About our backsplash

I am still asked frequently about our backsplash.  I thought I'd do a simple post so I could refer people here for answers.

Our backsplash is "Prairie Falling Water" made by Stone and Pewter tile company, purchased at Mosaic source:

 http://mosaicsource.com/slatetile.aspx

There are several different color options, as well as different pattern and size options. I popped out tiles randomly here and there and filled them in with translucent glass tiles ("bars") from the same company.

I used Honey Silk (yellow), Sage Silk (green), and Tiger Eye Silk (red), according to my order. I used two sizes, as the rows within the fallingwater tile are not the same height. I think that they actually sell the falling water tile now with pieces already popped out for you. Not sure, but you could look into it. 

Mini Flat Bars:
 Honey Silk 1"x3"
 Honey Silk 3/4"x3"
 Sage Silk 1"x3"
 Sage Silk 3/4"x3"
 Tiger Eye Silk 1"x3"
 Tiger Eye Silk 3/4"x3" 

GE Monogram Oven, Limitations

The sliding glide-out racks can be easily repositioned in the GE Monogram wall oven.

Still, I figured, I had plenty of room to let my dough double in size.

This rack is positioned in the middle of the oven (the 3rd position out of 5 possible)

Perhaps, I was wrong.

I do love love the proof setting on my oven. Yeah, it's a bit superfluous. I was easily able to proof bread without this setting. But, I still turn to the oven to proof my bread now. It's a nice way to know I have a mildly warm constant temperature; putting the dough in the oven keeps it off my counters. Whenever I have an easy choice to keep my counters less cluttered, I gladly take it.

This is, by the way, the dough from an awesome recipe for butternut squash bread. My favorite part is that the recipe makes three generous loaves. We eat one and freeze two. My daughter loves this bread, which she calls "yellow bread." I modify the recipe by roasting the butternut squash instead of simply cooking it. I can't imagine cooking the butternut squash without roasting, when it's so easy and tasty.

Cushions? Really?

A smattering of randomness for today's blog post...

Search Terms

Firstly, banquette cushions.  Blogger recently enabled a free stats service on their blogs and I was reviewing which of my posts have been the most popular.  Here are the most popular posts of the last few months:

1) Banquette Cushions

2) Advantium Review

3) Soapstone Counters

To me, this is nothing short of mind-boggling.  Everyone is coming here to read about my ebay-purchased cushions?  These numbers are not small, either -- TWO HUNDRED people per month are coming here to read about ebay banquette cushions.  I thought I had three readers, period.  OK, I know I have more than three readers (thank you Vy, Megan, and Paul).  But... I didn't know I was attracting 200 readers per month to read about my humble sunbrella cushions.  Once upon a time, I know that my post on Dimmable CFL Floodlights was getting the most traffic, but now it's only the 10th-ranked page (a mere 20 visitors per month for this page, if you were really curious).

Soapstone

While my counters are only third on my own blog's popularity list, those same counters earned me a spotlight "guest interview" on the Granite Gurus blog.  Check out the interview with yours truly over on Stephanie's blog, on the post titled, "An interview with a Soapstone Countertop Homeowner."

Guest Blogger

I have not only been featured as a guest interviewee on a blog, but also I have also written a couple posts as a guest blogger for my friend and colleague, Paul Anater.  Paul runs the extremely popular blog: Kitchen and Residential Design.  Through an invitation extended via Paul, I recently traveled to Boulder, CO, to attend Google's 3D SketchUp user conference (or, "unconference" in Google speak).  Since Paul was responsible for getting me to the conference, I repaid the favor by writing a couple guest posts for him.  You can read them here (Day One) and here (Day Two).