Get Ready With Me! Cleaning and Preparing My Home for a PIANO CONCERT!

Hello everyone. Thank you for joining me again. On Saturday, my friend Vicki and I are performing a two piano recycle here at the house. Today, I need to buy refreshments that I can serve at the event. I also need to arrange seating and buy and arrange some flowers for the room. My goal is to create a cozy but elegant atmosphere for guests, somewhat akin to a 19th century salon concert. And the first thing we need to do is go shopping for the refreshments. So come take a drive with me. We will visit three grocery stores today and one flower shop. I need to buy finger food that I can serve either before or after the piano performance. And I will need flowers for the table on which the food will be placed. Since the recital is at 4 pm, which is close enough to the cocktail hour, I will offer cocktail snacks like charcuterie, homemade parsley hummus with veggies, and meatballs with some kind of dipping sauce. At Aldi, I'm buying crackers, salami, prosciutto, brie, chowder, and cheddar for the charcuterie board. I will also purchase at Aldi the chickpeas and olive oil for the parsley hummus. Our next stop is ShopRite. Here, I will purchase colorful peppers that I can cut into wedges and serve alongside the hummus. I also need scallions or green onions for the hummus and some smoked paprika. Because I'm one of the performers as well as the host, I've decided to give myself grace on recital day. For the first time in my life, I will serve store-bought meatballs. This way, I won't be saddled with a cooking project on recital day. Parsley hummus requires excellent fresh parsley, so our next stop is the Berry Farm. The farm grows parsley and other herbs the year round in heated greenhouses. Our final stop is Chatham Flowers. The reception will be held in my dining room, so you and I can make a simple flower arrangement for the dining table. Well, that was a lot of shopping. I need to put my groceries away, but first I need to put the flowers in some water, and then we will arrange them later. Here they are. In you go. So this is just a temporary holding location. As soon as I finish putting my groceries away, we're going to go into the dining room. I need to do some tidying up there. So before I can do the flower arrangement for this room, I need to clean up my Christmas decorations. We had a late Christmas dinner party last week, so I left the decorations up. It's time for them to go. My dining room Christmas decorations are mostly greens from my garden. As you can imagine, the greens are totally dry now. It will take a bit of work to clean up the debris, but I don't mind. Cleaning is great exercise. While I go about tidying this room, I want to take a moment to thank you for being a part of my life. Because of you, I'm able to do the things I love to do. Your support and companionship mean the world to me. I'm using the white green cloth to clean this 19th century mirror. The cloth uses only water, and it cleans and polishes without streaking. I will use the same cloth to dust the sideboard, the mantle, and the dining table. I can link all of the cleaning equipment I'm using in the description below if you are interested. This cordless vacuum cleaner is my new best friend. I don't know how I managed without it. Since no one will be sitting at my dining table during the reception, I will keep the dining chairs positioned against the wall. Well, now that the dining room is beautified, we can start working on a centerpiece for the dining table. So, if I didn't mention it in the voiceover, my plan is to serve food at the dining table and drinks at the sidebar in the dining room. I can leave this off for right now. I have my thoroughly soaked floral foam here. Put you guys away. I selected these greens to hide the hardware around the arrangement. Please keep in mind that I have no idea what I am doing. I'm just having fun. Kevin Lee Jacobs, fun with flowers. This is yellow alstroemeria, pink alstroemeria, white chrysanthemum. I'm going to save the rest of this filler flower for another arrangement. I think this looks pretty good as it is. Let's see what it looks like in the dining room. Now, before I put the flowers down, put a runner down, and then I'm not sure. Maybe for the concert, I will put a green tablecloth on. I'm not sure. Actually, I'm not loving this runner. Here's the plan. I will do charcuterie over here, and I can do my hummus and vegetables over here. I need one more platter. I can do the meatballs with the marinara dipping sauce over here. Of course, I will have napkins and all of that on the table as well. Then I'm going to set up a drink station on the sidebar over here. I have my glassware down, some wine. Now, I will chill the white wine, of course, before serving it. Then I will add some seltzer, and I will also have lime and lemon wedges available on this sideboard. I will also offer gin and vodka, and I have both of those spirits in my freezer right now. The last project I need to do today, besides practice piano, is to move some furniture in the music room. I want to move this table over to the corner. This is a very heavy table. Fortunately, it rolls. I need seating for 12 people for this first concert, so I can fit four people on this gold sofa here, and two people on these blue chairs. There's seven, there's eight, nine, ten. Although my music room can accommodate 40 people if I use folding chairs, I really don't want the room to feel like an auditorium. Consequently, Vicki and I will perform three of these recitals over the coming weeks, and invite just 12 people to each one. As I mentioned earlier, I'm going for a cozy, elegant atmosphere, similar to a 19th century salon concert. Comfort for both me and the guests is paramount. Let me double check. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. My friends, we have seating for 12 people, and of course, Vicki and I will be seated at our pianos. I should mention that Terry Flynn from Flynn Pianos stopped by the other day to remove the lid from one of the two pianos. I will explain the reason for this in just a moment. If you are wondering why I removed the lid from this Steinway, the answer is because when the lid is open, the sound is directed towards the wall. I want the sound to be out in the room. And of course, with the other piano, when its lid is open, the sound is directed to the room. And speaking of pianos, someone needs to practice his 50% of this two-piano recital. But before I get to work, I want to thank you for spending time with me today as we prepared this house for the recital. And in the next video, I will show you the food I prepared, and I will also show you some of the recital. And I can't wait to see you next time. Bye for now, friends.