ELEVATED TRAY MADE FROM A CABINET DOOR

When creating my projects, I always come in contact with people who love to share their trash.  When the contractor came by to give me an estimate on the fireplace, he looked at my shell tray and asked me where I got it.  I told him I made it with an old cabinet door.

He asked me if he could take a picture of it because he had a friend who loved shells and would probably want to create her own.  Of course, I obliged him.  As he was leaving, he turned and asked me if I would be interested in cabinet doors hanging around in his shop.  He wanted to clean the shop and he was happy to give me the doors.  I was in luck. The next day, he brought me 6 cabinet doors. 

 Within a week, one of his workers rang the doorbell and asked if I wanted more.  It felt like Christmas to me.  When I saw the stack of doors he had placed by the front door, I asked if I could see what he had in his truck.  Two of the doors were too large for what I could use.  I went to the truck and picked out 8 doors--and they were all free!

Now, I had 14 possible projects.  The first door I picked was a raw wood maple cabinet front. The door had a beautiful grain to it.  Initially, I was just going to stain in.  A few days later, when talking to my dear friend Tara, she suggested that I use the driftwood stain.  Of course!

I sanded the piece.

To the internet I went in search of the perfect legs.  I fell in love with these carved chair legs, which cost about $29.00 for the set of 4.  They were so unique.

I gave the legs a rough sanding, and cleaned off the residual dust.

I took a very damp rag and went over all the surfaces to collect any sediment that was left.  Notice in the next picture the difference in the wood before and after the damp rag was used.

In case any of you are interested in this great set of chair legs, here is the name and code. I purchased them on Amazon.

Enter Mr. Thrifty.  I am hesitant to use his power tools, so he joined me on the next stage of the project.

I first traced the attaching end of the leg to the top.  I then connected the ends to find the center of the leg.

I then used the vellum paper to match the exact point onto the leg itself so the dowel rod would match up after we drilled the holes in the base of the tray.

We discussed use a screw with the end cut off to connect the two pieces, but I thought it might not line up when I actually screwed one to the top.

The Mr. came up with the idea of  using a dowel rod.  We had one in the leftover wood pile, so we determined how deep the hole in the tray and leg was to be and cut the dowels accordingly.

Using the drill press, Mr. Thrifty drilled 4  holes into the top of the tray. He taped off the drill bit so we would drill exactly the same amount on each hole.

Then it was time to drill into the legs.  Because the legs were not square on each side, he placed the legs into the vice and used the level to make sure it was square.  Notice the paper towel wrapped around the leg that made sure we didn't mar the leg itself.

I inserted the dowel in the leg to see if we would get a good fit.  This was repeated with the other 3 legs.

Looks pretty awesome already.  I wanted to stain the 4 legs and top before gluing them together.

In order to stain the legs property, I placed the dowels into them and after cutting holes in a box, placed them upside down.

I pulled one of the driftwood stain packages out of my stash.  This is the same stain that I used on the Cherval  mirror.

The stain powder was mixed with a cup of cool water.

I stained the top first and was very happy with the results.

Now, it was time to stain the legs.

I was bothered by the fact that the stain did not take the same on the 4 legs.  It was time to change my plan.

I pulled out my grey chalk paint, watered it down and painted each of the legs with a coat of the paint.  Now the legs were all a  uniformed color.

The following picture is of the dried top.  The stain darkens in an hour when drying.

After the legs dried, I roughed them up with sandpaper to give them a distressed look.

I pulled out my Annie Sloan clear wax and brush and waxed all the legs and the top.  Then all the pieces were buffed out.

Now the legs were dry fitted on to the top.

The wax and buffing really gives the piece a nice sheen.

We are ready to glue this piece together.  After filling the holes with the glue, they were placed in position.

Two squares were used on the leg itself to make sure it was squared up.  Clamps were attached to the legs and left to dry overnight.

Another picture of the square.

 

And finally, the finished project!

I really think the legs add so much to this project. Adding water to the chalk paint allowed some of the grain to show through.

For now, I'm going to leave the tray on the buffet.  In the future, I think this tray would look great on a table at an event, maybe even holding desserts.

Once again, where would I be without the generosity of a connection with a contractor who just happened to have some trash that I could make into a treasure?

I am blessed!



LEARNING TO SMOKE A PORK BUTT 2019

Since we have technically lived in the south for 9 years, it was time to learn about one of their favorite past times-smoking meat.

It all started when I asked Mr. Thrifty if we could purchase a new grill with a newer feature which seared meat.  While at Sam's, I found a grill that not only seared and grilled meat, but it had a smoker too.


 One of the more popular fundraisers in the area is selling smoked pork butts. The usual price for a pork butt is between 30-$40.00. During the summer and fall months, you can buy a pork butt for less than $1.00 a lb.  But, if you aren't able to smoke your own, this fundraiser pork butt is the way to go.


 Now, smoking your  own meat takes patience and time-lots of  time.  It is a rewarding experience.

So, here is our new smoker grill.



Before we began, we watched multiple you tube videos on smoking pork butts.  Our favorite you tube videos were Mad Scientist BBQ for smoking pork butts. 

To make a long story short, Mr. Thrifty started the fire at 5:30 AM.  We really didn't know how long it was going to take.  Temperature needed to reach 250 degrees before we put the pork on the smoker.  It took 1 hour to reach that temperature, so it was 6:28 before we actually put the meat on the fire.


The most challenging aspect of smoking is keeping the temp regulated to a consistent point of 250 degrees.  Prior to smoking, we bought wood chips, and wood chunks. For long term cooking, it was obvious that the wood chunks worked much better. Mr. Thrifty was loading 2 or 3 chunks on the fire every 30 minutes.  My opinion was why not just use logs.  But this was our first time.


Another good suggestion was to purchase a wireless remote monitor to gage the temperature.  That allowed us to keep the times we opened the grill down.  The quote on one of these videos was, 'if you're lookin, it ain't cookin".  I'll warn you, most of these guys doing videos think they are comedians.  Maybe its just a guy thing. 




Loading the charcoal chimney.



The videos also recommended having a drip/water pan placed underneath the pork. The drip pan helps with cleanup too.

I'm sure that the next time we try to start the fire, it will take a third of its time.  The crumpled paper is lit and placed under the chimney. 

Once the briquets turn white, place them in your smoker and add your work chunks or log. We placed a grate under the charcoal and wood.  It makes for easier cleanup.

Once the temperature reaches 250 degrees, put your meat on the smoker.

The ideal temperature for a pork butt to reach is an internal 160 degrees.  At that point, you take off the pork and double wrap it in heavy duty foil and place it back on the grill.  This will make it cook faster and retain moisture.  I forgot to mention, but every 30 minutes, I spritzed the pork with unconcentrated apple juice. 

The Mr. glanced over this posting and mentioned that I had left out a few details, the apple juice being one.  The other point was, what kind of rub do you put on?  I decided to get a dry rub in the jar and mixed it half and half with brown sugar.  We were very surprised how tasty the finished pork butt was.  A few you tube videos recommend not using brown sugar because it was burn and char.  Well, as you can see, it turned out perfectly.

Isn't she a beauty?

This is what the pork looked like at 160 degrees.

Double wrap in heavy duty foil and return to the fire until the internal temperature reaches 196 degrees.  Now is the time to take it off the grill.  Place it on a platter and let it rest still in the foil for 1 hour.

After an hour, open the foil  You will find the juiciest, flavorful pork butt ever.

Down south, they use 'bear claws' to pull pork.  Mr. Thrifty and I used forks and it worked just as well.

Oh my goodness!  I think the Mr. and I couldn't get over how amazing our first attempt at smoking was. 

 Two points we came up with that led us to our success this time: using a wireless remote thermometer and keeping the fire at a consistent 250 degrees.  I will have to admit, keeping the wood fire at 250 was truly a challenge. Also,  I bought the Mr. a set of bellows and a fire poker.  Both tools came in very handy!

To serve the pork, we made sandwiches using Hawaiian sweet rolls cut in half with our favorite BBQ sauce, Sweet Baby Rays. 

We couldn't eat all of it, so using my food saver, I made 3 small packs of the meat.  It is simple to pull out of the freezer, warm it in the oven but DON'T warm the meat in the microwave.

To make this long story short, this was a great experience for us.  Our next smoking adventure, we will smoke a Texas brisket--my favorite.  Stay tuned for those directions.

HAPPY JULY 4TH-2019