Sunday, June 8, 2014

Cabinet glazing and tomato plants



Today has been quite an eventful day. I ended up finding someone who was selling over 50, probably closer to 60 tomato varieties. He had plants that were about 1-2+ feet tall. I had about 2 hours before I would go to pick up some new tomato plants, and with a list that long, I had no idea what I would get. Most of the types he had I had never tried before. I did a lot of research on all 60 or whatever plants to see what ones would be sweet, and good for eating or making sauces from.

I went there with a list of 4 musts, then my “I really want” and then “If I can get these I will” with a total of 16 on the list for all three categories combined.
The guy was selling the plants for $1 apiece. I happened to have $8 in cash on me and decided I did not want 16 tomato plants, as that would be too many, but I did want a variety to try, so I decided 11 would be my goal.
I got to the mans house and told him I had $8 in cash, but that I had a list, and hoped he might work with me on the price a bit. The guy agreed to work with me, and in the end I ended up with 11 new plants without saying that was my target goal. So basically I got each plant for just under $0.75 cents instead of $1 each, which was very nice of him.

The 11 different varieties I got were:
Green Zebra
Brandy Wine
Speckled Roma
Sweet 100
Gardeners Delight
Gold Nugget
Mint Julep
Orange Strawberry
Sun Sugar
Wapsipinicon
Yellow Brandy

I have a few regular roma tomato starts at home that may end up making it to the new house as well. I plan to do a lot of canning, sauce making, salsa, munching on fresh tomatoes of course… So I am excited for my first harvest.


I will be planting them and supporting the vines very shortly. This was a spur of the moment purchase so I did not have time to gather all tools and supplies needed to plant them immediately. I put them on the chair to help keep them from falling over. They are already fruiting and will be a lovely addition to my urban homestead. Most of these are heirloom varieties that I will be saving seeds from in the future. I have to double check to make sure what ones are heirloom and what ones may not be.  Some of my choices were changed when I got to the guys house.

Did I mention I love the smell of tomatoes?

For those who do not know, NIghtshade is also in the tomato family, as is eggplant. Just a fun little fact there. People used to think tomatoes were toxic due to the relation.

So once upon a time….
Just kidding. So once I got my new plants, I went straight to the new house. I unloaded and watered the tomatoes for good measure. Today was a cabinet only day. Yes, lots of posts about the cabinets. It really is a multi step process.

I sprayed the bottoms of some that needed it, flipped and sprayed the other sides of a few, then coated some others that were only primed.
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Then moved the finished ones to the corner of the living room
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It is from this set that the doors started to evolve. I took my first shot at glazing with one of the smaller cabinet doors. I figured if I horridly fucked it up, it would be a smaller one, and easy to cover up with paint again.
To my great delight, my cabinet door came out amazing! I developed a technique of my own, and got all 3 doors finished that were ready to be glazed. I will still need to clear coat over the glazing, but this is the end result ^_^

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Keep in mind, it was about 10pm when I finished, so the interior lighting put off a bit of a pinkish hue on the photos. They look great, though more amazing in person.

I had so much fun glazing these. My massive ball of nerves I had about the cabinets is slowly unraveling into confidence. I am really no longer freaked out about how they will turn out now that I am confident in my technique and actually can see the outcome.

Funny thing about it is I hated the old door knobs… They looked dated to me. While they are not in the photo, they actually ironically matched the new cabinets from what I was seeing tonight. They didn’t look so dated on these compared to the straight wood grain they were before. I may not spray paint the knobs after all…

Still have a ton more glazing to do, but I am happy to have gotten to this point now. This is the moment I was waiting for. To actually be able to envision the end result.

And as with every day I use the spray painter, my feet make me look like I am an African Tribesman. *blinks* or so my hubby joked. Sadly, I did not wear a band aid on my wound between my pinky toe since it had dried enough to not need one… Which means I have a thick layer of paint on that foot as well. Soaking feet will be a must tonight. Hopefully it will wash off without any pain from the bruising.

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