Kitchen

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January 2003

After we took the cabinet doors out of the kitchen, with the intention of painting them, we realized that the cabinets had
apparently been eye-balled, and had very uneven angles. You can see this especially in the 2 "square" cubbies on the right of this photo.

We had 2 choices: live with it, or tear them out. "It's sort of Nightmare Before Christmas, isn't it," I commented.
And an idea struck! Instead of trying to fix this issue, let's make it worse, and give the whole kitchen a funhouse effect.

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Here, I've torn out one of the vertical struts and replaced it with a very angled one. The
rest are being augmented with various slats, cut at random angles, to give it all a very
uneven appearance.

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Here it is in progress, with all slats and 1 coat of paint.

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And, finally, completed with semi-gloss and edges trimmed.

April 2003

Here are the three "tombstones" I made to to replace the switchplate covers and outlets. They are awesome!

   

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Here are the drawer pulls. The cabinets have similar pulls, but they are just the spiral part.
I recently repainted themmall again, this time with stain-resistent white paint, because the
original matte paint I used was getitng stained with food and dirt.

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This shows the spiral curtain rods for the kitchen, as well as the spiral towel holder on the right
(complete with Hallowe'en Towel, or which I have many) and the spiral hook on the left. Jack is hanging
from above, as is a styrofoam skeleton whose final, ah, resting place has not yet been determined,
except that he cannot hang over the stove for safety reasons. (I may honestly be a total gothic dork for
doing this to my kitchen, but I'm not a moron!)


A close-up of the towel rack with one of my favorite hand towels.

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The spices and essential ingredients. This is a completely geeky endeavor with some practical reasoning:
my spice jars were covered with kitchen grease and were really gross. So, I am decanting nearly everything into
inexpensive, old-fashioned jars and bottles, and labelling them with spooky and silly ingredients,
mostly references to "witchcraft" ingredients (eye of newt, etc.), but some references to science fiction and,
of course, Nightmare Before Christmas. Spices I choose not the decant can just sit behind the cool ones.

Our large pet spider has one hand in the 'cookie jar.' The small skull cabinet was given to me a few
year's ago by my friend Meg, who I am sure did not anticipate such a silly use for it.
The skulls are temporary, leftovers from Paul's and my Halloween costumes.

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Here you can see Eye Jelly (Vegetable Oil), Jelly Fish Juice (Peanut Oil), and Frog's Breath
(White Vinegar, because the smell can cover anything), as well as a number of spices like
Worm's Wort (fennel), Deadly Nightshade (Bay Leaves), and asafoetida which did not even need a
different name, and which smells like something you'd use to brew up a potion.

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Fog Juice (Rose Water), Grade A Arrakian Melange (my addiction: Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning, because
'the spice must flow,' and 'he who controls the spice controls the universe!'), and a jar of bloody fingers
(actually a candle from the Halloween section of a craft store -- they were really surprised that
I was buying it in February). Cloves also did not get renamed, since they are pretty gothic
on their own (even if we don't smoke them), but the Basil became Basilisk Venom,
and the tri-color peppercorns are "Asst. Eye of Newt."

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Finally, for those days when no one likes us and everyone hates us, and we feel like having a little pasta:

And yes, I'll be adding some "Worms (short, fat, juicy)" in the form of a jar of penne,
and possibly even a jar of "Worms (itsy, bitsy, fuzzy, wuzzy)", i.e., elbow macaroni.

I really don't have as much time on my hands as you might guess... I just don't know when to stop!

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