HERITAGE RECIPE: Swedish Almond Cream Cake

Whew! Let me tell you, Friends... this is the most complicated recipe I've ever baked. It's no secret that I am not a baker (I screw something up nearly every time I bake something) and this was bound to be a disaster from the beginning. But I really wanted to try it!

This recipe was submitted to the Rockwood, Michigan Area Historical Society by Marion Fields. She passed away in 2008 at age 81; this recipe was passed down from her Swedish-born mother, Gerda Svenssen.

Per my usual "rules" for making these heritage recipes, I made it as-written to the best of my ability--no modifications. Make sure you read the notes for clarification of the recipe.

Okay, like I said--this was a very complicated recipe. I must have used ten thousand bowls and utensils, and I could have used about a hundred extra hands. I'll post this recipe, exactly as written first, and then I'll explain my notes. (The printer-friendly version is written with clarification.)

Here is a printer-friendly version!

Swedish Almond Cream Cake

1/2 c. butter
5 egg yolks, well beaten
3 T. milk
1 tsp. baking powder
3/4 c. sugar
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 c. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. flour
5 egg whites
1/2 c. slivered almonds
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Cream the butter and slowly add the 1/2 cup sugar; beat well. Add the egg yolks and vanilla. Sift the flour and baking powder; add alternately with the milk. Pour batter into two well-greased and floured 8-inch cake pans. Cover with the following meringue: Beat the egg whites until very light; gradually add the 3/4 cup sugar and continue beating until whites are stiff. Spread on the batter and sprinkle with the slivered almonds and the 1 teaspoon sugar and cinnamon which have been mixed together. Bake at 350 F for 30 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes. Cut around edges with sharp knife. Turn out on rack. Quickly invert on another rack so meringue side is up. Cool and spread with pineapple filling. Spread whipped cream on sides. Filling: In top of double boiler mix 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon flour and dash of salt. Stir in 2 beaten egg yolks and 2/3 cup milk. Cook and stir over boiling water until thick. Stir in 1 tablespoon butter and 1 cup drained crushed pineapple.

As you can see, there is a LOT going on here. Not all of the ingredients are listed before the directions, either, but thankfully I read through it a few times before I went to the grocery store.

There are several parts to the directions: 1) making the meringue; 2) making the batter; 3) making the filling; 4) making the whipped cream; 5) prepping pans, baking, spreading, stacking, and spreading some more.

I don't know much about baking, but I do know one thing about using egg whites--when making meringue, you cannot have ANY yolk in the whites or it won't work. So I was worried I was going to mess that up, and I started with it first. I separated five eggs, and surprisingly, I didn't get any yolk in the whites.

I did everything in this order:

1) Prep the baking pans--I spread generously with shortening and then dusted with flour.

2) Make the meringue--beat egg whites with a wire whisk until soft. Mine looked like very soft whipped cream. I continued whisking while adding the sugar, and beat until it was stiff and held its shape when I stirred it. Then I set this aside in the fridge. (I was VERY proud of this meringue! Haha)

3) Next, I worked on the cake batter. I creamed the butter and sugar, then added the egg yolks and vanilla. I sifted the flour and baking powder into a separate bowl, and then I alternated 1 Tbsp. milk with about 1/3 of the flour/baking powder until it was all in there. The "batter" was definitely more like dough. It was VERY thick.

I went over the recipe trying to figure out what I did wrong. It stated to "pour the batter" into the pans, but this was a dough--slightly less stiff than cookie dough. And there wasn't very much of it at all--I doubted there would be enough to cover the bottom of each pan.

I decided to start the batter from scratch and see if maybe I screwed something up. I was very careful to follow directions. Again, the "batter" was more of a dough. I didn't want to stray from the recipe, so I just did the best I could and tried to spread the dough/batter around the bottom of the pans.

4) Then I preheated the oven and took the meringue out of the fridge. I spread the meringue over the dough/batter, then sprinkled the slivered almonds and cinnamon/sugar over the top. I baked for 30 minutes.

5) While it was baking, I got to work on the filling. To make a double boiler, I just got a large saucepan and filled it halfway with water, then I placed a glass bowl over the top for the ingredients. I added the sugar, flour, and salt. Then I stirred in the milk and egg yolks with a wire whisk, and I continued stirring with the heat on high (so the water was boiling under the glass bowl). I cooked it until it was about as thick as I figured it would get, then I turned off the heat and added the butter and drained pineapple. It was a thin filling--I felt like it should have been thicker, but I hoped it would thicken up as it cooled.

6) I was absolutely sure that the biggest disaster would be when I tried to turn the cakes out of the pans. In the directions, it says to turn it out on a rack, then quickly back over onto another rack so that the meringue is on top. I could just picture turning it over and all of the meringue falling off or getting totally squished. After I let the cakes cool for five minutes out of the oven, it was time.

I ran a knife around the edges to loosen it, and then I managed to maneuver a spatula underneath the cake to help me get it out--I was able to lift it and slide it onto the cooling rack without it falling apart! I literally did a victory dance around the kitchen. Then, I repeated with the second cake.

7) While they continued to cool, I made the whipped cream. The recipe doesn't specify if the whipped cream is sweetened or not, so I did not sweeten it. I just poured a pint of heavy whipping cream into the mixing bowl and beat with a wire whisk until it was stiff. Then I put the bowl in the fridge to stay cool while the cakes finished cooling.

8) Finally, it was time to stack the cakes. The recipe doesn't specify stacking them, but I am guessing that it's a stacked cake because it has a filling; if it was meant to be two separate cakes, then it wouldn't have a filling. So, I spread the pineapple custard-like filling on the uglier of the two cake layers, and then stacked the prettier one on top. I took the whipped cream out of the fridge and spread it on the sides of the cake. Done!

It's not the prettiest looking cake, but it turned out MUCH better than I expected while I was preparing it. I was so sure that the cake would have texture of a cookie because the batter looked (and tasted) like cookie dough. It had a normal sponge-like texture for a cake. The filling didn't get much thicker, but it was absorbed a little into the cake (I imagine by tomorrow, all of the liquid will be absorbed--we ate it right when it was ready--at 10:00 pm! Haha. I definitely underestimated how long this was going to take to make.) The meringue was my favorite part--a great texture and perfect sweetness. I was disappointed that I couldn't taste the pineapple at all. The almonds gave a great crunch to the texture.

I may make this again someday, but it's a LOT of work--and now I have a kitchen full of dishes to clean. But it was a good recipe! And I feel a little more confident in trying more complicated baking recipes.

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Friday Night Photos

It's Friday night, which means it's time for my Friday Night photo dump--just random pictures I've taken this week that I didn't really have a reason to post elsewhere.

As I write this, Duck is sitting on my lap--it's become a routine, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that he does this EVERY DAY. When I blog, I always like to sit on the couch in my bedroom with my laptop resting on my thighs--and within two minutes, without fail, Duck comes in and insists on sitting between me and the computer. He likes to be as close to my face as he can, so he sits up on my chest.

As if that doesn't make it difficult enough to type a blog post, he gets annoyed when I don't pay attention to him--so he stretches his paws to touch all over my face, usually my forehead, until I pet him. If I didn't think he was the most adorable cat ever, I would lock him out of my room when I blog. Instead, I just try my best to work around him.

Remember when my prescription sunglasses were stolen from my car? Well, I got a new pair! They are the exact same ones that were stolen--I didn't even have to go in and see the doctor. I just asked if they could place the same order as last time, with the same frames, and luckily those frames were still available. I hate picking out frames! It's so nice to have the glasses again when I drive.

A blog reader, Lindsey, emailed me to suggest some board games that I might like. I ended up buying this one called Carcassonne for Jerry and I to play (when reading the description, the pieces reminded me of the book I was reading at the time--'The Evening and the Morning'. Below is actually a picture from me playing against myself--hahaha. I like to try to learn games before playing them with Jerry, so I play both players to understand it first. It's a fun game! I bought "The Big Box" version because it comes with 11 expansions--little tweaks to the game. (Amazon affiliate link)

Speaking of games, Jerry and I still LOVE Ticket to Ride. Whenever we'd play, I kept saying that I needed to make something to put our cards in while we play; sometimes we wind up with so many cards in our hands that it's hard to see what we need. Also, I hate always having to pick up the cards to look at the route I'm trying to build.

So, this is what I came up with--super duper simple. Slots for the cards, slightly angled, and a lip in the front to hold the route cards where they are easily visible while playing. 

Eli was playing catcher at his game the other day, and he caught a pitch in the dirt. It was a great stop, but he bruised the heck out of his thumb. He said his thumb was completely numb after it happened, and by the end of the game, it was hugely swollen. It's almost back to normal now.

Remember how excited I was to make the jig for my table saw that allowed me to make half-lap joints? Well, I had to route out a single side of each board so that when I fit them together to make up a square frame, there would be a recession on the inside part of the frame--that's where I would put a panel of wood to complete the cabinet door. 

Well, I didn't take into account that half of the boards would be turned upside down when piecing them together, and I cut the groove on the same face of all of the boards--so it meant that half of the boards were useless! I just gave up at that point. The cabinet is going to stay in the garage anyway, so I'm not going to bother doing it all over again and wasting more wood.

My hand/arm is starting to heal. I've been icing it with an awkward ice pack that is meant for draping over a shoulder. I'd bought an ice wrap for my wrist and one for my elbow, but they were too small--I guess I just have enormous arms. So, I bought some of these ice packs and I'm going to use the sewing machine to make my own wraps that will hold them in place on my elbow, forearm, wrist, and hand. This is a much cheaper way of doing it.

After finishing 'The Evening and the Morning', I started a new book--'Looking for Alaska' by John Green (Amazon affiliate link). After reading a few pages of it, I realized that I'd read it before! However, I don't remember anything about it, really, so I'm going to read it anyways. I saw that it's a TV show (there is only one season) so I'm excited to finish the book and watch the show.

I was finally able to bring my orange chair back into the house from the garage (I took it out there when we set up the Christmas tree, because the living room was crowded). Then I was trying to figure out a solution for board games and shoes and all that stuff while I was refinishing the Pottery Barn furniture. Now the living room is back in order, and I'm glad to have my favorite chair back! Estelle is, too ;)

I'm running pretty low on scrap wood--I've been trying to make projects out of it all year because of the ridiculous cost of lumber. Finally, I splurged yesterday and bought a sheet of plywood and some 2x4's. I'm going to build a workbench with a large outfeed for my table saw. It will make cutting boards much easier. I'm waiting for a couple of things to arrive from Amazon tomorrow, and then I can get to working on it. I started sketching in where I want the table saw to be.

My seedlings are growing! I'm so excited that a few of them lived. Remember when I wrote about how Duck and Chick like to jump up on top of the refrigerator and eat the seedlings? Someone suggested that I put a plastic baggie over them and it worked. I have four basil plants and three bell pepper plants. The rest of them were eaten by the cats. I'm just hoping that I can keep them alive long enough to move them outside. I'm going to build a little box for them.

This is the result of the snow we got. It was much more than I expected (maybe 4-5 inches total). And to compare, check out the same angle 24 hours later. It was like it never happened!

That's Michigan for you :)

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5 Favorite Childhood Movies (from the 1980's)

I literally can't think of a single thing to write about today, so I chose a journal writing prompt: Favorite Childhood Movies. This sounded fun! I was born in 1982, so these movies are from the mid- to late-1980's.

There are a few movies that I remember watching over and over and over again. So much so that I can probably recite every line of each movie to this day. In no particular order...

1. Gremlins (1984)

I thought I remembered seeing this in the theater, but it was released in 1984 when I was just 2 years old, so I must have seen Gremlins 2 when it was in theaters in 1990. I've always loved scary movies, and to a 7 or 8 year old, this is pretty scary! I used to pretend that I had a mogwai (Gizmo) and I even convinced some of the neighborhood kids that I had one, hahaha. (I also convinced them that I was Pippi Longstocking's cousin.)

Gremlins is basically about a man who goes on a business trip and brings home a gift for his son--a mogwai, which is a cute little animal that you just want to cuddle with. If you break the rules that were given with the mogwai (no water, no food after midnight, and no sunlight) he can multiply and then they turn into these scary creatures called Gremlins that terrorize people. Naturally, the rules get broken...

2. D.A.R.Y.L. (1985)

Yes, this is the name of the movie. It stands for Data Analyzing Robot Youth Lifeform--and I didn't even have to look that up, haha. It was released in 1985; I think I remember watching it when I was about 7 or 8 years old. I'm not going to look up the details because I want to write this from memory--I'm curious to see if I remember correctly!

D.A.R.Y.L. (Daryl) is a robot that looks exactly like a live human boy (maybe about 10 years old?). He somehow winds up missing from the lab where he was created and is taken in as a "foster kid" by a family. He was told that he has amnesia and he basically just tries to learn to be a kid. He becomes best friends with a neighbor who discovers that Daryl is ridiculously talented at a video game (I think he had other abilities, too). I honestly don't remember much after that--I know that the lab wants him back (because nobody is supposed to know about him) and as a viewer, you just want him to live a happy life with his foster family.

3. Spaceballs (1987)

This is actually an interesting movie to have on the list, because it's a parody of Star Wars (which I did not know until a couple of years ago!) and I despise Star Wars. It's no secret that Jerry is a Star Wars nerd, so it's a little ironic. Funnily enough, when Jerry talks about Star Wars and I have no idea what he's referencing, I can relate it to Spaceballs--for example, if he mentions "Darth Vader", I might say, "Oh, you mean "Dark Helmet?"

I can recite whole scenes from this movie in my sleep. Jerry and I have this little "thing" between us where we quote lines from movies in our conversations, and even though Jerry was never into Spaceballs like I was, I do quote from it now and then. Or maybe I should say now now. Because we passed then. Just now.

4. Weekend at Bernie's (1989)

I have NO idea who introduced me to this movie; it's not exactly what I would call a "kids' movie". I actually think I might like it even more if I watched it now, because it's mostly humor that likely went right over my head when I was young. It was released in 1989, so I was probably 8-10 years old when I was into it.

From what I remember, Weekend at Bernie's is about a wealthy man named Bernie (who I believe is a drug dealer or something like that where he's involved with shady people) who has a house on the beach. He invites two guys that work for him to his place for the weekend to party. Bernie winds up dead and the two guys staying at his place pretend that he is still alive in order to have their fun for the weekend.

5. Adventures in Babysitting (1987)

I basically wanted to BE Chris Parker in this movie. I was probably the age of the kids she was babysitting (12 ish?) when I was obsessed with this movie. I don't know if Jerry's ever seen the whole thing--when I quote from it, he's clueless.

My favorite: "A mall? Where y'all think we're at, Boise, Idaho?"

In Adventures in Babysitting, Chris Parker is a VERY cool (my words, as a 12-year old) 17-year old girl who is asked to babysit a 15-ish year old boy and his sister, who is about 9 (I'm guessing their ages). Chris's friend Brenda calls her from downtown Chicago saying that she's in trouble and she needs a ride. So Chris takes the kids (along with the boy's friend) into the "big city" where all sorts of things start to go wrong. 

Interestingly, I just went to fact check the release date of this movie, and I saw a bit of trivia: The backpack that Sarah (the 9-year old girl) is always wearing has a picture of Gizmo on it (the mogwai from Gremlins). So... full circle.

This was fun! I always love a stroll down memory lane. Now I want to see which of these movies I can stream--I think it's been the longest since I've seen Weekend at Bernie's, so that will be my first choice.

Anyone else want to share some favorite movies from when you were a kid?

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COVID Diaries - Inside Prison: A Psychotherapist's Perspective

This is a fascinating guest post! As I've mentioned, I'm very interested to hear from people working the "front lines" during the pandemic. I think seeing things from their perspective is very impactful and can help the rest of us understand a bit more about how COVID-19 has changed the day-to-day lives of millions of people.

This guest post I'm sharing was written by a woman in the New England area, and she would like her name to remain anonymous due to the nature of her job. When thinking about the front line workers, prison staff didn't even occur to me--so I was very excited to hear from her when she emailed me. I'm grateful that she's willing to share her experience! Here is her story...

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How many times have you been out in public and seen someone you thought you knew, only to realize it wasn’t actually them? How much more often has that happened over the last year, now that half of our faces are covered any time we're in public? How many of those times has that person been a violent sex offender, bank robber, or murderer?

It was about a year ago that "lockdown" became a regular part of the general public's vocabulary and wearing masks was the new normal. I began wearing a mask to work. See, stay-at-home orders don't quite apply to my jobs--I work full-time in a men's prison and part-time as a firefighter.

When people ask what my job is like, I usually just tell them "there's never a dull day!". It's easier than trying to explain the intricacies of working as a psychotherapist in a prison treatment program for high-risk offenders--and on a tactical response team at that!

That being said, my job can be pretty mundane on a day-to-day basis. There's always the possibility of an emergency that could derail my entire day (or week), but "normal" days for me typically include: time spent writing reports (some of which are upwards of 30 pages long); individual and/or group therapy sessions; and teaching psycho-educational classes.

The population I work with is particularly difficult, and I'm fortunate to be very good friends with another woman in my department. Given the disturbing nature of some of the things I hear on a daily basis, it's really helpful to have someone who has heard it all--someone I can vent to without vicariously traumatizing them!

Every once in a while, members of the tactical team I'm on are called to "suit up" for what's called a "calculated use of force". Typically, that means an inmate is refusing to do what they're being told to do, so a team of five goes into the cell and restrains him in order to accomplish whatever he was refusing to do.

However, a lot of times the inmate gives in before the team gets suited up. It may be a scare tactic, but it's pretty effective! Under normal circumstances, the team would train on a regular (monthly) basis, but with the arrival of COVID, all training has been put on hold.

Our last training as a team took place at the end of February of 2020--that training was my first one, so I got pepper-sprayed for the first time (a "rite of passage" for team members). We train in the use of less-than-lethal munitions, which can be used in a variety of situations (whether it be one unruly inmate in a cell, or 100 inmates with weapons on the recreation yard). We train for the worst-case scenarios, and hope we never actually see them.

I joined the fire department in the end of 2019. I knew after my first day at there that I was going to drink the kool-aid. I was OBSESSED with the job, right off the bat. I can't pinpoint exactly what it is about it, but the adrenaline is an experience like no other.

My department is what's known as a "call" department--our station is not staffed 24/7, but all the firefighters have pagers and when a call comes in, we respond to the station from home (or wherever we are... I can't tell you how many times I've left a half-full carriage in the middle of the grocery store!) and then head to the call.

There are certain times of the day that call departments may struggle to get a decent response (i.e. during the work day, in the middle of the night, etc.) but my department is pretty strong. I like to say that if I knew at 18 what I know now, I would have made being a firefighter my career path. However, I really do enjoy my job at the prison and it's nice to still be able to be a part of the fire department in my "spare time". 

While my husband, friends, and family members hunkered down under the state's emergency orders last spring, I continued going to work each day. While I was grateful for the opportunity to get out of the house and interact with other people each day (I’m a bit of an extrovert!), it also meant that because I was at much higher risk of contracting the virus, I wasn’t able to see my parents (both of whom were sick with cancer).

The pandemic altered my days slowly at first--prison visitation was cancelled, staff began wearing masks, housing units were segregated… and eventually inmates began wearing masks.

While that seems like an obvious policy to enact, I remember being vehemently opposed to allowing the inmates to wear masks initially. The thought of them being allowed to cover half their faces seemed like a huge security risk to me, and truly made me feel even more vulnerable in an already dangerous job. After all, it’s difficult enough to identify an inmate on a surveillance video even when his whole face is visible! 

Looking back, there is no doubt in my mind that masking-up the inmates was the right thing to do. However, living and working in suburban New England during the early days of COVID, I was somewhat isolated from the true impacts it was having elsewhere in the country. That is, until April 20th, 2020. 

While my regular job is a psychotherapist, I’m also a member of a tactical response team at the prison. On April 20th, I got 23-hours' notice that the following day, along with three of my team members, I was expected to report to another detention center--four hours away in New York City. 

Details were scarce--we were told we would be there for at least two weeks, and that we would be given two weeks to quarantine when we returned. We didn’t know what we would be doing at the detention center, or even what days or hours we would be working. We were simply told to pack our things and report for duty.

That morning, I stopped at my parents' house on my way to work, told them I loved them, and "see you soon" from their porch. At that point, COVID-19 had not worked its way into the prison where I worked--we had zero cases among inmates or staff.

New York, on the other hand? They were overrun. It seemed like every staff member I interacted with while I was there had already had the virus.

"Empty" New York City

The days in New York were long. The inmates were struggling with lockdown fatigue and were acting out as a result: insolence toward staff, inmates refusing to lock-in to their cells, and flooding their cells will water were an every-day occurrence.

I was so grateful that I had been sent to the city with three other staff members that I was friends with from my institution--we made the best of our time there during our off-hours by getting takeout and playing card games as a group nearly every night. We spent our days off wandering around the city--a place that would normally be bustling with tourists in the springtime.

One weekend, we drove out to Montauk, a place I had always wanted to visit (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is my favorite movie!) and I was able to put my feet in the ocean--something that made me feel at home.

By the time I left New York and returned to my regular duty station, COVID-19 had hit my institution. Not just my institution, but specifically the housing unit where my office is located. I was relocated to a different office outside of that unit, and my job duties shriveled up. I spent the majority of my day monitoring inmate phone calls and emails.

As I mentioned, both of my parents were battling cancer--my Mom was diagnosed in July of 2017 with glioblastoma, and my Dad in May of 2019 with oral cancer. During the time I was in New York, my Mom's condition worsened and her doctors discontinued treatment (it was not working, and having her come to the hospital for it, exposing her to COVID, was more risk than reward) and she was given six months to live. 

Additionally, my Dad's condition worsened and while I was on quarantine. He was hospitalized and it was found that his cancer had run rampant throughout his body--treatment was not working. His doctors told us there was no more they could do. He went home on May 21, the day before my post-New York quarantine ended. My siblings and I went to stay with him and my Mom and we cared for both of them around the clock from that point until their deaths on May 29th and July 3rd. Yes, I lost both of my parents during a pandemic in a matter of five weeks.

Because of this, I was on leave from work throughout most of the summer and when I returned in September, it appeared the institution had the COVID-19 situation under control.

Below is a picture of the room I stayed in at a COVID Recovery and Isolation Center for first responders when I returned from New York (so I didn't have to risk exposing my family to COVID-19). It had been a county jail pre-release center and was converted into a four-wing recovery center for this purpose. They provided all of our meals and services. It was an incredible resource and I’m so grateful to have been able to use it!

Fast-forward to December when the majority of the country got their “second wave”, the institution did, too. Except this time it was worse--much worse. 

I got a phone call the day after Christmas letting me know that my team had been activated a second time, but this time we weren’t traveling anywhere. The COVID-19 outbreak at my institution had gotten so severe that we had nearly ten times the “normal” number of inmates admitted to hospitals in the community.

As one would likely imagine, there are several security factors that come into play when an inmate is admitted to a community hospital. Normally, this level of security can be managed by the Correctional Services staff (those who work as correctional officers on a daily basis). However, the high number of inmates admitted to hospitals, paired with the high number of staff who were out sick with the virus, left the institution in quite the predicament.

We were being augmented from our regular duties and schedules and being sent to work in the local hospitals for as long as deemed necessary--working 12-hour shifts with no scheduled days off. Due to personal and family circumstances that were (still/again) occurring for me at the time, I was taken off the roster for this activation after about two weeks.

However, when I returned to the institution, many of the housing units were on lockdown status, with the inmates only being allowed out of their cells for short, designated time periods. It took the better part of six weeks to get the situation at the institution “under control”.

It seemed like every time my unit was cleared from quarantine status, another inmate would test positive for COVID-19 and everything would shut down again. The institution staff did everything they could to contain the virus, but the circumstances that come along with a prison setting are a dream for disease transmission. Fortunately for me (and the rest of the staff members who accepted it), I was fully vaccinated by Mid-January, receiving my first dose only a few days after the vaccine was approved for use.

The last three months at my job have been a blur, if I’m being honest. The psychology treatment program I work in recently resumed operations and things are starting to get back into the realm of “normal”. Units are still segregated, which complicates the daily operations of ancillary services: medical appointments; psychology, education, and food service; and recreation time.

The simple day-to-day tasks that would normally take no time at all to accomplish now take lots of advance planning. And then there are the personality traits and emotional reactions of the inmates, many of whom feel as though their rights have been infringed upon…

I’ve worked in the prison system for six and a half years. I’ve seen and heard a LOT. I’ve experienced two government shutdowns--one of which lasted 35 days--in which I continued going to work each day, knowing I wasn’t getting paid until the government reopened. I've also been afforded a number of really great opportunities for development.

But this virus? This virus has changed my job and my life to the core. I look forward to the day we return to “normal”, although I don’t know if we’ll ever get there.

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If your life has been majorly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and you are interested in sharing your story in a guest post, I'd love to hear from you! Just send me an email at: katie (at) runsforcookies (dot) com.

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Transformation Tuesday #23 : A Beautiful Kitchen Makeover!

I'm staring out the window in disbelief right now. Yesterday, it was 65 degrees and SO nice outside. And now, this is what I'm looking at. In late April! We're supposed to get 2-4 inches overnight.

This transformation post is actually only going to contain one transformation--my jaw dropped when I went through the photos and I couldn't narrow them down, so I just decided to post them all. And I don't want this transformation to seem like it's superior to others because of the sheer number of photos, so I'll save the other transformations for next week. Thank you for sending them!

Okay, here goes... this is from Jennifer:

"Since we bought our house in 2015 I’ve wanted to upgrade the kitchen from the standard builder grade finishes. We started the process in 2019 and finished in 2020 right before lock down! I’ve dreamed about the Stellar Snow Quartz countertops for years so I knew they had to be part of this.

We shortened the raised wall behind the sink and got everything ready for countertops and time. We’d already painted all the walls in the house gray and I painted the ceiling in the kitchen white. We installed the lighting ourselves and built a window seat for the breakfast nook with tons of storage. Home Depot installed the counter tops and we worked with a local tile guy to install the backsplash, floors and accent wall. All in all it took us about 18 months to complete and we couldn’t be happier!"

The first few pictures are from before, then there are some during construction, then several "after" photos, and finally, side-by-side before and after.

First, the before photos...

During construction...

The after photos...

And finally, the side-by-side photos!

Isn't it amazing?! I LOVE the accent wall and now I definitely want to do something like that in my house ;)  Jennifer, you guys did an amazing job and the kitchen is beautiful!

Remember, I am always looking for more transformations to post on Tuesdays. I have a few for next week, but please keep them coming so that I never run out! Just email a before photo and an after photo to me at: katie (at) runsforcookies (dot) com, and be sure to include your name and a description of the transformation. Thanks!

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