Posts

We’re here to walk you through the process of deciding exactly how many items to include on your easy starters menu. We’ll help you narrow down the best light appetizers before dinner to please every person on your guest list. Then we’ll share pro tips about arranging appetizers so that the soirée is welcoming, communal, and festive without feeling cramped. Step 1: Confirm Your Dinner Party Guest List Before deciding how many light appetizers to prepare before dinner, it’s helpful to know how many people will likely be at the party....

Types of Doors for Interiors The single-hinged door is the most common interior type of door. Room design must allow space for hinged doors to swing. Interior doors typically are lightweight and have two hinges; exterior doors are heavy and often use three hinges. Interior doors are usually 1-3/8 inches thick, and exterior doors are commonly 1-3/4 inches thick. A panel door is a classic style. It usually has three or four horizontal rails and three vertical stiles....

Spring If you start your lawn off right at the beginning of the growing season, you’ll have an easier time in the summer and fall. These are the steps you should take when the snow melts. Get Your Mower Ready Make sure your lawnmower is ready before you need to use it. Bring it in for any necessary repairs or upkeep (like blade sharpening) before the start of the lawn maintenance season to ensure you won’t have to wait along with everyone else in your neighborhood....

The pair bought a 1938 house together in May 2020, and since then, they’ve renovated the property with their signature playful, eclectic style. You won’t find minimalism or run-of-the-mill decor choices in a single square inch of their property—especially not in their cozy breakfast nook, where they made a design decision that’s as bold and fun as it is replicable. Yep, we’re talking about wallpaper. It’s not just any wallpaper, though (would you expect it to be with this duo?...

How to Make Salsa The most popular types of salsas are pico de gallo, salsa fresca, and salsa cruda. These are chunky, uncooked sauces with a fresh tomato base. They are quick and easy to make and are at their best when tomatoes are in season. To make homemade salsa, combine the ingredients below in a bowl and serve, or cover and chill for up to three days. Essential Salsa Ingredients Peppers: When it comes to choosing the best peppers for salsa, it all depends on your preferred spice level....

How to Paint Striped Curtains Add pattern to your living spaces with our step-by-step tutorial for painting striped curtains. What You’ll Need Drop clothSolid lined curtain panelTape measurePencilThick painters tapeSpray bottle with waterPaintbrushChalk-finish paint Step 1: Prep Curtains Start with a solid, lined curtain panel. If needed, iron out any wrinkles before painting curtains. Lay the panel over a drop cloth on a flat surface. Step 2: Measure Stripes Measure your desired stripe widths and mark with a pencil....

Finish Most of today’s popular kitchen flooring finishes are suitable for kitchens. Clear water-base finishes are often best because they retain the wood’s color and can be easily touched up or re-coated. The strongest water-base finish is a factory-applied, acrylic-impregnated finish that permeates the wood instead of just coating the surface. Acrylic-impregnated floors are more expensive, but are a more durable kitchen flooring option and require less upkeep. Oil-base finishes often fade to an amber color over time, making future touch-ups difficult—a disadvantage in a high-traffic room such as the kitchen....

Puddling Another style for drapes is extra-long panels with inches of fabric “puddling” on the floor, creating a ball-gown effect. This can be an elegant look for fabrics with the right weight and weave, such as synthetics and silks. Stiff fabrics, such as cotton and linen, or any kind of lined panels, won’t flow gracefully onto the floor. If you like the puddling effect, buy these drapes from a store or online at the 96-inch length but mount the rod between 84 and 90 inches high to give you extra fabric to play with at the floor level....

Whether it’s a summer-blooming variety with large, showy blooms, or a fall-blooming type of clematis with hundreds of smaller flowers, these vines make a stunning statement. The most common clematis are the open-face blooms that reach as large as 7 inches across. Blooms also come in small, bell-shaped blossoms with outer petals that dangle like little lanterns. Some blooms have a pleasant fragrance. The swirling masses of fluffy seeds add textural interest, too....

Step 1: How to Clean a Pineapple No need for a special pineapple cleaner. Tap water and a produce brush will do the trick. Simply hold the fruit under the faucet while thoroughly scrubbing the skin. What’s the point since you’re just going to peel it? When you plunge a knife into the fruit, anything on the skin will be transferred to the flesh. Step 2: How to Cut a Pineapple Use a knife to cut off the green crown and stem end of the pineapple....

Whichever coffee stain removal method you choose, it’s important that you don’t place the garment in the dryer until the stain is completely gone. Machine-drying the item while a coffee mark is still visible can set the stain and make it nearly impossible to remove. As with most fabric stains, it’s also best to act quickly when treating coffee stains on clothing. If the spill just happened, immediately remove the garment and flush the fabric with cold water through the back of the fabric....

Getting Started Tub and shower faucets work much like sink faucets, but they are oriented horizontally rather than vertically and their parts are usually larger. A two-handle stem shower faucet has a stem with a washer that presses against a seat to seal off water. A three-handle unit adds a stemlike diverter to direct water up to the shower or down to the tub spout. Getting the parts Often leaks can be fixed simply by replacing the washers....

Garden Pests That Eat Hostas Before you declare war on slugs, confirm they’re the ones making holes in your hosta leaves. Besides hail, cutworms could also be the culprits; their signature is chewing the soft parts of the leaves and avoiding the veins. Slugs will munch anywhere on the leaves, right through the veins. Deer and rabbits will eat hostas, too, but they don’t leave holes behind. Instead, you’ll likely see bare stems with maybe a ragged piece of leaf left behind....

How to Substitute Chocolate for Cocoa Powder Your best bet when using chocolate instead of cocoa powder is going to be unsweetened chocolate ($4, Target) since all other chocolates will have sugar and hence take more adjusting to work in your recipe. In general, a 1-ounce piece of unsweetened chocolate can replace 3 Tbsp. cocoa. Though because your chocolate piece will have oil in it, you might want to try leaving out some of the oil; take out 1 Tbsp....

So what exactly are the benefits of swapping your linens for the season? The first and most obvious reason to change bedding when the weather starts to cool down is for warmth. A heavier duvet or comforter or even a heavier cover can keep you perfectly warm and toasty all season long. Throw blankets, coverlets, and quilts also provide beneficial layering that allows for more customized temperature control. And when it comes to aesthetics, the arrival of cold weather is also an excuse to redecorate....

Before you begin, make any needed repairs to the window and its frame. Once complete, the first step to weather-seal windows is to caulk, especially on the exterior. Also, check that the glazing putty on the outside is free of gaps and seals tightly against the window. Where glazing is failing, scrape it out and apply new glazing. On the inside, see that the joint between the glass and the sash is sealed with paint....

Sandwich Wrap Papers Once your sandwich is made, you’ll need to determine what to use to wrap your sandwich. Wax paper sandwich wraps are a classic tool (parchment paper works, too), but as sustainability becomes ever more important, reusable sandwich wraps are becoming easier to find. Beeswax sandwich wraps are one reusable option to buy, or you can make your own. They work great here as they are naturally tacky so they seal tightly around your sandwich....

How to Make Ice Cream Soda Floats Sweet soda floats are a welcome treat on the hottest summer days. Be creative and experiment with a variety of ice cream float combinations! No matter what soda or ice cream you choose, follow these steps to make refreshing floats for your family, your friends, and yourself: How to Serve Ice Cream Floats There’s no right or wrong way to enjoy an ice cream soda, but we do have a few tips for sprucing up your treat....

Amongst being an avid television host and renowned chef, Pépin has over 20 cookbooks that focus on technique and his passion for French cuisine. He is also the former owner of La Potagerie. Pépin has expanded his love for culinary arts into teaching and spending time around his foundation, the Jacques Pépin Foundation, which supports free culinary and life skills training through various community organizations.