Come on in!
LauraNow that we have been living in our little place for almost 5 months, a report on our progress finishing the building and settling in seems appropriate. Our home is far from finished, but if I wait to document this place until all the trim is up, I’ll never share it here! We have natural gas for cooking and heating, but very limited electricity and no running water. Strider and I have found a few gadgets and tricks that make our lives easier- I‘ll share them as I go. I plan to cover a different room or area every Friday. Today, the kitchen:
The kitchen is 8 feet long. The counter between the sink and the stove is 3 feet long, and surprisingly, it is plenty big. I’ve cooked all of our everyday meals here, made Christmas cookies, and hosted a few dinner parties…Just out of sight to the left of the window is the glass back door. Even on dreary winter days we have plenty of natural light streaming in. The shelves are industrial brackets and local rough cut lumber. I found our little stove on Craigslist for $60, and I love it. We lived here for a couple of weeks before finding it and getting it installed, and as soon as it was in place things got so much easier and more civilized. Not only do we cook on it we use a 2 gallon pot on it to heat water for bathing and washing dishes. This brings me to another favorite tool-a lovely bucket:
I recently bought 2 of these for something like $6 each at Tractor Supply. Prior to that we were using ugly, demoralizing plastic buckets. We haul in water a couple of times a day (I’ll cover water catchment when I do outside systems.) and our buckets are always visible-pretty buckets matter.
See that blue cylinder by the sink in the first photo? That is a Berkey filter that magically turns rain water we catch off our metal roof into good drinking water. We got our filter from Lehmans, but they are cheaper from the company here.
Not as pressing as drinking water, but we eat toast for breakfast almost daily and figuring out an easy way to toast bread without an electric toaster seemed unlikely-until I discovered a camp toaster. $4 for perfectly toasted toast with no electricity used?! Ours hangs on the wall behind the stove.
Our refrigeration is just outside the back door-3 coolers. We keep them half full of ice and after a couple of months figuring out how to keep stuff dry Strider made little cedar shelves to elevate the food out of the melty ice.
We have had an unusually warm winter, and so have had to buy ice every other week or so. If we have a night below freezing we chop ice out of the rain barrel and use free ice instead! This cooler system works great for everything but salad greens, they get frozen and slimy-when I buy greens we store them un-refrigerated and eat them up in a day or two. I know summer will be a challenge, we don’t want to buy ice every day…any suggestions?
Hope you enjoyed seeing our kitchen, I’m excited to continue the tour of our little place in the weeks to come!
Reader Comments (8)
I do hve a suggeston but I don't remember the specifics so I hope it makes sense. I stumbled on a link once about people in urban areas who live without a fridge by choice and they use a special type of clay pot. It's about waist high and the clay keeps things cool. I can't remembe the name or anything but perhaps a google search on fridgeless living might bring up something? Going without a way to keep things fresh in summer could get really rough really fast otherwise!
I am entranced by your kitchen -its serenity and harmony. I read out the post to my husband and we both thought that the idea of a shelf in the cooler was such a clever way around the problem. Some major house (and bucket) envy going on here!
It would be time-intensive, but you could attempt to make a cellar, or if you already have a basement there then perhaps one of the spots in the basement could be walled off for a cold room. Many fruits and vegetable will keep for a long time in a cold room/cellar. It's experimental, finding the ideal conditions and some things will be easier for beginners to store than others. Some things keep better when stored along-side each other (kind of like companion planting, but now for companion preservation). I have no good suggestion for storing lettuce other than this: grow your own. When it's time to harvest the lettuce, harvest it with roots intact as much as possible. then put the lettuce in a vase or bowl with water. Peel off leaves as needed. If you can't grow your own, perhaps you could make friends with a vendor at a farmer's market who would be willing to specially harvest some root-intact lettuces for you, if s/he know's you'll be there to buy them. Good luck! This sounds so exciting!
Great post Laura! You are so talented at making spaces feel warm and comfortable, and your efficient kitchen is no exception. I was wondering if you could build some small container to keep in the creek to keep greens cool... I don't know if it stays that cool over there but I remember it being shady. Good luck, can't wait to see the setup in person!
I'd also suggest a kind of clay pot like it's also used for butter or cheese cooler. it works with water to cool. (google for pot-in-pot fridge an the like...)
your kitchen looks pretty. love the simplicity of it.
Wow, thanks for all the great ideas and encouragement! Ramona and Steph- I have seen the clay pot in a pot idea online, I was concerned about how small the storage area would be-perhaps I need to seek out a bigger pot! Becca-a cellar would be awesome, we've been considering a trash can cellar in the hill behind our house, but it has been so wet this winter it is hard to imagine how it would stay dry. You are totally right about growing my own lettuce. If only I had got my beds covered for our one week of freezing weather back in November I'd still have lettuces and kale of my own! I have staked out a spot for a small, unheated greenhouse for overwintering things next year.....
I recall reading many years ago, about digging out a hole and lining with paving slabs on the bottom and all four sides, then using one for a 'roof'. It always seemed as if it would be a little heavy to keep lifting one of those, so I wonder if you couldn't make a wooden roof. I remember that the person who made it said that it worked really well, even in summer.
Thanks for sharing the house - it's great to read and see all about it :))
Looks great Laura! I understand how much effort goes into construction and thinking of alternate solutions for things we need when we are doing things different than most. We are getting ready to take off traveling in our Bus we converted to RV. I wanted to make sure we had a safe water supply no matter where went in the US so we got a Berkey last fall and LOVE it. We thought this would be a great product to share with other people, so we are now distributors for Berkey and are selling them on our website. Look forward to seeing more of you Lovely little space.