During the summer months it can be hard to use up all the fresh herbs we all have in the garden. Despite our best attempts there is still an overflowing bounty of aromatic leaves – in our case: sage, oregano, rosemary, and thyme. Because the winters in Seattle are generally pretty temperate, the plants themselves will survive the winter to produce again next year, but we still don’t want to lose those fresh spicy leaves of this season.

Luckily, drying herbs couldn’t be easier. All you need are some plain brown paper lunch bags and a bit of string or twine and a few weeks of patience.

First, the obvious:  go out to your herb garden and use scissors to cut the amount you want to dry. Make sure to include enough stem beyond the leaves to hang the herbs with (this will make more sense later). At least 3” beyond the lowest leaves if you can manage it.

Label the paper bags first so that later on you can keep things straight. Most herbs are distinguishable by leaf size and scent, but as they dry sometimes it can get harder to tell, especially if you have some varieties close together (multiple varieties of thyme for example).

Separate the herbs into bunches small enough that there will be plenty of airspace around the herbs in the brown bags. For this size bag (smaller than your average lunch size), the max amount of herbs is about a 1” bunch. Invert the herbs into the bag, stem sides up. Lower the stems so that the cut ends are flush with the top of the bag (generally its ok if they hit the bottom of the bag, although as I said earlier y ou want plenty of airspace so the herbs dry and don’t mold).

Tie your twine tight around the paper bag at the 3” stem location. Make sure its tight enough so the stems won’t slip down as they dry.

Now, you can either hang the bags, or just set them flat side down in a cool dry location to start the drying process. The great thing about enclosing them in bags is that you don’t HAVE to find a place to hang them if you want to put them in a cupboard or something, and also the bag serves to collect leaves if they dry and fall off the stems. Give them 3-4 weeks and then you can de-stem and crumble/chop the dry herbs as desired.

If you do hang them, make sure you make a really cute fall garland like D did in our dining room:

[Yes, Jackie, we did repurpose some of your wedding favor bags The size was just too perfect!]

Pack them up cute and save for xmas gifts and winter recipes!

First installment for Harvest week is one of  my most steadfast traditions: Crispy Dill Pickles.

I love pickles. Not as much as I love tomatoes, no sir, but pretty close. I think I have some sort of acid deficiency or something because I could eat anything with that much vinegar 24/7.

The last week in August I found myself out in Carnation near Remlinger Farms so I decided to pick up some pickling cukes (try saying that 5 times fast) for the season. Sadly, due to the cold summer, our cucumber plants are hardly producing at all,  so it was necessary to buy some supplementary cucumbers to keep our pickle stash up through the winter and next spring.

I’m not going to walk step by step through the process, because there are already a lot of resources out there for that.  I’ll just share the recipe I used and the  photos of what our house looks like when its invaded by 18 pounds of little green goodness.

Fresh-Pack Dill Pickles

Recipe from Frontier Co-op

[Side note: I think its a good idea to sort them by size, so that when you go to pack the quarts you get a more even, and thus more efficient pack. Call me crazy ]

Combine vinegar, salt, water, and mixed pickling spices. (Tie spices in a clean, white cloth bag or spice ball.)

Heat to boiling. Pack cucumbers in hot, sterilized quart jars. Add mustard seed, garlic, and dill to each jar. Cover with boiling liquid to within 1/4 inch of top of jar. Adjust seals and process in boiling water bath for 15 minutes.

All in all, a great way to spend a late summer afternoon.

[Side note: I had about one jar extra that I didn't have a lid to can with, so I just poured the brine over and tossed in the fridge to make quick "refrigerator pickles". Delish, just as good as the canned version!]

In honor of the harvest season being in full swing (and the wonderful Indian Summer we were having until today)m I thought it would be fun to dedicate the rest of the week to the wonderful fall bounty of veggies in gardens and farms across the region. We’ve been up to some harvesting and preserving and it’s a great opportunity to share some of that. So, get your canning jars and taste buds ready because I’ll be sharing some of the great recipes I’ve found this fall.

[Since its been awhile since I started this series on the re-design of my parents' Master Bath, you can catch up on Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3}

Last time we  checked in on the project to remodel my parents' Master Bath, I showed you how we were able to make some minor tweaks to their existing floor plan in order to preserve plumbing locations but still open up the space to make it much more usable for a contemporary household.

By pulling out the obtrusive dividing wall, we are able to enlarge the shower and vanity areas. Also, by extending the floor surface beneath furniture and fixtures to the edge of the space, we gained visual space, making the whole room seem much larger.

 So, with layout and general sizing determined, we were off and running on the fun stuff: picking fixtures and finishes!

Bathrooms are hard in this department because there are SO many options - its can be totally overwhelming! In much larger spaces you have the flexibility to choose a large design statement and work around that. But, I find in bathrooms with limited space it is often that many items of similar scale are competing to be the focal point. So, its hard to really determine your direction straight off.

We sort of took a combined design approach and picked fixtures along with finishes all together. Some things ended up playing off each other. But, not to get too long winded about things, I'll talk about the big things here today and then round out with the pretty tile and paint next time. Before I go too far, I need to give my mom a HUGE shout out because she did as much of the design legwork as I did. Online research, running from store to store. Pretty much I just helped with the overall scheme and provided the trade discount

Fixture choices were both easy and hard. We knew we wanted simple, classic pieces that would have an impact without too much fluff. There was also some incentive to order larger items from Home Depot because they had a deal on financing that influenced the cost of the project. So in some cases we trolled the internet and then went to good ol HD to see what we could find similar. Here's what we ended up with:

[1] 48″ French Door Painted to match trim [2] Pegasus Gazette Mirror (to match vanity) [3] Syrah Satin Nickel Sconce [4] Cifial Brookhaven Lavatory Faucet [5] Kohler Oval Undermount Sink Color: Biscuit [6] Pegasus Gazette Double Vanity (Counter removed and replaced with custom fabricated marble) [7] Kohler Highline Elongated Toilet Color: Biscuit [8] Cifial Brookhaven wall mount tub filler [9] Produits Neptune Saphyr Freestanding Jetted tub

The toilet matches one that my mom had previously picked for the downstairs powder room and has liked, so that was a slam dunk. The french doors were chosen because they were only 48″ wide, taking up less floor space in the plan. The vanity is a good example of how we found some concepts online, explored multiple options and then found this unit at Home Depot. We originally had a custom piece priced, but it ended up not providing savings to have someone do it custom. The benefit of this Pegasus unit is that is came with a granit top that didn’t get used for this project, but will be saved for a remodel of the guest bath down the hall. Winning! The mirror is in the matching line just to keep everything cohesive.

The major design fixtures were the faucets and the BEAUTIFUL freestanding jetted tub. You may recall that we went back and forth during original space planning on tub vs. large shower. In the end, they kept a tub in the scheme but decided if they were going to take up the floor space to have a tub it was going to be a GREAT tub. And great it is, my friends.

The trick is this: I was really pushing for a freestanding tub (one that isn’t built into an apron around it) for the visual lightness it allows in such a small space. This way it looks like a furniture piece with floor extending underneath and lets the space breath. In order to get them the tub they wanted, though, functionally, it needed to have jets. And there just aren’t that many freestanding jetted tubs on the market (well, that aren’t like $12,000). For a long time we were considering ordering a tub site unseen from a discount website, but in the end decided to spend a bit more and go through a local dealer. It was the splurge of the room, but I took a spin in that tub and I can tell you from first hand experience that it is AWESOME. Plus, its streamlined and modern, and looks great in the space.

The faucets were chosen by my mom from Cifial USA. The soft flared ends really play up the combination of contemporary finish and traditional, clean elegance that we were going for. The finish chosen is satin nickel to keep it earthy. I think that they add the perfect amount of bling to the space.

A special note that we learned on faucets and plumbing. If you are having plumbing adjusted  (which we were to convert the old tub filler hardware to a wall mount filler), your plumber will need to know the spec on the “trim” you are using before they start the in-wall plumbing. The trim refers to the portions you see on the outside (knobs, spout, etc) which is somewhat independent from the plumbing components in the wall. I say somewhat because you certainly can buy it all as a kit with some less customized options, but in our case, the Cifial components needed supplementary pieces to back them up. And there were about a thousand different pieces/options to go in the wall so the plumbers needed to know right away what trim we ended up picking.

So, those were the big items that we chose to create the infrastructure of the space. Next up – the fun and pretty finishes to fill it all out (along with some construction progress photos!).

If you have any questions on which local dealers we used to source the products, please feel free to shoot me an e-mail. I’m happy to help!

hey guys – I’m trying SO hard this week to get the next installment of the Master Bath Remodel posts up. Turns out I forgot to save pics of a lot of the material sources and its sort of a bear to track it all down again, lol. So, hopefully tomorrow!

In the meantime, lets discuss these sweet new lamps from CB2. I love the mix of modern industrial and quirk – what about you?

Love that soft glow. If only we all lived in that mysteriously perfect urban loft that CB2 assumes we all have. . .

[ps - CB2 is having $4.95 shipping on almost everything right now. Unfortunately I am overstocked on lamps right at the moment, but someone should get one of these!!]