Here’s a little bit of the story behind this unique slice of Americana:

The Kit-Cat Klock was created in a small town on the west coast during the Great Depression. While the people of this nation were struggling to survive, the Kit-Cat Klock gave them a smile and entertained them with his rolling eyes and wagging tail. Knowing this, it is easy for us to understand how he can still bring comfort to many who remember those trying times.

You pay for that comfort. There’s no way it costs more than $4 to make this plastic chochky, but it retails for $40. Still, it’s fun to have around just for the entertainment value. Most people think it’s Felix the Cat from the old cartoons, a common misconception that led to a recent court battle:

Felix the Cat, the beloved cartoon feline, is taking on the Kit-Cat Klock, a kitschy timepiece with a similar puss.

For a century, Felix has claimed to be the only black-and-white cat with oversized – some might say bulging – eyes and a wry smile. Now he’s got his dander up about Kit-Cat, who sports a wagging tail, bow tie and equally wide eyes that seem to follow you around the room.

Baring his claws, Felix’s production company says in court papers that Kit-Cat is a “blatant knockoff” violating 100 copyrights registered in the last century. The suit also names retailers Walgreens, Bed Bath & Beyond, Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com because they sell the Kit-Cat Klock.

The lawsuit was eventually settled out of court.

If you’d like to buy one of these “blatant knockoffs,” Amazon.com has a wide selection.

The space between the upper cabinets is about 30 inches. Since our knife magnet is only 18 inches long, we ordered another 12 inch magnet from Magnagrip and got to work.

The wood color doesn’t match anything in our kitchen, so I sanded it down and applied some stain:

I used a mixture of Red Mahogany, Red Sedona and Jacobean to get the right tint to match our cabinets, but the wood just wouldn’t absorb the darker stain. After a while, I decided I could live with the color, even though it’s a lighter hue than what I was going for. I held my four foot level beneath the upper cabinets, set the knife magnets on it, and then marked the screw holes. We have plaster board in this old house, so I had to insert plastic anchors. You’d be amazed at how much force it takes to get the butcher knife off the magnet. If it’s not attached to the wall properly, you’ll accidentally pull it out.

Here’s the result:

We think it looks pretty good. Only time will tell if the knives hold up well to the steam and splatters.