Transformation Tuesday #36

Happy Transformation Tuesday! On yesterday's post, I meant to write a plea for more transformation submissions and I completely forgot to do that. The past week has been so out of the norm for me--I really hope that this week feels a little more familiar.

Today, I'm going to start with one of my own transformations--something I've been working on since I picked up my peaches from The Peach Truck on Friday. In my head, when I imagined buying three dozens pounds of peaches, I thought we'd have no problem going through them. Noah and I love peaches, so I figured we'd eat a ton of them.

Well, I thought wrong. There is no way to eat that many peaches before they go bad, no matter how much I love them! So, I decided to make peach preserves (which, I learned, is different from jam--jam is made from mashed fruit, while preserves have large pieces of fruit). I tried the preserves on one of the peach muffins I made on Sunday, and it was delicious!

Today, I still had a LOT of peaches left, so I decided to make (and can) peach salsa. I think the salsa looked better before cooking it, but it still tasted really good just before canning.

I got 12 jars of preserves and 7 jars of salsa from the recipes I used. Here is the recipe I used for the preserves, and here is the recipe I used for the salsa. So here are the transformation photos...

And I have to share what the salsa looked like before cooking, because it's so pretty!

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I don’t have good before pictures but our front porch was very small. Our 3-foot wide sidewalk had buckled from tree roots. My husband had cut the buckled section out and inserted a flagstone but it didn’t look great.

We hired some men to add to the porch and to replace and widen our sidewalk to 4 feet.   They also skim coated the old porch so the colors would match. It’s one of our favorite spots to sit outside now.

- Pam, Texas

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My husband and I just bought our first home (we've been married for 14 years). Part of the front staircase looked pretty bad; the paint had long since chipped away and was an eyesore. The previous owners left behind masonry paint so I figured I'd take a stab at it. I did my best and tried to be as precise as possible but I ain't Bob Vila LOL (if anyone can remember him!). I'm glad with the end result. The new coat of paint made a big difference visually. I hope to become more "handy" as we adjust to our new home and tackle projects. Thanks!

- Katie

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Pam, I can completely empathize with having a narrow walking path. I really wish we'd made ours wider when we poured it. Your new porch area looks amazing! I love the little sitting area--that's something I've been wanting for years. Glad you're enjoying it :)

Katie, I think Bob Vila would be impressed! It never fails to amaze me when something as simple as fresh paint completely transforms something, and your staircase looks fantastic. You did a great job, I love that you weren't too intimidated to try doing it yourself. A huge congrats on buying your first home! That's super exciting :)

Okay, I am fresh out of Transformation Tuesday posts, so here is my weekly plea... please transform something (and don't forget to take "before" photos, even if you don't think you'll actually send them!). No transformation is too boring or too little or too (whatever), so please share! Just send a before photo and an after photo to me at: katie (at) runsforcookies (dot) com and don't forget to include your name and a description of the transformation.