I just read the most recent WIRED magazine. It says some pretty interesting things about our assumptions about what's good for the environment. Given the fact that I'm going to Palm Springs this weekend, I was relieved, for instance, to see that A/C is not nearly as bad as heating.

Anyway, apparently it's far better to buy a used car than it is to drive a new Prius. Which is no surprise to Scrappy Girl, here, who's obsession with vintage things has made her inadvertently green since she played dress up with her mom's dead-already, ermine-tail-adorned ballgown.

But WIRED's piece did a good job of shaking me up, because now I feel guilty about the idea of buying new appliances when my old ones work perfectly fine.

Take this Tappan stove. That's my (dirty) stove. Maybe I should just keep it. The fridge leaks water out the bottom and is too big, so I feel okay about sending it to pasture, but a quick perusal of Craigslist turned up a Tappan stove just like the one I have. Ought I to keep it? I mean, clean it and keep it?

Pictured above (in a gorgeous mobile phone picture) is garbage. Well, domino magazine in a recycling bag. Last night was trash night, and walking down Smith Street my dinner companion saw me sniffing around the trash like a dog looking for a place to lift my leg. But a few pokes around the piles had me feeling like Yukon Cornelius in Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. There was *nuthin'* good in Cobble Hill's trash last night.

But the recycled domino got me thinking about trash and recycling. When I lived with my ex, it was his job to take care of all that. Default boy chore, I call it. I still have the huge green recycling bins and ugly plastic trash bins that were his signature pieces. They've got to be replaced. (Straw man, anyone?)

Where in my new kitchen will the trash go? What about the recycling? Anybody have opinions about a) where to keep the trash and 2) [sic] pretty containers?

Call me hasty, and you wouldn't be too off target. I went and bought my sink and cabinets without letting kitchen designer Susan Serra know I had decided to do so. And without my elevation drawings done. But I did it because I had momentum and I'm worried about losing it. Imagine that.

Anyway, I got to thinking this morning that I needed to get up the nerve to let Susan know what I'd done. This is my passive aggressive way of doing it.

Um , Susan, what's an elevation drawing? Anyone?

I took the plunge. Bought the following at IKEA this weekend:

Domsjo single sink
Akurum under-cabinet
12-inch side cabinet with pull-out shelves
Adel doors in white
Toe kick
Beech butcher block top

Here's what I forgot and so therefore get to mull over a bit more:

faucet
door hardware

One thing I discovered: that curvy-femme Edsvik faucet doesn't turn from side to side. Hate that. Does anyone know of a faucet that is curved liked that which actually turns side to side?

Got home today and discovered about twenty of these little bee fellows in my house. Who are they and how did they get here? And what should I serve them for breakfast?

fisheggs from Flickr posted this. Still no shots of the single sink. Which is making me nervous. Should I be nervous?

Got this from Jillian Frances off Flickr.

And another from dalbrough on HGTV:

Still looking for images of the single sink with a square-ish faucet. Let me know if you find anything.

Remember Amy Shearn? You met her last October when she guest blogged for me while I was away. She still works here, but now she's gone and written a novel that's coming out in July: How Far is the Ocean from Here.

Lest you think this is just a shameless plug for you to buy the book (though you should because I've read it and it's amazing and features a young surrogate mother to be), let me tell you a quick story.

Amy sent over a link to her book website the other day. I was like, yeah, yeah, you wrote a book, that's great, I'm jealous, wait a minute, you have a collage blog called Cloud Train? She does. And look at these things. I saw the collage above and I was like, dude, you've been writing too many furniture slide shows, this job is making you a freak. Her: I was a freak when I got here.

You be the judge, but keep in mind she'll be reading your comments...

In the right corner we have the Edsvik.

In the left corner we have the Loviken.

I once went to a full-day brunch party at a French professor's farm in Iowa. Although I'd lived in Iowa at that point for about three years, I wasn't prepared for the goat trying to attack me or the gorgeous spread of food on her dining room table.

By the time my friend Nicholas and I arrived, the French graduate students had been drinking and eating for hours, so the place had the air of a great Dutch still life painting with golden sunlight falling at a low angle across half-eaten loaves of bread, fois gras, cheese and roast chickens. When I think "farm table", I think of that day.

Naturally, I've always wanted me one of those farm tables. So when Isaac and I were walking around the Brooklyn waterfront on Saturday, this driftwood caught my eye. What's preventing me from rescuing some of that wood and making a table?

Remember how I don't like foofy things? When Susan mentioned a skirt on the kitchen sink I was suspicious. But then my trusty coworker, Amy Shearn, the lady who writes most of the clever stuff on this site, pointed out that the lovely Lili Diallo has a skirt beneath her sink and it ain't foofy. Ya see?

It might actually be genius to do this in my house since the cabinets I get won't match the built ins...

What'dya think?

It's sunny outside and the light is streaming into the kitchen. I'm not alone. I'm cooking for someone. Or maybe a few people. We are about to eat French food or something healthy. Maybe it's onion tart. And I made the crust. Or else soup, and I saved all the vegetable ends and made my own stock. And remembered to use it before it got frostbitten.

There's music playing, but not too loud. It reminds me of being twenty-eight.

MORE IF YOU CLICK ON PINK LINK BELOW...

Okay, I'm getting the single Domsjo sink from Ikea. Now dealing with the cabinet issue. Just think how sad I am that I can't have the double one like Kate F does! Kate, where'd you get that cabinet?

Susan and I had this exchange. She said:

I'm thinking this...you have 43" for the sink. How about a 12" cabinet wtih roll out shelves and a 30" sink cabinet?

Was thinking of "different" like file cabinets with small drawers in one side of that spot, or a movable cart, this way you get ample storage space.

The 30" cabinet would be for the sink. The other smaller cabinet could be next to the wall or between the sink and the stove. The sink (usually around 24") could be positioned toward one side of the cabinet to give you more counter space, for example, if it's next to the wall.

I said:

Oh, duh, so I just need a minimum of 24 inches for my cabinet if I'm getting the Domsjo single sink. Now I get it. Do you think it's okay to mix IKEA sink and Home Depot cabinets? Do you think one's better than the other?

SUSAN'S SAGE ADVICE CONTINUED IF YOU FOLLOW THIS LINK.

Susan Serra's been raising a lot of interesting issues re: the kitchen renovation. And she did this drawing. Think you can click on that image to see it full size.

She said:

When I look at the picture toward the window, what I get is a long/narrow/confined feeling. What I want to feel is the room more squared off, more wide. To give that feeling, I thought of a bench, and this IKEA one has storage in it.

Then, you could get a white table, narrow...maybe only 28" wide. Like this (paint the legs white) or this one, which you don't have to paint the legs white.

You could put up a chair rail molding and paint some sort of raggy/stripey (in a horizontal) pattern which will continue to exploit square, rather than narrow. Just on that back wall.

I also get the feeling that when I go into this room, I want a payoff. The window isn't enough. And, the window is fine...it has brick behind it, which is warm, the black fire escape goes with the black trim across the way and the black window trim...all that coordinates well. But, the window needs assistance, it can't stand alone, doesn't do the job!

This could end up being a mini hang out place for you. If we pushed the bench/table closer to the wall, you could prop a few big pillows against the wall, put your feet up on the bench and relax with a book/magazine or laptop. Do a little work there...you have to visualize potential lifestyle scenarios, and just because you haven't thought of the kitchen in this way before, doesn't mean there are not awesome possibilities for another place in your apartment to go to when you feel like hanging out...in a different way! Having multiple relaxing/work/hang out options in your apartment is cool!

...and he left this pretty wallpaper strip hanging in the hallway. Any idea where he got it?

Guess who drinks Nescafe frappes whenever she gets a chance? Guess who made herself plain macaroni and arugula for dinner tonight? Guess who has a disaster in her kitchen right now? Not The Kitchen Designer, Susan Serra. Oh no siree, not Susan. My hero, my lifeline on a Saturday night.

Susan's going to whip me and the kitchen into shape in no time. Tonight she suggested a curtain for beneath the sink. I said I wanted country, quirky, retro style, but then I nixed the idea. But what do you guys think?

I finally got the shag into the living room. What do you think?

As I composed this picture, I realized suddenly that I really need a bigger lamp for the side of the couch near the window, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.

Tell that to the people that stuck me in AP Calculus in 12th grade...

Here's a closer (but apparently still imperfect) floorplan. At least I remembered where the door and the window are this time.

My mother keeps quotes taped to the refrigerator. One of them is supposedly from Goethe: Measure your cloth three times before you cut it. Or something like that. I must have read it a dozen times a day for ten years, but I still go and do things like pull up the tiles on the kitchen floor with no plan.

But, dear readers, you've urged me to measure and draw. And so I have. Here, on lined paper, on the back of my calculations for how much the new sink is going to cost, is my kitchen layout. Susan Serra, Kitchen Designer extraordinaire (remember her retro kitchen gallery on her blog?) is going to help. Phew.

Note the sink next to the stove. I hate that, but there's not much I can do about, is there?

Isaac's been trying to get me to think about a hack that would look more retro than a regular old IKEA cabinet. But I think I kind of like this one. Seems like a little butcher block on either side would be nice, or at least on the left between the sink and stove would be nice. Is this the right color for cabinets if the rest of mine are white? Or should I just get white laminate ones?

I swear I saw this cabinet somewhere but now all I can find on the IKEA site is this double cabinet. Hmmm.