Housing

If You Can’t Take the Heat …

Cooking & Baking, Home and Renovation

Put down the power tools.

Ahhhhh … finally! Dodging and stalled by illness, gigantic operations, side effects, and general ennui, Phase One is happening in April and May — reno of the “cooking side” of the kitchen. (The “washing side” will come later.)

A corner of the living room is already piling up with big boxes full of ovens, induction burners, storage, new pans, wall-mount stuff, an exhaust fan, and yes, restaurant-style stainless steel prep tables and shelves.

This weekend, the gross cabinets and broken hood are coming off the back wall, and the old range is going to the boneyard. There will be some plastering to do as well. While we are on vacation in May, our next-door-neighbor contractor is pulling down the plaster and lath ceiling. This will leave us with big giant 1840s rough beams, plus a foot-and-a-half more ceiling height!

I’m following an interesting trend — no conventional range. I’ve noticed it in a few new-build apartments and tiny houses several times. Have you noticed a lot of our appliances are turning into countertop units — air fryers, instant pots, et al?

So we’re going with all-countertop. The oven will be a convection unit, but it can handle a moderate turkey. It’s also an air fryer, steam oven, programmable several ways, blah blah. For the stove, we’re going with induction burners.

3

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I could’ve gotten a unit with four, but it’s rare we use more than one burner at a time, and extremely rare that we use more than two. (We most often use the oven.) I figured why waste space. The gas line for the range will be turned off, capped, and left in place in case the next folks want to do something differently.

Here’s a picture of what it looks like now (I know… It’s disgusting and mid-construction besides), and a pic of what it will look like after this first phase is done. (Although the restaurant prep table I bought is wider, and I decided to go without wheels.) I call it “Industrial Cottage Chic,” but really, it’s just my style.

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The People’s Republic of Artemis Close

News & Views

Is that a good name for a lunar colony? Or, “The Second Generation Lunar Cooperative Introvert Society and Conservatory Band.” I’d like to live there. I’ll be the resident piano person and orchestra maestro. Are we able to synthesize water? That’ll be important.

Forty years ago, they said that removing salt from seawater for public consumption was too expensive and not sustainable; but now coastal cities are doing just that through reverse osmosis.

It seems like we should be able to just “make” water. I’d imagine the process being something like blowing micro-misted hydrogen at oxygen gas at a particular temperature in a pressurized vacuum. (That’s a total guess — I’ll look it up at the end of the post. If I got it right, I’ll throw a water synthesis party in Watertown at a water park.)

A reverse-osmosis plant.

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This is the sort of thing that I would’ve done as a science fair project in middle school and gotten in way over my head.

I wonder if a small, completely closed economy made up of vetted moon residents could be sustainable. Two-thousand seems like a good number — 1200 working-age adults, 500 children, 300 seniors. Just enough people that you’d know everyone without having to know everyone. Certainly, people would need things to do; and there are things that would need done. So that takes care of jobs.

An artists’ rendering from ICON Technologies -New York Times

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I suppose what I’m talking about is essentially a lunar self-sufficient combination of a Home Owners Association and a grocery Co-Op. hardware and home items can be ordered. I imagine a currency-less society.

Every time a version of this has been attempted in the past, money and ego has brought it down. So, let’s go money-less. We should still have stores and things like that, because that’s good socially; but you wouldn’t pay for anything. Just do your job and take what you need. Abuses can be addressed by the community. I’d imagine that a weekly meeting in which grievances can be discussed would be a component.

This is all in the works, in fact. NASA plans to have habitable human space on the Moon by 2040. This is not a flying-cars-by-the-year-2000 thing — it’s very real. Three moon landing missions are planned for this decade, and NASA has partnered with a construction technology companies (to the tune of $60 million).

There was a terrific article last weekend in the New York Times about NASA’s plans. Alas, I’ll be turning eighty in the 2040s — probably not a good time for a major relocation.

After looking it up — I was right! But you don’t need the pressurized vacuum. Yes, believe it or not, it really is that easy to synthesize water. However, there’s heat and an explosion involved. That’s kind of a problem. The Hindenburg is an example of what happens when a large amounts of hydrogen and oxygen tango together.

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