Sydney's Room and the city I'm meant to live in.

When we were on spring break last month we stopped in Asheville, NC overnight. I LOVE IT THERE. I'm pretty sure it's my mecca.

The hills surrounding the city were so beautiful and the downtown was super cool. We dined at the Tupelo Honey Cafe. It was YUM.

We also went to the Biltmore Estate. I don't have a picture of that, which is pretty weird. The Biltmore was super cool. Cooler than I was expecting.

Anyway we had a fabulous vacation mostly spent at Folly Beach SC. Love that place too.

Ok so back in Tennessee we've been working on getting Sydney out of her toddler bed and finally got-er done.

I want to paint her room a darker color but since I just finished painting it this light blue color it'll have to stay for a while. I slept on that bed when I was a little girl. I was going to paint it a raspberry color but decided to leave it as is for now. the canopy thing is from ikea. Rug from lowes. Doll house bookshelf from target. Dresser underneath and green stool is ikea. Her toddler mattress is still on the floor so I can pull it out at night in case she falls out of bed. She hasn't fallen out yet but I just know it will happen as soon as I'm confident that it wont.

I'm in the process of adding picture and such to the walls now so I'll post more pics soon.

Spice Storage

When we were vacationing in March we stopped in Atlanta for a night so I could visit ikea. I love ikea.

Anywho, I finally purchased these ikea magnetic containers for my spices.

 I had purchased chalkboard contact paper from hobby lobby a few weeks before so I had all the makings for my project.

 I probably would have gone for a different shaped label but you can't beat the ease of using a punch. So 2" round scalloped edge it was.

I'll probably buy one of those chalkboard marker things the next time I have a hobby lobby coupon because I think it would make my writing neater. I probably could have tried harder with a regular piece of chalk too. 

Anyway, I love these things. I'm sure it's not the correct way to store spices as I picture spices needing to be out of direct light (maybe that is just the pharmacist in me) but I love that my measuring spoons fit right in and I don't end up dumping spice everywhere trying to get it out of the narrow bottles anymore.

Organize and Reorganize

I've spent the better part of today organizing drawers and cabinets. I love doing that. Well in theory I love doing that, doesn't explain why 90% of my house is an unorganized pile of junk...

Anyway... I did a furniture shuffle, bringing the TV stand out of our bedroom to use in the breakfast nook. It worked out perfectly!

Those baskets are from pottery barn and console is west elm.

So I'm using the baskets as a make shift pantry. One basket has all my cans of tomatoes and beans (lots of beans!). One basket has all my pastas and rice. And the last basket has cake mixes and extra condiments. There is also room for most of my cookbooks!

I was able to empty out 3/4 of one of my big upper kitchen cabinets and now my baking supplies have a nicer home. Love it!

Now I just have to find something to put my bedroom TV on now that it lost it's stand...

Random Shots of My Home

Happy Friday!

I had a clean home so I thought I'd take a few pictures. Well actually it was not very clean at all but the camera hides a lot!

I set up this little desk area here yesterday.

I have a craft room/ office but I never step foot in it except to get something and bring it out to this space to work on.

So I decided to set up a little place to work on things in the family area. It's not perfect but I gotta say, I really love it.

I'm liking the "use what you got" mentality these days.

 You can see our little kitchen nook. It's where we have all our meals. We have a formal dining room which is pointless for us. The chairs are West Elm. I really like them, they were around $78 a piece. The light over the table is a "warehouse pendant" I got at Home Depot for $24.99. It started out stainless but I painted it white.

 I love that PEZ picture by the desk. It's cut out of a calender I had from 2008. I still have most the pictures from that calender...

The little blue printer table is a Ikea look-a-like that I found at target several years ago. It has the heck beat out of it but it's still rocking! The desk is from Ikea and was around $36 for the tabletop and legs. The red frame is from a thrift store in Michigan. The mirror that came in it was broke which was a bummer but I painted it red and it makes a good frame for PEZ boy. By the way, that pez picture is hanging from an Ikea pants hanger (I know I'm stating the obvious here), which is great because I can easily change it out for another picture when I get sick of it. I'm like that, it's kind of like with purses, gotta change 'em out monthly! I also change my wallet a lot too...then I can't find my Sam's Club card and I'm all pissed off, what did I do with that thing...seriously.

 This poor old green chair below is now the home for my geriatric dog, Josie. She is such a sweetie. I had to take the legs off the chair so she could still get in it. She has hip dysplasia and has problems getting up on things. She looks kind of depressed here but I swear she is still a happy camper!

 Kitchen nook again. Rug from Lowes. Allen and Roth brand $96.

That table was initially a desk my mother bought and stained for me 20 years ago. It's cool to still be using it. I kind of want a round pedestal table here and move the table to the desk area (where that cheap Ikea table is now.) I've been keeping an eye on craigslist for the right table. Looks like I should be able to find one easily enough just have to pull the trigger. 

Anyway have a great weekend!
OH yeah, since I always want to know paint colors, I should probably share with you.
 Here goes:
Kitchen: Behr Subtle Touch
Dining Nook and Family Room (Desk Area): Behr Gentle Rain
They read a little blue in the pictures but they really are pretty gray in real life.
The kitchen color looks the same as the rest in the pictures, I'm sure, but it is just one shade lighter on the swatch than the Gentle Rain. It is a little too light for me and I will probably repaint it the Gentle Rain color, which I love, eventually...when I finish painting other areas in the house...which means it won't ever get repainted...

Kitchen Progress

When we moved into our house it was "The Land of the Leaves"

Every Lighting Fixture...Leaves.

Every Cabinet Door Knob...Leaves

Ceiling Fans... Leaves

Walls...Leafy Green.

We are slowly but surely remove the offending leaves. 

Now to be fair the people who lived here when we bought the house had very traditional furnishings and the house looked great with their stuff in it. I'm not a traditional girl. I don't know for sure what I am but it's not traditional.

I'd fancy my style is retro/ urban/ cottage. 

That's probably not right but sounds cool to me.

Anyway my kitchen is one of the first things I've taken on.

Here is a before:

Here is another view of the leafy light fixture:

Here are some other shots of the kitchen and a close up of the leaves:

After we moved in our 3 first projects were

1. replace leafy bathroom-like light from the ceiling and install simple pendant

2. remove leafy door hardware and replace with simple polished nickel hardware.

3. Replace non working white dishwasher with new stainless working dishwasher. We tried to be frugal with the dishwasher since we still aren't sure how long we will stay in the area. We found a really well rated whirlpool for $400ish dollars. Perfect.

Then it looked like this:

It stayed this way for a month or so. Somewhere in there we redid the island. See this post to read all about the island.

Then one day while my husband was at work I decided this one cabinet had to come down...like right now. So I removed it and then worried about what husband would say.

He was fine...he puts up with a lot.

Cabinet Down:

After the cabinet was removed I painted the walls Subtle Touch by Behr.

It's a very pale grey. I might repaint it at some point because the shade isn't quite right to me. 

The next shade darker on the spectrum is Gentle Rain. I painted the breakfast nook and family room that color and I like it better but it will have to wait.

We installed floating shelves.

We also removed the chair rail because it was too traditional for me.

Here is the look now:

 I love my open shelves. My picture doesn't show it full because some of the dishes are in the dish washer.

Anyway I'll post a picture the next time all the dishes are clean and set up pretty.

The shelves are kind of temporary. I already had them and didn't want to buy something new while I decided whether I liked open shelves or not.

So mark installed them with special attention to hitting studs (they are just Lowes floating shelves) so they would hold some weight.

Now that I know I like it (a lot) I'll probably replace them with something with wood brackets.

We saved that cabinet I took down. In case we change our minds or move it can be easily reinstalled.

I haven't painted the main cabinets yet. Even though they picture ok, they are in pretty rough shape. See here for more on that.

I'll probably repaint them white but Benjamin Moore Fieldstone also speaks to me.

We still want new counters. They are now the very cheap white laminate. Even though I think it looks ok in pictures, in real life I don't like it one bit.

So there you have it.

Obviously that is not pictures of the whole kitchen.

My kitchen is rarely completely clean. I promise future pictures of the whole thing.

Making Bread

I made bread this week.

With the yeast and the kneading.

It got a little dark on top but I was pretty darn pleased with myself.

I'm definitely going to try again.

Recipe from here.

No Bake Energy Bites

I found this recipe on pinterest a few weeks ago and finally tried them.

They contain ground flax which seemed entirely to healthy to be good.

The chocolate chips and coconut and peanut butter made them yum.

My picture may or may not look kind of gross but if you click the link her pictures are much more appetizing!

Burlap Frame Fix-up

Started with a yellowed matte. 

It originally had this picture in it. It was from my first house over a decade ago.  It's weird to me that I was old enough to own a house 11 years ago. College still seems like it was 5 years ago, but no actually it was 12. Weird. Getting older is beginning to be a bummer.

Anyway back to the project...this is that Pates Baroni pic I remember fondly:

Cut burlap to size:

Stuck Burlap to front of matte with spray adhesive:

Cut and taped, all fancy like on back of matte 

 Added page from old atlas of Kalamazoo, MI (my old home):

I'm thinking I'm spelling Matte wrong...

Decade old picture made new for free.

Well not really free because I did buy the stuff initially but you know what I mean.

I was initially going to use the map as the matte but the sizing was all wrong. I like the way it turned out.

And the Map contains my first three towns (as an adult). Kalamazoo, Portage and Plainwell which is pretty neat.

Breakfast Crescent Casserole

 My mom makes a breakfast egg casserole that is awesome.

We have it every year on Christmas morning.

This isn't it.

It was still yum though.

because everyone wants to see pictures of raw egg.

Someone desperately needs a photography class. 

Ingredients:

1 tube crescent rolls

6 eggs 

Hot Breakfast Sausage (if you are a spicy food lover like me otherwise regular sausage would work)

1/2 cup half and half (I can't believe I actually had some)

1&1/2 cups of shredded cheese (I used a combo of mozzarella and cheddar)

dry mustard 

To Make:

preheat oven to 350 F

unroll crescent rolls in bottom of 9x13 pan (sprayed with pam)

Squeeze crescent roll seams together to get rid of holes (not sure it really mattered)

Brown breakfast sausage, drain and sprinkle evenly on top of crescent rolls.

Beat egg and half&half in a medium bowl

Add a sprinkle of dry mustard to egg mixture 

Pour egg mixture over the sausage

Layer cheese on top

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Dump Cholula hot sauce on your portion and eat up. 

If you don't like Cholula I'm sad for you, but it's still good without.

$1.99 at goodwill to dress up my open shelves = fabulous.

So lately I've been hitting up my local goodwill about once weekly.

I drop off the rugrat at preschool on monday and head on over.

Goodwill is one of those places that I always love in theory but then I get there and feel like a snob.

It grosses me out.

Or I should say it used to gross me out, but I've visited about 4 or 6 weeks in a row and found a treasure every time.

So I guess I'm not a snob after all... but I do want to wash my hands in bleach after I leave... so now I'm confused.

 This weeks treasure (well actually 2 weeks ago but I just got the pics of my camera today)

 Doesn't it make my corelle bowls look super fancy?

Yes it freaking does.

So anyway it was $1.99 and that same day I also found a "Frank Lloyd Wright" style mug (it says so right on the bottom) for $0.59. It's pretty.

I like Franks Lloyd Wright's design but I watched a show somewhere that said he was a jack ass of a father and husband. That detracts from my warm fuzzy feelings for him and his architecture.

Anyway Have a Great Day!

Crusty Drawer Bottoms

Someone who lived here once upon a time lovingly lined all the drawers with that gripper drawer liner.

Then someone (same someone or different someone) removed it several years later and installed ugly wallpaper.

Then someone removed most of that.

Except the one drawer which I took a picture of. BTW the wallpaper in that drawer is the same wallpaper that's in my daughters bathroom....yup.

So these drawers were gross.

Sticky adhesive left behind and crumbs stuck to the sticky adhesive.....

 I really tried to clean off that raised adhesive but after several minutes on one drawer with little success I gave up. I just wash them out. Then I pondered and pondered and realized I had a roll of laminated cloth in my craft room.  

So I measured and cut and measured and cut and on like that for 10 drawers and here's a sample of the finished product:

That's better.

Kitchen in the New House

So the kitchen in this new place of mine doesn't quite meet my standards. 

The Cabinets are Thermafoil, which means they are MDF Shrink wrapped in plastic.

Probably looked OK when they were first installed. I use the term OK loosely. Now they are a peeling mess. All of the lower cabinets and drawers are peeling like crazy.

Here is a close up now:

Peeling Laminate Cabinets (Thermafoil)

Someone did a little tape job on the one on the left.

I noticed they were in rough shape on our  second walk through before we put in an offer.

I didn't care at the time.

And then I cared... A LOT.

First idea was to replace the doors. 

I started searching online and saw where that plastic coating can be peeled off these babies and after a nice paint job they look hugely better.

I like not buying new doors.

I started with the island because I wasn't ready to start the WHOLE kitchen right now.

The island can look different than the rest of the cabinets cuz well... it's cool to have your island look different...right?

So  I peeled: 

 It was actually really easy.

I sanded and primed and painted.

My husband and I added some trim to the island to make it look more.....fancy.

Paint color is Sherwin Williams: Tricorn Black

Hardware is from Target

Don't mind the dirty countertop. I never fully prepare for pictures!

So there you have it. Makes me happy to be giving this place some TLC.

It's had 4 owners (5 counting us) in 11 years and has just gotten beat up in that time. 

No new paint or fixtures or anything in that time because people have gone in and out of here through the (invisible) revolving door.

Now we may not be here for a long time either but it will be in better condition when we leave than when we arrived. Houses deserve to be loved...and all that  mushy stuff.

Exterior Shot of the New Abode

So this is the house we intend to purchase in Tennessee.

Mark is down there at the home inspection right now.

Hopefully it goes well.

We decided to down size a little. 

This baby meets all our needs but is 700 square feet smaller and 90,000 dollars cheaper than our current MI house. That's more money to spend on Vacations and Purses.

Our MI house is 3600 Finished square feet which, for us, is way too big. We never step foot into 1000 sq ft of it. Why own it and pay for it if you don't use it, right?

Speaking of the Michigan house, we got any offer on it approximately 12 hours after listing it.

I'm so pleased and shocked that I have nothing else to say about that.

I'm Patting Myself on the Back Today.

This weekend I decided I would dust off the ol' sewing machine.

I haven't sewed anything in 4 years.

It was time.

I went through all my fabric...there is not a lot to go through.

And found this Zinnia Fabric: 

and I also found this Pillow case from an old queen sheet set: 

 Then I went searching for a pillow in need of a makeover.

I found a 26" x 16" pillow.

I had a pillow cover for it once but I can't find that cover anymore and I didn't like it anymore anyway.

So my plan was to use the Zinnia fabric on the front and use the polka dot fabric on the back.

If you are wondering why my headboard has a doorknob see here.

 So because I can't sew well (yet) I decided to use the finished end of the pillow slip as a sleeve like thing so the pillow can be slid in and out.

Maybe you can see it here in this picture...I hope:

 So I cut the two fabrics into 28" x 18" rectangles.

I had one hell of a time figuring out how to cut my fabric straight. It kept going up a hill. so I got online and found some you tube videos that helped a lot.

Pinned and Sewed around the edges.

I was incredibly happy to get this done and have it be a success.

My back hurt when I was done...is that normal?
Also I'm sure my husband is so happy to have one more pillow on the bed!