Good Things List No.84: New DIY Laundry Sink, Garlic Chopper, Carbon Steel Update, Six Book Reviews & More

Good things to do, buy, read, and watch! In this month’s list you’ll find our simple DIY laundry room sink and shelf reveal, the tool that helps with my least favorite kitchen task, 6 books reviewed and more.

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Welcome May – one of my favorite months of the year! Not only is it a wonderful month in the garden (blooms! first harvests! new growth! planting!), it’s also a month of celebrations – Mother’s Day, along with my birthday and other family members’ birthdays as well as Memorial Day and the unofficial start of summer.

And after not sharing much about our old farmhouse’s remodel progress lately, I’ve got not one, but two things I’m sharing this week – the DIY that completes our laundry room below (always a great day around here!) and the major upstairs progress we’ve made I published here.

Plus one of the books I’m reviewing may make it onto my year-end best list – so, lots of good things for this month’s list!

Good Things List

DIY Farmhouse Laundry Room Sink & Shelf

The last task on the list to finish out the former storage-turned-laundry-room (also the back door mudroom) was to build and install a sink as well as a shelf above the washer and dryer.

As a grower of veggies and flowers I have wanted a sink closer to the back door since we moved in (four years ago *cough*) and I bought the sink and faucet way back then as well, thinking it would only be a couple of months.

The issue has been the space – it’s pretty limited and anything you could purchase would be basically a sink with no counter space at all. I knew if we could make it ourselves we could at least have about 6 inches on each side to set things down.

But you know how it is – once you have to make something from scratch it gets pushed down the list. And then parts of it get done – like the legs were built and attached to a plywood top – but they had to be finished and the wood was wet. Just time and life goes by.

Finally, all the stars aligned and we were able to get this done before Easter – and while I preferred to not have a skirt I’m so happy with how it turned out. And how great it is to deal with vegetables and flowers here instead of the kitchen!

Here’s how we built it:

1. Attached a 2×4 cut to size to the wall with screws at the height we wanted.
2. Cut two 4×4 wood (fir or hemlock) legs to size and screwed them into a scrap plywood top cut to the size we could fit in the space.
3. Screwed plywood top to the 2×4 on the wall.
4. Created a counter from clear fir/hemlock 1×4 boards glued to plywood top and finished (stained and polyurethane like I did with the counters here) with a cut-out for the sink. We also cut and stained small 1-inch trim pieces to finish off the raw edges of the wood. I used a variety of stains we had to get the color I wanted, though mainly Early American and Special Walnut by Minwax.
5. Added painted 1×4’s under the counter for a solid sink skirting that we could use to attach a towel bar. Finished the edge next to the counter with quarter round shoe molding cut to size.
6. Installed sink and faucet and hooked up to existing water lines (we put these in when we initially converted this to a laundry room). We’ve bought all our stainless steel sinks for both our cottage kitchen remodel and the farmhouse kitchen from MR Direct Sinks (which I’ve loved for quality and low cost!) – sadly I just learned you can’t buy from their site and all links from other places aren’t available anymore. The faucet is this one and I really love it – it’s not as tall as some of these can be, which is nice while still being flexible and easy to use.
7. I sewed a simple skirt from black and cream ticking fabric to hide the not-so-pretty underside. We had to finagle this quite a bit – in the end it’s heavy wire we can bend easily so it doesn’t sag, attached to eyelet screws and hooks.
8. I bought this large cabinet pull to use as a towel rod and it works perfectly.

The last thing we added was a shelf behind the washer and dryer and it’s been SO nice to get the things off of the sloping dryer top!

This shelf was needed for two reasons – to hold the laundry supplies and some flower vases and to hide the ugly area behind the machines.

Brian cut a 1×10-inch fir/hemlock board to size – it wasn’t cheap, but worth it to have a solid shelf! I stained the wood to coordinate with the counter and then we attached it with these floating shelf brackets turned the opposite way from the way we used them for these reclaimed wood shelves.

It’s been wonderful using this new area and to have this room finished! Well, except for the drying rack pull out I’d like to build for the old window well – but that really is a project for down the road (ha – don’t I always have a “well, except…” with projects?).

Garlic Chopper Tool

There aren’t too many kitchen tasks that I can say that I hate – in fact, there’s really only one – peeling and chopping garlic. I’ve tried so many tools and presses over the years and nothing really worked well for me. I now grow only hard-neck garlic so that peeling is a bit easier, but chopping garlic is just so tedious.

So when I found out about this garlic twist a few months ago from another food blogger, I waited to test it well because it’s not cheap for two small plastic rounds, but I’m here to say it’s WORTH IT.

You put peeled garlic cloves in (it works best with only 3-4, depending on the clove size), twist it a couple times and voilà – perfectly minced garlic! I use the tip of a knife to remove all the garlic (and I don’t worry about a few pieces left) and that dreaded chore is done in seconds. Highly recommend.

​See the Garlic Twister here.

Carbon Steel Pan Update

Remember when I was so excited about the non-stick abilities of this carbon steel pan? While it still did great with fried eggs and sautéing things, for some reason a lot of things started sticking after a couple months use. Like scrambled eggs, blackened fish, and browning chicken breasts. I was getting frustrated and thinking I was going to have to warn you all that I spoke too soon.

BUT. Then I did a bit of research on using carbon steel and it seems like the preseasoned pans don’t keep the seasoning after use. And I learned a few techniques I could do to cook these types of things with less sticking.

And it worked!! I scrambled eggs with literally NO areas stuck and browned chicken no problem. Here are the keys things I did:

• Heat pan on medium with a couple teaspoons of oil (it can’t be too hot OR too cold – my stove cooks hot, so I think that was my problem).
• Let it SIT on the heat – I don’t think I gave it enough time. I read that people turn on the heat and then scramble their eggs in a bowl – all while the pan is heating.
• Add butter (or more oil) and swirl – if using butter it shouldn’t brown (if it does, it’s too hot).
• Optional: for eggs, sprinkle some kosher salt in the bottom (don’t salt the tops then) – this acts like cornmeal on pizza dough to aid it releasing.
• Add eggs for a scramble, turning heat to LOW (or medium-low if your stove cooks cooler than mine) and let sit until they start to look cooked on the bottom.
• Use a metal spatula to start pushing the edges to the center and continuing to cook until done to your liking. NO sticking!
• Do all the same for meat, starting hotter and lowering the temp, even adding the salt to the pan instead of salting the meat if you’d like, and let it sit over the lower heat until the meat releases on it’s own before turning.

The caveat is that you do need to use enough fat, but the bonus is that with nothing stuck, all we have to do is wipe out the pan – no need for water or more seasoning! (I think all the scrubbing of the stuck food wasn’t helping – it was like a catch-22.)

So, yes, I still recommend this pan!

April Books Read

Mrs. Quinn’s Rise To Fame, Olivia Ford. This was such a sweet book! Mrs. Quinn has lived a quiet, happy life with her husband in a small English town when she decides to enter a British bake-off type of show never thinking she would get picked let alone have a chance at winning. The story is about her discovering herself, widening her world, and reckoning with things in her past all while we get a behind-the-scenes look at how those baking shows are made. Really fun.

The Small and The Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, Sharon McMahon. I didn’t actually know exactly what this was about before I read it – I had just seen it touted online by a number of book lovers I follow. I love history so this was super interesting to me on that point (apparently the author is a former teacher and is known as “America’s Government Teacher”) and the people she chose to highlight were fascinating. One of her points is that as bad as all the arguing and fighting we seem to have in our politics now, there is nothing new under the sun – in the 1800’s a senate member beat another member with a stick until he was so injured he couldn’t resume his seat for 3 years…AND the man wasn’t censored by the senate! While I had already heard the stories of about a third of the twelve, it was still very inspiring and uplifting as to how even the smallest of lives can make a big difference.

The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man, Paul Newman. I checked this out on a whim after looking through Libby for something to listen to while gardening. Who doesn’t love quite a few of his movies? And salad dressings, lol. Sadly, he did not come across as that great of a man, though he was honest. He carried on an affair with Joanne Woodward for years before divorcing his wife and marrying her. I’m glad they had a happy life, but still – years? He really didn’t like acting (really) and blamed a lot on his childhood and tough parents. I kind of wish I hadn’t read it – I would like to just think of him as I remember from the movies and his charity work.

I Cheerfully Refuse, Leif Enger. I put a hold on this at the library and waited so long for it that I couldn’t remember what it was about by the time I got it! So I wasn’t really sure what to expect – ahh – a sort of future apocalypse type story. I say sort of because we aren’t ever told what happened, just that things that used to be normal are hard to find, some areas aren’t accessible anymore, there are “haves and have-nots” and there is some overarching “bad government” thing going on. Oh, and people don’t read anymore and look down on those who are literate. But some towns go on as normal with electricity, etc. so it was hard for me to figure out at first. The story is of one man who’s leading a quiet life when it’s turned upside down by tragedy and then he has to go on the run from some government scientist agency. The title refers to a book they often talk about and also that he refuses just do the easy thing. Did I like this? I’m not sure – it did end on a positive note, which I of course I appreciate.

To Woo and To Wed, Martha Waters. I had read the other books in this Regency historical romance series, so I grabbed this at the library to finish the series. This wasn’t my favorite, though I read that readers had been asking the author for the second-chance story of the two main characters since the first book. I found the heroine a bit annoying, however, especially towards the end when she clung stubbornly to her view of the hero even though he’d pretty much answered all her questions. Also, two things found me skipping pages: 1) a lot of chapters were flashbacks and they got really old after awhile when we pretty much know why they didn’t get together the first time so I skipped a number of the later flashbacks, and 2) it was a bit too open door (though not a lot comparatively, lol), so those sections were skipped, too.

Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry. Brian and I listened to this classic Pulitzer prize winning book and really enjoyed it so much! (Oddly, I got the audiobook on Audible probably a year ago and now it’s not available anywhere…) Brian was skeptical at first thinking it was going to be a trite western but the characters and writing are so well done (hello, Pulitzer…). Now that we’ve finish we’re going to watch the 1980s mini series which I haven’t seen since it first aired, but remember really liking. It’s not an easy story by any means – there is much death and a lot of hardships – but that was the author’s point: being a cowboy wasn’t the easy life he had seen portrayed starting in the 1940s in Hollywood. Will probably be on my year-end list!

Watching

Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light, PBS. Such a good series (both seasons)! Both Brian and I really enjoy not only the gripping story, but the incredible acting and replication of 1500’s scenery, interiors, and clothing.

The Amateur – theater. After not going to the theater for many months (the movies all seem to be for kids, slasher movies, or gruesome horror) we went to see this mainly because it was a PG-13 thriller (isn’t everything R now?). It’s an interesting spy-type thriller (think Jason Borne but nerdier) without as much gore or language – or long fights or chases, so really pretty refreshing to enjoy a story in all the ways. (Sadly, the critic score is less than audience, which often seems to happen with movies like this…sigh).

That’s it for another addition of the Good Things List!

If you’d like to see more of what I’m enjoying, you can check out all the Good Things Lists here. I’d love to know what you think – if you’ve tried any of these or what you’d recommend. Leave a comment below with your thoughts!

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