2012 January |

New Kitchen

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Amy

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When Terry was here visiting me recently she encouraged me to go ahead show some more pictures of my new kitchen. Though I consider it still “not done” (I am working on a backsplash, curtains and built-in seating) here it is as it currently stands. If you are new to Magnolia Lane, you can read more about our new home HERE. We built this home in the shortest time frame ever–(3 months from foundation to move-in, our builder was amazing)–so I was very limited in how I was able to customize my kitchen and had to make decisions very quickly. For comparison purposes, this is a picture of a home in our neighborhood with the standard floorplan. Its beautiful, but we don’t get a lot of natural light in our home so I went with as much white in the kitchen as I could, which is my taste anyway. As you can tell, this kitchen has more elements of the traditional “builder” kitchen. In our home, I totally reconfigured our appliances and passed on getting double ovens for two reasons: 1) I really don’t “bake” very much, and 2) we just couldn’t give up the counter/storage space. By using the credit in $ from the cost of two ovens, I was able to get a much nicer range. After much thought and research, I chose a Kenmore Elite 36″ range and I absolutely love it. I did consider –very seriously– a Viking as well as some other premium commercial ranges but after reading about repair issues, costs and wait times I decided to go with a more mainstream brand. It cooks like a dream, I highly recommend it and the bonus was the slightly lower price-tag. Much to my husband’s dismay I had the microwave built-in to our lower counter. This is apparently a horrible idea to anyone of the male species (he takes polls, and they all seem to agree), but I very much wanted it out of the line of sight (I wanted a clean line of cabinets looking into the kitchen from the family room). My husband has, by now, adjusted to it being lower then he would like, and it’s also a convection microwave to pitch in on the rare occasions when I actually need 2 ovens. I have already showed off my new built-in shelves HERE. And, as I mentioned I still need curtains on the large window and I am working on that. The ones I want are back-ordered at Ballard until April, so I may be DIY’ing some curtains here shortly as its very cold over by the window at this time of year. We also added the desk area at the end of the counter for homework and organizational space, having had a desk in the kitchen in my last home we knew we couldn’t live without it here. Pin It

Finally I plan to do a whole post on the pros and cons of marble countertops to share what I have now learned the hard way. We were lucky to able to upgrade from granite to Carrara marble with very little upcharge. I can say I absolutely LOVE how the counters look, and there isn’t anything else out there that is even similar in appearance. However, I will say they are as bad as you hear as far as scratching, maintenance and water stains.

If you are considering them PLEASE drop me a line here at Magnolia Lane and I will give you my thoughts on them. Its really like having fine furniture in your kitchen, I am fussy enough to deal with them but it is challenging and I am not sure would not get them again in my next home. (But don’t hold me to that!)

I will hopefully finish up the kitchen soon and be back with a final “reveal”. We are still deciding on the backsplash, I am leaning toward a marble subway tile. With the range hood we selected we have some challenges as to where to “stop” it, do we go to the ceiling? I am pinning backsplashes these days and there are some beautiful ones out there (follow me on Pinterest HERE). Its a tough call! Thoughts?

We do love this space. Terry’s new healthy cooking series is starting up in the next few days (don’t miss that). I am looking forward to cooking all her fabulous recipes right here!

{If you would like to see the updates I made this Spring click HERE}

PS Don’t forget to follow us with the new Linky Tools {button on the right sidebar} to easily stay up to date with Magnolia Lane!

Linking up to~

Weekend Bloggy Reading at Serenity Now

DIY by Design

Before & After Party at Thrifty Decor Chick

Chatty Chics

Not Just a Housewife

It All Started With Paint

Common Ground

Saavy Southern Style

The Shabby Creek Cottage

Jennifer Rizzo

Show Us Your Kitchens at Thrifty Decor Chick

Posted in General & About Us, Home Inspiration, Real Spaces | Tagged appliances, kitchen, marble counters, move, open shelving, white kitchen | 40 Comments

Easy Chalkboard Picture Frame & Vintage House Numbers Giveaway Winner!

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Christy

Happy Monday! Well, maybe not so much…things are pretty busy around my house, and I’ve been fighting off a cold all weekend. But, with a full week of homeschooling, swim team, karate, ballet, and piano, who has time to be sick?

Thanks to all of you who entered our giveaway for the awesome vintage house numbers from Ramsign. Thanks to Random.org, our winner is….drumroll please…#19 Christina! Please check your email. Many thanks to Ramsign for hosting such a fabulous giveaway–love those enamel signs!

And now, because I didn’t want to leave you without a little bit of fun, here’s a quick and easy project that you can complete in an hour or two. I’m getting ready to put a small desk in the master bedroom sitting area, and one thing I’ll have on that desk is my chalkboard to-do list.

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To make it, I just took a picture frame that I didn’t like much anymore (it probably would have wound up at Goodwill) and spray painted the frame white. Then I took the glass and sprayed it with a couple of coats of black chalkboard spray paint. Easy-peasy! The glass works just fine as a chalkboard surface, and now I can sit it on my desk rather than mounting it on the wall, although you could certainly do that if you preferred. I’ve seen this done with mirrors, too, and it works just as well. You just have to tape off the frame when you’re painting the glass, and vice versa.

Here’s the before:

And here’s the big pile o’ stuff that I’m collecting for my desk area. Some people are classy and use inspiration boards (or pinterest), but I just make a big pile in the middle of my room! Note that the chalkboard is in that mess, and now it’s got 1. Pray 2. Run 3. Blog on it (that’s about the right order for things, too).

Hang in there; one of these days I’ll have a reveal to show you in the sitting area!

Thanks for stopping by!

Posted in Before and After, giveaways, Organization, Projects & Printables | Tagged chalkboard, frame, giveaway, photo, spray paint | Leave a comment

Board and Batten Wall Treatment in the Kids’ Bathroom

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Christy

I’ve been hard at work on our master bath/bedroom/sitting area, but I’ve kind of stalled out on it. The painting is all done, and I love it–Benjamin Moore’s Pebble Beach–but until I get all the furniture arranged just the way I like it, and the bedding figured out, I can’t show you the final reveal. In the meantime, though, I wanted to share the board and batten treatment that I did in my kids’ bathroom. It was a very easy project, and I love that it added six hooks to my kids’ bathroom wall–they don’t use towel bars, after all!!

Here’s a quick before picture. Sorry that I already took off the switch plate on the light switch. It was just a boring wall, with one towel bar on it. What a waste of space!

There are so many board and batten tutorials out there in blogland that I won’t recreate the wheel here. I did use Centsational Girl’s post more than the other ones; you can check it out here.

**By the way, if you have tile in your room like I do, try to determine whether or not the baseboard was installed before or after the tile. My baseboards were put in before my tile, so when I removed the baseboards it was a NIGHTMARE. If I had known that, I would have left the baseboards in place and just dealt with it.**

I have a miter saw but not a table saw, so I took all my measurements to Home Depot, and had them cut everything for me. All of this was done before I had my nailgun birthday gift, and while it would have been way easier with the nail gun, this still wasn’t too bad.

Here’s a during picture, with the battens put up but not painted:

And here are some shots after I primed, painted two coats of semi-gloss latex, and added the hooks (and towels).

While I was at it, I decided to trim the HUGE mirror the builder glued above the double vanities (the one in my bathroom still has to come down, and hopefully I won’t cut myself to shreds doing it). Here’s the before of the mirror (sorry for the mess!):

I really liked how this turned out, and it was easy with my miter saw, some finish nails, and a little Gorilla glue!

I have a boy and a girl, and they share the bathroom, so we have to go with a color scheme that works for both genders. We chose “colorful” for our palette. Bright washcloths in a galvanized pail and flossers in a small apothecary jar mark the line between brother’s and sister’s sinks!

Let me give credit where credit’s due: here’s the link for the printable from TechnologyRocksSeriously.

I changed out the cabinet knobs and drawer pulls with this cheerful polka dot ones from Hobby Lobby; but I kept the old silver ones in case I need to change things back for resale one day.

And, yes, there’s still one thing to do…I have to patch the drywall on my daughter’s side of the sink, where I pulled out the medicine cabinet. There wasn’t enough room to trim the mirror and keep the medicine cabinet, so now there’s a hole! Always happy to show you my dirty laundry (as it were) here on Magnolia Lane!

I hope you’re coming along with your 2012 to-do list, too! You’ve got plenty of time.

**DON’T FORGET TO ENTER OUR CURRENT GIVEAWAY FOR VINTAGE ENAMEL HOUSE NUMBERS…CLICK HERE**

Thanks for stopping by.

Posted in Before and After, DIY, Home Inspiration, Real Spaces | Tagged Bathroom, board and batten, cottage, hooks, wall | 9 Comments

In the Kitchen at Magnolia Lane {New Series}

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Terry

One of my resolutions this year was to get more organized in the kitchen and to eat healthier. I have been toying around with the idea of planning a month of winter meals and decided it was time to try it. Knowing each and every day what I am going to make for breakfast, lunch and dinner has taken away so much stress, it has also saved us money and I have unintentionally lost a few pounds (who doesn’t want to lose weight without trying?)

Meal planning does take some time, especially if you plan out the entire month. While it takes me a few hours to write out a plan for 1 full month of meals as well as a weekly grocery list, I have basically earned all that time back now that I have each and every meal accounted for. I spend less time stressing about meals, spending money on last minute runs to the grocery store and I really have curbed some unhealthy eating habits (We have not gone through a drive through in a month!!)

So, I will be sharing my menus with Magnolia Lane readers in our new series “In the Kitchen at Magnolia Lane,” as well as weekly shopping lists, recipes and instructional videos. I hope that by sharing my meal plan I will take the stress out of everyday cooking, save you some money, and help you feel healthier than ever.

Most of the food I cook is low in carbohydrates, high in “good” fat and yummy. I don’t follow one specific diet plan and I am not saying that my way should be your way. I simply shop and eat low carb which seems to work for me and my family. I read a lot labels at the grocery store (more on this in my videos) and I also read quite a few Primal and Paleo cooking blogs. I do not consider my meal plan to be Primal, Paleo, Atkins and/or South Beach although elements of each are incorporated into my meal plan. I know the words “high-fat” must sound crazy but I assure you, they are all good fats and I have lost 7lbs without any extra focus!

I have also been cooking for my good friend and neighbor as she is interested in eating healthier and hoping to lose a few extra pounds. When I began my meal plan, I included her food as well. I cook breakfast, lunch and dinner 6 days a week for my dear friend who works long hours and is a single mom of two wonderful girls. Since January 2nd, she has lost 12 pounds and she has not missed carbs/sweets and she has not felt a need to over indulge (that is where all that good fat comes into play). She has been loving the meal plan and is losing weight without even hitting the gym. As much as I hate to say it… your diet is everything when you are trying to lose weight.

Today I am sharing one of my meals off the January Calendar. The way the system will work is that I will be repeating this menu again in March. In April I will share a “spring-inspired” menu that will carry us through the end of June. I will, of course, do the same for Summer and Fall. In order to shop smart and save money I always take advantage of weekly sales as well as seasonal produce.

So, here the first recipe to give you a preview:

*Cilantro Chicken Salad*

2 oven roasted chicken breast, shredded or diced
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 scallion, chopped
1/2 red pepper diced
1 lime zested and juiced
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1/4 teaspoon salt and pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon of cumin
pinch of chile powder
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 beefsteak tomatoes (optional)

To Roast Chicken:

Pre-set oven 350 degrees. Place chicken breast on baking sheet, coat with olive oil and a bit of salt and pepper. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Juices will run clear and chicken will be lightly browned.

Combine chicken, mayonnaise, scallions, lime zest and juice, and cilantro. Season to taste with salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, and chile powder to taste.

Core out the top of each tomato, remove the internal pulp and seeds. Fill with chicken salad and enjoy! Pictured are roasted sweet potato discs and steamed green beans.

(Inspired by skinnytaste.com)

{Click here on the cilantro chicken recipe to print a copy}

***Don’t forget to enter our current giveaway for Ramsign porcelain enamel house number sign. CLICK HERE to enter.***

Favorite Summer Recipe at Tatertots & Jello

Posted in In the Kitchen Series | Tagged Chicken, Cooking, Healthy Eating, In the Kitchen, Low-carb recipes, Paleo, Primal Eating, recipes | 4 Comments

Vintage House Numbers Giveaway & What’s Going On At Magnolia Lane

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Amy

We are thrilled to be hosting a giveaway for the European porcelain enamel sign company Ramsign. Wouldn’t one of these signs add that classically beautiful European feel to the outside of your home? Ramsign has been specializing in the manufacture of genuine hand-crafted signs since 1991.

The giveaway winner can choose any house number sign and add one to five digits of any size and design. Ramsign will make a custom sign and ship it directly to the winner. These signs are valued at $50 to $100 and one lucky Magnolia Lane reader will win one!

Here are the rules for the giveway:

1) You must be a follower of Magnolia Lane to Enter (mandatory) either by Google Friend Connect (the button is on the sidebar) or by email subscription.

2) To enter, visit www.ramsign.com and come back to this post and leave us a comment telling us which color or style sign you would pick.

3) For an additional entry, follow Magnolia Lane on Facebook. (leave a comment here telling us you are following on Facebook)

4) And for another additional entry, follow Magnolia Lane on Twitter.

5) For even one more chance to win, blog or facebook post about this giveaway and leave us a comment telling us you did so.

The giveaway will run until January 28th at midnight, and the winner (by random.org) will be announced on Monday, January 30th. (Make sure to leave an email where we can reach you.)

Good Luck!

Now…we have another very exciting announcement (or two). We are starting a new series by our favorite event guru, Terry, who is also a first-class culinary queen (and track star/tri-athlete can I mention?). Since January 1, Terry has been planning and organizing healthy menus for a “test” group of clients.

Starting February 1st, she will launch her month-long healthy eating plan here for our Magnolia Lane readers. It includes meal plans, recipes, shopping lists and healthy tips. She is on her way to visit me this weekend (yay!), and we have a very full weekend of cooking, planning, photographing and even videoing for this series. I can’t wait– I have seen the menus and they look SO delicious! This is a great chance to kick your New Year’s Resolutions into high gear by eating better and saving time and money. What could be better?

Finally, we have lots of other great stuff coming up. While our focus here often leads to our homes as so much of our lives are “in” them, Magnolia Lane as a blog actually began as a showcase for the events Terry & I worked on together (prior to my move to a different area). And, as we wanted to showcase Christy’s talent in her beautiful homes, the Blog bloomed into our collaboration of our various ideas and projects.

This spring, while of course we will continue along our same themes, we also hope to focus at times on simple and stress-free entertaining. We would love to feature (or have guests post) about your events in addition to those we are having. See this post HERE for more information or email us at 11magnolialane@gmail.com if you have a party or event you want to show-off.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! Terry & I will be here in the kitchen working hard on our new series, so check back mid-week for more information.

And, a big thank you to Ramsign for allowing us to host their giveaway. Don’t forget to enter!

XO,

Posted in Entertaining, General & About Us, giveaways | Tagged Cooking, entertaining, event, giveaway, Healthy Eating, sign, submit event | 30 Comments

Kitchen Progress {Open Shelving}

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Amy

I am pleased to report that I have made progress with my kitchen per my “home goals” this year (Read about all of our ambitions HERE). Over the last week, I managed to paint and install the open shelving in my kitchen.

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Here is a “before” of the wall space:

These were very easy to make. I had been considering Ballard Designs Cafe Shelving for this space, but realized I could make similar ones fairly easily. I used corbels from Home Depot and {get this} the shelves are actually stair steps–which are available right across from the corbels, so easy.

I thought the stair boards would be too long but figured I could cut them down. However, once they were up on my wall they turned out to be perfect at 48 inches across. I really liked the rounded front. Isn’t it nice when things work out so well?

{Here is an in progress-lots of leveling}

I am still tweaking the items up for display, but like how simple they are right now.

The best part? My husband, who is rarely in favor of my taking a hammer and nails to {our brand new} walls gave me high praise. He told me they looked like they came with the kitchen, I was pleased.

I also have completed the shades for the light fixture in my kitchen.

I don’t love this light fixture and I am still not sure whether I will keep it. For now the shades soften the light fixture, it was an economical fix for the short-term.

I am really contemplating a more sparkly light,

like this one in this gorgeous room:

via pinterest

I am still working on finding a cabinet to go next to my new shelves and finishing our new kitchen table and bench (and maybe getting a new light?), but its a start!

We are hosting a fabulous giveaway for vintage enamel house letters starting Friday so be sure to check back.

Linking this post up to~

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www.frenchcountrycottage.blogspot.com

Posted in Before and After, DIY, Home Inspiration, Real Spaces | Tagged display shelves, diy, kitchen, lighting, open shelving, shelves | 24 Comments

Thrift Store Letter Organizer and Mildred & Mable’s Giveaway Winner!

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Christy

Hey guys–sorry for the delay in posting the winner of the Mildred & Mable’s giveaway–Chris and I spent the weekend creating faux built in bookshelves in the master bathroom from an Ikea Billy bookcase (reveal coming soon, but of course I screwed up the coping on the crown molding and have to buy another piece before it’s all done and I can show the “after”).

Drumroll, please….Amy at A New Old House (comment #1), you are the winner of the Tokyo Milk hand cream and gorgeous ruby red ring! I sent you an email, so please reply with your address and I’ll ship that out to you ASAP. Can’t wait to hear what you think of it. And many thanks, once again, to Andrea at Mildred & Mable’s in Clarksville, TN, for providing the awesome goodies. We have another giveaway coming soon (enamel house numbers) so stay tuned!

And, because I don’t want to leave you without a little eye candy, here’s the cutest little letter organizer (or bill organizer, although that’s not as fun) that I found at Goodwill for $1.49. I added black vinyl numbers using my new Silhouette Cameo and I love how it turned out. It’s going to go in my master bedroom sitting area–I’m planning to carve out a tiny desk area.

Thanks for stopping by!

Posted in Before and After, DIY, giveaways, Organization | Tagged giveaway, Goodwill, Office, organization, thrift, vinyl | 8 Comments

A Place to Create–My Teeny-Tiny Craft Area

Posted on January 14, 2012 by Christy

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Right before Christmas, I decided that I was sick to death of hiding my sewing machine in the guest room closet every time I was done using it. Surely (if I moved around several incredibly heavy pieces of furniture), surely there was room to carve out a craft corner. I already had an old sewing machine table I’d found at Goodwill years ago and painted white…I abandoned all plans of cooking dinner, which is what I was supposed to be doing (sorry honey!), and started moving furniture.

I painted the old sewing table and a thrift store chair in robin’s egg blue. In hindsight, I probably should have used a blue chalk paint so they’d be a little more muted (I used spray paint for immediate gratification), but it’s safe to say that they’ll be painted again one of these days, so I’m not going to stress over it. I covered the chair TWICE before my third try made me happy–Amy Butler’s Love Bliss fabric. The teal and aqua colors match my old mason jars.

Old chair recovered with Amy Butler's Love Bliss fabric in teal.

I already had the two white shelves with fancy scrolled corbels. My dad made them with me years ago (one of my first DIY projects!) to hang on either side of my recessed bathtub area in another house. I just hadn’t figured out where to put them in this house yet. They’re perfect above the sewing machine to hold notions and other crafting goodies.

I made the banner–it was my first attempt at such things! The flags need to be twice as long as they are wide, so just cut them any size you want based on those guidelines. I used tiny clothespins to clip them to the ribbon, which I thought was very crafty (LOL).

Let me give some credit where credit is due here: the “Get Excited and Make Things” printable can be found HERE and the cute number tags can be found at HERE.

I love old spice jars–the apothecary-style ones–and I picked up this spice rack at the thrift store. It holds my tri-beads, organized by color.

Why do I have so many tri-beads, you ask? I have one crafty-type thing that I can do, and that’s crochet bead socks for all the little girls in my life. Here’s an old pair of Annabelle’s to show you what I’m talking about:

Because I do sew things from time to time, I thought it would be fun and different to mount a yardstick on the wall to make measuring easier. I had an old one from my grandmother’s house in Michigan, and I love that it says “Big Rapids” (her town) on it. I secured it on the wall using 3M’s command tape (just no hooks this time).

Do you like my ribbon organizer/dispenser? I love those things, but I didn’t want to go out and buy one (not that there’s anything wrong with you if you do!). I had a wooden curtain rod in my garage, not being used, and when I played around with it, I realized that it was small enough to hold ribbon and small enough to go through the scrolled corbels of my lower shelf. I just cut it to fit and spray painted it blue (I’ll probably spray it white one of these days). Not bad, huh?

Yes, I do have more ribbon that just that. The overflow is stored in the little green box on the first shelf (pictured below) and in the dresser I have in the closet.

On the opposite wall is that old entertainment center armoire that I painted green in this post. It’s not being used for its true purpose in this house because we had to juggle the TVs around to make them work in this floor plan. But it’s great for holding some of my family’s quilts and overflow craft supplies.

Closed--to hide the big mess inside!

Open--because I like letting it all hang out!

I’ve got one more thing to do. The spice rack that’s currently living in the armoire needs to be mounted on the wall to the right of the sewing machine. Spice racks are the perfect size to hold acrylic paint bottles, and they make a colorful display all on their own. You can find an old spice rack at the thrift store almost any time you walk in there.

My craft area is smaller than ten square feet, but it’s big enough to hold everything that I need, and I’m happy with the colorful and fun way that it turned out.

Update: I mounted the spice rack on the wall. All of my paints dried out in the move this summer, so while I work on re-building my collection, I put my vials of glitter on the rack instead. The downside to this plan was that my daughter took the blue glitter and sprinkled it all over her desk and nightstand to “jazz up my room a little, Mommy.” Yeah…glitter defeats even my Dyson!

Thanks for stopping by!

Linking up to~

Thrifty Decor Chick

Posted in Before and After, Home Inspiration, Home Tours, Organization, Real Spaces | Tagged Craft, organization, redo, ribbon dispenser, sewing, storage | 9 Comments

Home Goals for 2012

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Terry

This is a great blog challenge–one where you can sit down and outline what you plan to tackle in your home this next year. We are joining in at The Nesting Place “Home Goals” challenge today and sharing what is topping our home “To-Do” lists as the new year begins.

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I have three large projects planned for our home this new year.

The biggest project we have planned this 2012 is turning a part of our “L” shaped basement into an office/education room for me and my boys. This project requires some hired help, I wish I felt handy enough to do it all on my own but sometimes you just have to ask and/or pay the professionals. Here are a few shots of our before basement. Work begins this month so I hope to have lots of updates over the next few months on 11MagnoliaLane.

Our second project is adding a bench seat to our kitchen dinning area. The bench seat will offer some additional storage as well as two custom book shelves to store my favorite cookbooks. I love the design our contractor and I came up with. I think it will work well with the half wall that separates the kitchen and family room. I am also super-excited to have cushions and pillows made to add some style and color to the kitchen area.

Our last project is to paint our staircase railing black as well as remove the carpet and add ebony wood steps with a white kickboards. We recently had a flood and had to replace all the hard wood floors on our entire main level. We originally had 1.5-inch cherry planks and we decided to upgrade 4-inch ebony beech. We are thrilled with the results but the cherry railings and tan carpeted steps are an eyesore when you enter into our home compared to the new floors. So that is our final “must do” project for 2012.

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With a brand new house my list of projects is a mile long! To be honest, sometimes I stare at these new rooms and think where am I going to start? This post gave me a good jumping off point, and here are the top priorities on my “to-do” list.

Starting with my kitchen…I have a great new kitchen but it needs some personalizing and some “warming up”. It also needs more storage as I have the world’s smallest pantry (in my opinion…). So here is what I am working on in the breakfast area… new curtains, covering shades for the chandelier, adding open shelving above the desk and I am trying to hunt down a cabinet off Craigslist to help store some of my kitchen overflow. Oh, and we are also having a bench built (just like Terry) for under the window area for more seating.

This is what we hope will be our new kitchen table, I just sanded it down today. I adore my round one (shown above) but it just doesn’t hold the 5 of us comfortably.

This was the table my family used when I was growing up. I actually sanded off some of my younger brother’s childhood “doodling” on it today (from about 20 years ago) which made me glad we were re-purposing it. It is butcher block, so its crazy heavy. Maybe once I make it pretty again my husband will forgive me for carting it along with us through like 20 moves?

After the kitchen, my laundry room is high on my list. I have laundry room envy whenever I see Christy’s gorgeous laundry space! {Notice we have the same chandelier? We do that sometimes, unintentionally, our taste is very similar}. I have a nice space to start with, but need to make it more practical with organization, shelving and some color.

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I’m kind of heaving a sigh of relief because my biggest project, the kitchen, is DONE DONE DONE (not that I’m gloating or anything). But, there’s plenty more to do. My husband keeps wondering what I actually liked about this house when we bought it, since I’m changing everything! I keep telling him that I saw the potential and I just need to bring it out. Not sure if he believes me.

At the top of my list for 2012 is the master bedroom, sitting area, and bathroom. I think we often neglect our master bedroom when we move–first we paint and fix up the kids’ rooms so they’ll feel at home right away, then I deal with the kitchen and the living areas, and then finally (maybe) I get to the master bedroom. But, really, it should be a room that we love to be in. I’m almost embarrassed to show you the paint color on the walls now, but you’ll understand why it has to go:

The picture doesn’t really capture the brightness of the green. My dining room was painted almost this exact color, but that was ten years ago. My, how our tastes change! I’ve already painted the master bathroom (Pebble Beach by Benjamin Moore, it’s gray with a tiny touch of blue), and the sitting area got the first coat tonight. The actual bedroom will be last because I have to find a friend or neighbor with an extension ladder so I can get to the vaulted ceiling. Good times! Here’s a sneak peak at the bathroom so you can see the color:

The best part of the bathroom is the rocking chandelier I bought off Craigslist and hung over the bathtub, but you’ll just have to wait for the reveal to see that!

Another task is to put built-in shelves in the bathroom, and possibly in the sitting area. My chief contractor, aka my husband, will be starting that this weekend. Also, my entire house needs crown molding, and I will finally get to use that nail gun I got for my birthday! Last, but not least, I want to hang sheer curtains on the screened porch. I scored some gauzy (almost tulle) curtains at Ikea in December that were 2 for $4.99, so once spring is sprung, they’ll get to go out back to dress up the porch. Maybe in each corner?

I’ll think of more along the way, I’m sure. After all, give me a can of spray paint and I’m happy! Meanwhile, we’re all looking forward to sharing with you as we reach our 2012 home goals!

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Don’t forget to enter to win the yummy Toyko Milk handcream and beautiful Ruby Red Ring we are giving away this week! Enter by leaving a comment on the post HERE.

*ALSO*

For those local Warrenton, Virginians…Janet from The Empty Nest is giving an Annie Sloan chalk paint demonstration on Saturday January 21st, check out the details HERE.

Posted in General & About Us, Home Inspiration, Real Spaces | Tagged 2012, Decorating, diy, goals, home | 8 Comments

A Winter Fondue Party

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Amy

New Year’s Eve is always one of my favorite holidays and we celebrated in style this year! Christy and her family made the long trek to join us to ring in 2012, and I am kind of stealing her thunder as it was her idea (and her efforts) that brought us the delicious idea to have fondue for our celebration.

So if “fondue” brings up visions of low slung sofas and women in caftans lounging near a pot of bubbling cheese you might just be correct! Or, the quintessential After-Ski treat?

Image via Apartment Therapy

Of course, we jazzed it up a bit by donning some sequins and heels and spending the last hours of 2011 gathered around my dining room table sipping martinis and simmering some delicious beef tenderloin and ahi tuna.

There is Christy (with our friend Robyn) getting ready to power fondue!

This is a great idea for any winter gathering. Its actually very easy to prepare as the cooking is all done at the party by the guests so with a little shopping and a little chopping you are ready to go.

Christy hauled her 2 fondue pots all the way from Tennessee for our evening’s adventure. It is definitely worth it to have the electric fondue pots (which I will be searching garage sales for from now on) instead of a candle or sterno-fueled pot. This would also be a great event for a Valentine’s party or just as an excuse for a winter gathering–which I always find are much needed with the long dark days and snow school holidays that come with February!

Anyway…we had 2 pots cooking for 6 adults. Christy prepared a cheese fondue to start, with some french bread and some lightly steamed broccoli. {Note: we tried both a ready-made cheese fondue (from Trader Joe’s) and this recipe and if time permits, this recipe (below) was far superior.}

Cheese Fondue: (from All Recipes)

1 cup dry white wine
1/2 pound shredded Swiss cheese
1/2 pound shredded Gruyere cheese
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 (1 pound) loaf French bread, cut into 1 inch cubes

Simmer wine in fondue pot. Add Swiss cheese, Gruyere cheese, 1/4 pound at a time. Stir after each addition of cheese until melted. Stir in flour. When all the cheese has melted, stir in salt and nutmeg. Serve with cut-up French bread.

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For the “main” course we boiled some peanut oil (though you can use other kinds of oil or even broth to make it healthier) and dipped beef tenderloin, sirloin and some fresh tuna from the seafood market here and topped it all with a variety of sauces. We had wasabi, soy, terayaki along with sesame seeds to dip the cooked meat in available. Because the meat is cooked at a very high temperature (disclaimer: be careful!) very quickly it’s not as unhealthy as you might think being cooked in oil–and, anyway it was a special occasion right? One bonus is that each guest could cook what meat they liked, to their liking.

The bonus (and best part in my opinion) was the dessert course. Using this recipe, Christy prepared bite-sized pieces of store-bought pound cake, bananas (the hands down the favorite), and marshmallows and added a side of walnuts to sprinkle on the warm chocolate-coated items for a decadent ending. Delicious!

Here is the recipe:

Chocolate Bar Fondue (from All Recipes)

32 ounces milk chocolate, grated
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
1 tablespoon instant coffee powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon white sugar
1/3 cup hot water

In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the chocolate with the heavy cream. Mix in the instant coffee, vanilla extract, sugar, and hot water. Continue to heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture is smooth.

My contribution was my tablescape–because it was New Year’s Eve, I wanted something sparkly (OK, I always want some sparkle, I admit…) so I hit on the idea of using some extra white Christmas tree lights on top of a mirror, but hid them under some fluffy white tulle. While it looked a little “wedding” like, it mixed well with candlelight scattered on the table and made for a nice ambiance for our little celebration.

It was a great way to ring in the New Year, something fun and different and relatively easy. It could just as easy be a casual event (don’t forget your caftan!) or a dressier celebration like we had.

Have you fondue’d recently? Do you have a good recipe? Let us know in the comments if so.