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Jeff Stevens asked:




Weather you live in a recently built home in the suburbs, or own a condo in a bustling city you can take yourself to rural America every time you enter your home. For many people, the kitchen is the most popular room in the house. It is a great area to begin your transformation. Adding a country kitchen island is a perfect way to make the theme of the kitchen more authentic.

When stepping into a kitchen with a country feel, it makes people think of families together, fresh made pies, and the charm of the rural style. Many homeowners find kitchen islands essential. When having one in your country themed kitchen, it brings the feelings of long ago when people used the island to prepare foods in farmhouses. One difference with the islands that are used today is that they offer more counter space and cabinet space while still featuring the wood furniture look.

There are a few things to think about when searching for a country kitchen island.

Most kitchens are not the same size as those in farmhouses. That being said, you need to determine what size island would fit in your kitchen. Once you have the size, you can find many different types of country kitchen islands available that offer sturdy, beautiful classic wood, along with different designs to choose from. Some extra features that may vary on these islands include:

knife rack towel bar wine rack

Once the food is cooked, you can pour your wine and enjoy the meal in your cozy kitchen by sitting on a stool by the island. There are many wooden stools available to fit the theme of the kitchen.

The design of a country kitchen gives the feeling of a relaxed and friendly place where people can come together and create tasteful meals and have meaningful conversation. The kitchen island is just part of making the room have a rustic appeal. Adding antiques for display in the room add to the country feel. Colors in the kitchen should be warm and inviting. Perfect colors the give off a farmhouse feel are red, blue, and green. Designs made of stencil and used around windows can also give the rustic look to any kitchen.

The key to creating your own warm and welcoming kitchen is to plan ahead. Viewing examples of other country themed kitchen can get your imagination rolling. You will be able to find a variety of country kitchen islands to add to your rural theme. Imagine having a special spot that has all your food prep needs covered. You can use it to cut your foods and eat it there too! It could possibly be the most treasured part of your kitchen.

Gary Nealon asked:




Everybody knows that RTA Cabinets can save you a significant amount of money on your new kitchen or bathroom, but not everybody knows the difference between the various types of RTA Cabinets that are on the market. It seems like for every person who had a good experience with assembling and installing their own cabinets, there are just as many people who have horror stories from dealing with the wrong supplier or buying the wrong type of RTA Cabinets. In this article I am going to cover the differences between the various ready-to-assemble cabinets that are on the market so that you can ensure your experience is a positive one.

Materials- whether you are talking about custom, stock, or RTA cabinets, the materials used for the construction of the cabinets should be the biggest factor in what cabinets you are buying. The most common question that I get from customers is “what is the door made of?”. People want to make sure that the door is made of real wood, when in reality they should be more concerned with what the cabinet box is made of. 95% of the RTA Cabinets that are the market are going to have solid wood doors and face frames (if not, that should be a red flag!!). Where they differ will be what they use for the box and the back panel. There are a wide variety of materials that are used by manufacturers, including- plywood, fiberboard, particle board, MDF, and solid wood. Plywood and Solid wood are going to be your strongest cabinet box. There are several issues that you might have to deal with if you buy cabinets that use particle board or fiberboard with a veneer cover….. 1) if the material gets wet, fiberboard and particle board tend to swell or buckle 2) both materials tend break or split, especially screws or nails are used. Screws will have a tendancy to lose their grip because the material is made of shredded wood or paper vs. a plywood or solid wood material. Ironically, most of the cabinets that you have to special order from Lowes or Home Depot are actually made of fiberboard with a veneer. For a strong, long lasting cabinet, make sure that the cabinet box is made of plywood or solid wood.

Ease of Assembly- if you have heard any stories horror stories about RTA cabinets, it most likely had to do with the complicated assembly that is required. If you have ever bought anything from IKEA than you know exactly what I am talking about. One of my neighbors who just remodeled their kitchen with cabinets from IKEA was telling me her story about the cabinets she thought she was getting a great deal on. I was amazed to find out that everything literally comes in its own box…. the hinges are in a box, the screws are in another box, the cabinet faces are another box, etc, etc…. she was telling me that it took a couple of hours just to identify all of the different parts. After hearing her story, I can understand why some people might not what to deal with the headache. I can assure you that not all RTA cabinets are that hard to assemble. A good, high quality RTA Cabinet will come with everything ready to assemble in a single box. Having worked with ready-to-assemble cabinets for the past 15 years, the cabinets that I am used to dealing with only require a screw driver to assemble, and can be assembled in 5-10 minutes. On a high quality cabinet, the doors will already be attached to the face frames, and everything interlocks using cam locks. If you find yourself buying each piece in a separate box, make sure you set aside a couple days for assembly because you are going to need it!!

Price- let’s face it, most people associate the price of a product with the quality of the product….. this is not true, especially with RTA cabinets. If you have ever searched for RTA Kitchen Cabinets on the internet you will find several dozen cabinet stores selling the same exact line of cabinets, with highest priced websites selling the same exact cabinets (changing the name to slightly) for 2-3 times as much as the lowest priced cabinet store. Don’t be fooled by price. Check into the materials, assembly procedure, and shipping schedule to determine if the cabinet is right for you. Shop around… just because a big box store has the buying power, doesn’t mean you are going to get the best deal… in reality, the best deals available are going to come from the internet sites that have very little overhead and are working off of lower margins. They can usually offer better customer service as well.

So if you are at the point where you are thinking about RTA Cabinets, make sure you ask the right questions to ensure you have to best experience possible. By finding cabinets made of the right materials, that are easy to assemble, and priced appropriately, you can ensure a beautiful kitchen or bathroom and a project that is easy to accomplish.

Kevin Gianni asked:




This interview is an excerpt from Kevin Gianni’s The Healthiest Year of Your Life, which can be found at http://thehealthiestyearofyour life. com. In this excerpt, Nomi Shannon shares on kitchen equipment and recipes for preparing raw foods.

The Healthiest Year of Your Life with Nomi Shannon, raw gourmet, author and raw food educator.

Nomi: People get really tired, really fast of salads. I do, but you can take the same things that you put into a salad and throw it in the blender and do it up, it’s amazing what the addition of a tomato or slice of mango or something can do to a concoction like that and you can make yourself some really delicious things really fast.

Kevin: What kind of blender do you use?

Nomi: There are only two great blenders, in my humble opinion, Kevin. One is the K-tech which is the one I do recommend for several reasons. The other is the Vita-mix. They’re both fabulous blenders. I prefer the K-tech. The main reason is it’s a whole horsepower stronger but there’s a few others.

The difference between one of these blenders and a Hamilton Beach or whatever is the difference between a Pinto and a Rolls Royce. They’ re both cars but need I say more? In my book, for example, I assumed everybody would have a regular blender. They’re not inexpensive. I would say to make this dish,grate the carrot, grate the parsnip, then put it in the blender. Well, one of these blenders, you throw the darn thing in whole. I throw two frozen, rock hard bananas, whole and 45 seconds later I’m eating whatever it is.

You can do with one of these blenders things you could never do any other way. I will take a couple of apples and cut them up and throw them in the blender with some cinnamon, I have to baby the blender a little because there’s no liquid in there, and I can turn it into applesauce in a minute or two, because people think applesauce? Raw applesauce? No, it’s completely easy and possible if you have the right equipment.

Kevin: It’s great for kids, too. I think the price comparison, you can tell me if I’m wrong or not, is if you break two or three $100 blenders, you can eventually, you kind of go for the bigger one.

Nomi: Well, I personally have taken two, probably $30 to $50 blenders, smoking,outside to finish their smoking process in the air where I tried to make a pate or something in it. They couldn’t handle it. I do understand Kevin that there are plenty of people interested in this kind of food that are never going to be able to spend $400 on a blender. I appreciate that and that’s why in my DVDs I use a regular blender. One or two hints about that, if you have an old Oster blender or you can get your hands on one and that would be like at garage sales, 40 or 50 year old blenders grab it, because they have the most amazing motor. Now, they don’t compare with the Vita-mix or the K-tech. But they’re still nice and strong. My first few years I was raw I had an old Oster.

Kevin: I think that people sometimes just think that the only thing you can make in a blender is a frozen drink or a yoghurt smoothie and you mentioned applesauce and then you just talked about pates. How versatile is a blender for making things?

Nomi: There’s a big crossover in equipment. When I make a pate I use a food processor because a blender needs a lot of liquid. The pate I like best, it’s in my book, called the Sunflower Pate, and it’s 3 cups of sprouted sunflower seeds and lemon juice, because that’s a good preservative and some tahini and then some onion and scallion and different spices. I use it in the food processor. The secret to blending is it needs liquid. Food processing is for things that are drier. The food processor could never work with as much liquid as a blender would. It would leak all over the place.

Kevin: What about Salidako. Can you explain what that is, for people who don’t know?

Nomi: It’s an odd name, it’s also called a spiral slicer and some people call it a spiralizer. Another name is garnishing machine. I finally just said, listen, I’m confusing everyone because every time the company changed the name, I changed the name. And it’s called the Salidako. It’s now made in China. It’s just a simple plastic gizmo, but what it does is really amazing. Here’s what is does that’s wonderful. It will take a vegetable, and the most commonly used vegetable is a zucchini. You put a three-inch piece of zucchini in this little thing and you turn the handle and what you get is pasta-shaped zucchini. It has this fascinating way of shredding it and you get long, long strands. I’ve had three and four feet long strands, where I’ve had to cut them in the bowl, of angel hair sized pasta made out of zucchini or carrot or beet or sweet potato or parsnip. It won’t work with anything soft. Just turn like a tomato to mush, most cucumbers to mush. It has to be a good firm vegetable and this has revolutionized sort of the palate of raw people. You just never have to eat a salad. You can sit your kids down and they can eat this spaghetti and it’s tossed in a pesto sauce, which I’m sure as you know is garlic and olive oil and lots and lots of basil and pine nuts, just no cheese and it doesn’t taste any different, and then top it off with a raw marinara and suddenly it smells like and it looks like and it tastes like Italian spaghetti. The only difference is, it’s not hot. This has, literally this little gadget has revolutionized, because you’ve got to have ways of doing food fast that’s tasty.

There’s another one I’ve just learned about from Germany and it’s called a Spiralo. If you do like a parsnip, beet, carrot, and turn it into this little skinny pasta — I’ve done this at shows and little kids have walked by and I’ve got it on the table next to the machine to show what it does, and these little three year olds will grab it and eat it. The mother or the grandmother will go, “I can’t believe it, he won’t eat any vegetables!” Something about cutting that vegetable into facets, let’s say, really brings out the sweetness like no grating or slicing ever could.

Kevin: Not only does it bring out the sweetness, I think, but it’s just so much easier to eat. You look at a carrot and you’re like, oh, a carrot. I got to chew this thing forever and when it’s in that small kind of form, you can eat it and you just keep eating it and eating it and eating it.

Nomi: When I started with raw food, I actually had a Champion juicer at the time, but it was in storage. When I started with 100% actually all I had was an everyday blender, a good sharp knife and a grater and I didn’t have any other equipment for at least for the first 6 months. So I do like to say to people when people say, “I don’t have the money to go out and buy all that stuff.” And you really don’t have to, but on the other hand, I have to say, that having some of these gadgets, the Salidako I mean is $24.95, really the ability to change these foods, their shapes, their size, pureeing or taking and turning into this little strand what suddenly is delicate and tender instead of chomping down on some hard. I would never eat a parsnip the way you might take a carrot and chew on it the way you would a carrot. I just wouldn’t, but it’s so delicious when you turn it into the pasta. It’s insane. It’s like a whole other thing.

Kevin: You talked about some of the quick things you can do, like the applesauce. What are some other real quick ideas that someone can do to maybe make a meal like in 5 minutes and go?

Nomi: Let’s not forget that almost any raw fresh raw fruit and vegetable can be eaten as it is. If you start out with a bowl on your counter filled with apples, oranges, bananas, whatever you can find seasonally, grapes papaya, mango whatever and then in your fridge you have different kinds of greens, like broccoli, cauliflower and all that there’s nothing wrong with going and sitting down and eating three apples and two bananas and a mango. I mean literally. I very often eat a red pepper like you would an apple. I found some that are so delicious and I just literally just wash the thing off and bite it and even if I get some of the seeds they’re not hot or anything like they can be. We’re so removed from going into the back yard and plucking fruit from the tree or a walnut from the tree that we literally forget, especially the younger generation, that food doesn’t really come in a box.

I’ve got a gadget called the Toss ‘n Chop. It’s such a clever gadget. You just throw everything that you want for your salad into the bowl and your dressing ingredients, everything, goes in a bowl but no cutting, no cutting board, no knife, no chopping, nothing. Then you just go at it with this thing, sort of a cross between a scissors and a tossing implement.

The other thing is, and I’m sure you already know this, is there’s just a huge craze going on with something called green smoothies, which I actually did mention in my book, suggesting you could put your sprouts and things, sneak them in smoothies. Would you like my green smoothie recipe which is my current passion and crave?

Kevin: Sure.

Nomi: Okay. I put a cup of either orange of tangerine juice in the blender and that’s taking about four tangerines at the moment. Personally I put about 8 cups of greens in, I wouldn’t start with that many because it might taste bitter to you at first. So, if there are any supplements that I’m taking, and I’m usually taking some supplements, put that in. Then if I can get my hands on papaya and I put that in. Yesterday I put a little bit of mango in instead, or a handful of blueberries and then I top it off with two frozen bananas. I like it, because I like my smoothies to be thick and cold. It gives me about 24 oz of smoothie. It’s fabulous. I have it at least once a day, every day. I vary out. You don’t want to eat the same thing every day, no matter how good you think it is for you, because you need variety.

Tim Lee asked:




There may come a time that our kitchen requires a make-over. As our face would look good with makeup, so does our kitchen. In truth, many individuals are now resorting to painting their kitchen instead of renovating it. It’s an inexpensive way to give you kitchen a completely new look.

Tools Of The Trade

There are 3 types of painting tools that you will need on this project. You have the paint brush, spray gun, and a roller.

A brush is the most common tool in painting your kitchen walls and cabinets, but can leave marks on larger areas when done incorrectly, and using a brush takes some time in painting the kitchen. A spray gun is fast but expensive to use. You need to take some extra precaution to avoid accidentally spraying on surrounding areas. You may need to cover them with newspapers so you won’t leave any stains in its wake.

The best choice in painting your kitchen would be a roller. Then can cover a lot of area in a short period of time. You may have to resort to a paint brush on hard to reach places like the insides of the cabinet and so on.

Preparation

Before painting your kitchen, you might need to remove appliances and cover up fixtures to avoid accidental paint jobs. Cover the countertops, tables, and chairs to avoid them being dripped on with excess paint.

For a complete and professional paint job, you might want to remove kitchen and cabinet doors so that you can paint all the sides. You might need to mark them well so that you can easily fix them back when you’re done.

Rather than painting the entire kitchen with a single color, you can vary them to provide a flexible design. You can paint the cabinets with a different color than that of the walls; but it’s best to be sure that their hues are compatible so not to appear slapdash.

Finishing Touches

You can apply finishing touches after giving your kitchen a thorough paint job. You can go for different finishes and experiment with each one on which would look best with the new color and theme of your kitchen. You can even utilize the use of a stencil to give it a dreamy look and elegant taste.

Adam Peters asked:




If you are looking to upgrade your home and have no idea where to start the kitchen seems to be the place to go. Here is where you will usually find most of the most outdated items as well as decor that probably inspired you to want to get renovating in the first place. Here is where you will find the most concerns and the most options in regards to upgrading and restyling the home.

Research

By doing some research at the local library you will be able to come up with many ideas on just how it is that you want to your kitchen to look. There will be many magazines and design books available that will show you before and after pictures as well as provide you with step by step instructions in the case that you decide to take this project on yourself. You do not necessarily have to make your kitchen into the one that is in the picture, but simply get ideas on how it is that you want your kitchen to look from the materials that you observed.

Once you have looked at all of the ideas decide which ones that you want to use so as to get the most out of your kitchen. Remember you have your budget to work with and you probably want to be able to do most of these tasks on your own as opposed to hiring a professional so look at what you have seen in the resources and use this to start the foundation for your project.

Make A Decision

When you have decided on what it is that you are going to do to remodel your kitchen you now need to figure out how it is that you are gong to do it. You need to determine where you will get the supplies as well as how you will be able to make all of this happen. Look at different place s for the raw materials that you will need as well as considering what if any old elements from the kitchen you will be retaining in your new décor. Remember you are on a budget so consider any elements or appliances you will be keeping to help cut costs in this endeavor of remodeling the kitchen.

Now get out there and turn your old rundown kitchen into the kitchen of your dreams sooner than you think and cheaper than you think.