Third Times a Charm?

I am wall decor challenged. I require several attempts to get my wall decor to not suck look right. For example, I started out with this lovely vintage quilt and quilt rack. While I loved it, the quilt didn't really work for the look I was trying to achieve. So, out went the quilt and rack and in came some plates and pictures. But, I decided the pictures weren't really working for me either. In came a mirror that I found around the house and painted.The dining room is starting to look differently now. We added new peacock blue curtains (a total splurge), a rug (given by my mother) and a few new-to-the-room plants and accessories. Oh, the blue chairs belong in the kitchen. Look forward to a blog on the refinished kitchen set next week. When we have guests over for dinner, we just pull a kitchen set chair up to the dinning table for a funky, coordinated look. Unfortunately, the mirror was all wrong and I didn't love the plates. None of the items matched anything in the room. Enter the picture collage. I like the look of a picture collage, but wasn't sure how one actually achieved it. After studying pictures online, I decided to attempt it on my own using new pictures of my children, some kid art and wooden frames I had lying around the house. I can finally say that this arrangement makes me happy because it includes only items I love. The middle pictures are my children from their photo shoot a month ago (a gift from my sister) and the other two pictures are art projects from my son. The picture to the left is an oil pastel and the picture to the right is a tissue paper creation. The hookah (no, we don't actually use it) was a fun little souvenir my husband picked up in the Middle East last summer and the plant was also a gift from my husband. The peacock plate was a gift from my mother. And finally, the dresser is a family heirloom that only adds to my enthusiasm over the wall make-over.

Truly the best advise I ever read on decorating is to use only what you love. If you follow this, you'll have more fun, and you can't go wrong. Or if you do something that is "wrong", you don't care.

PB&C Cookies

Last night, the kids (okay, and me too) were clambering for cookies. Unfortunately, when I checked my baking supplies, I found that I didn't have enough flour to make most recipes I know. So, I came up with my very own recipe using only the ingredients I had on hand (which wasn't many).

With no flour, eggs, brown sugar or butter, imagine my shock at how good these cookies turned out! My husband loved them and my co-workers requested the recipes. I hope you all can enjoy them too.

PB&C Cookies
Ingredients
*1 Cup sugar
*1 Cup corn syrup
*12 oz jar peanut butter (crunchy or creamy)
*2 Tbs vanilla extract
*6 Cups Corn Chex cereal
Directions
In a sauce pan, bring sugar and corn syrup to a boil. Remove from heat. Add peanut butter and vanilla extract and stir until smooth. Add in cereal one cup at a time. Stir until cereal is thoroughly coated. Scoop out tablespoons of mixture onto wax paper and refrigerate.

Sorry there are no pictures. They were eaten before I even thought to take a picture.

Why Isn't It Shrinking?

And by it, I mean the to-do list! Our list was reasonable:

1. Finish the laminate flooring in our family room-80% done!
2. Finish the stairs-started!
3. Repaint/redecorate the family room-80% done!
4. Refinish/repaint the kitchen table-started!

Just as we were finally making progress on our house projects, spring has arrived with it's annoying sunny warm weather, beautiful new flowers and green grass. The nerve!

Now, we are looking at the gardens that need weeding, the lawn that needs seeding and the deck that really, really needs refinishing. Oy. In an effort to keep me from freaking out, we chose not to do the veggie garden this year and concentrate on maintenance stuff only. I know I'm going to miss it terribly, but I really do not have the time.

Stay tuned for picures of our newly decorated family room, staircase and kitchen table set!

Inspiration Piece!

So, the family room. Again. No, wait. Still.

Carl was having difficulty selecting anything for the family room . At the same time, I was trying to give him space to select something he'd love. Unfortunately, Carl couldn't seem to find anything he liked. Not art, not fabric, not a rug. Nothing inspired him (his words, not mind).

Being the wonderful wife that I am, I narrowed it down for him. I emailed him the link to rugs from Overstock.com and gave him a $500.00 budget. Now, if you ever looked at Overstock's rug selection, you'd know that I only narrowed his search marginally. From researching blogs, I understand that the rug is the hardest thing to find, so it's best to start with the rug.

After several weeks, Carl finally selected this rug.

I'm so proud of my hubby. He picked this gorgeous 8' x 11' wool rug all by himself. He carefully reviewed the cost, materials, and customer comments before telling me what to buy. He even suggested a paint color and window panel colors that I think will look fantastic. I think he'd been hiding a secret decorating talent! Should I be thrilled that he's so good at this, or annoyed he's been holding out on me?

Find of the (Mid) Century!

Last Friday, during my lunch break , I drove on over to our local Goodwill for some fun. I'm only looking for furniture [right now] and was on a very limited schedule, so I carefully avoided the clothing and book sections. And there it was. Have you ever experienced that moment when you found your it? The exact item you never knew you needed, but knew you needed?

There in all it's glory was this entertainment center.

Oh dear. It's exactly the style my husband likes and wants for our family room-mid century modern. I approached the piece slowly lest someone else realize how awesome a find this was. The piece was in good shape. It even had dovetail joints and groovy 70s drawer liner. And we needed a new entertainment center to hold games and toys. The last one we owned (a horrible shabified yellow monstrosity) met up with our son in a dark room and didn't come out alive. Oh, it gets better. Total cost? $12.00. Yup, my pulse started to quicken. This was it! And it must be mine!

But wait. I didn't have the truck, nor does Goodwill hold anything. I rushed back to work, called Carl (the husband who owns a truck)and begged him to pick up this fine piece for me after work. This guy, he didn't even ask why. He just went to Goodwill, bought me that $12.00 entertainment center along with a bouquet of wild flowers and brought it home.

Truly, I don't know who was more excited, me or the kids. They knew exactly the purpose of the entertainment shelf as soon as they saw it-our new toy and game storage. The spent the rest of the night putting all their toys into the unit and exclaiming over its awesomeness. I may have created monsters.

I Am A Turtle

Why did no one warn me that home improvement can hurt! No, we didn't have any major accidents. I'm talking muscle fatigue. I run, do step aerobics, kick boxing, and various other workouts several times a week. None of these things have prepared me for laying a laminate floor.

Carl and I are currently plodding our way through our laminate floor installation project and it is taking us For-Ev-Er! We started on Sunday afternoon. It's now day 3 and we're maybe halfway done. Dang day jobs are just getting in the way. Add in feeding, bathing and homework with the kids and it makes for snail pace progress. At least there is progress, right? I just have to be patient and look on the bright side.

So, what is the bright side? Well, since we have a good portion done, I can already see that I love the floor. It looks great. Another bright side is the skills I'm acquiring. Hey, I can lay laminate floor with no help (not that I want to). I've also learned how to use our circular saw and the correct way to measure. Finally, and most importantly I'm learning patience-one thing I've always needed to work on.

Unexpected Progress!

Have you ever had unexpected progress? Recently, Carl (the husband) and I decided to fix up the family room. The plan was, well, wasn't even much of a plan. We has a direction-sort of. We're thinking something "grandma chic" (Carl's terms, not mine). So, something sorta mid-century modern-ish for my husband with some tranditional thrown in for me.

With this direction in mind, we've been searching through Ikea, Craigslist and Goodwill for furniture and accent peices. While we found some furniture we liked, nothing inspired us. We had no inspiration piece to work with. In the past, I've used art or fabric as inspiration pieces. I suggested that we try to find a really cool rug to work with, but unfortunately, the only rugs Carl likes are the flotki or sheepskin looking rugs. I'm pretty sure that these rugs will not stand up to two children, one eighty-pound doggy and one spiteful cat. So, we're still looking. Maybe one of those Sisal rugs?

While I am in no hurry to complete this renovation, something happened to speed it along. Enter, a sale on laminate flooring. That's right, laminate flooring went on sale at Costco for more than $8.00 off per box. This equals over $280.00 in savings if we bought it in February. So, Carl bought about 700 sq. feet of flooring, loaded it up on the truck and brought it home. And there it sat for about a week.

And then something wonderful happened. Carl started ripping up our gross carpet. Ever rip up carpet? Makes you never want to have carpet ever again! And so, we have officially started laying our new floor and I love it. Well, the floor, not actually installing it. So, right now, the house is a disaster and everyone feels discombobulated, but we are loving the progress. Bonus points for the floor since we've already has polyurethane, blood and vomit wiped right off of it (oh, the joys of parenthood). Here's a peak of the flooring so far!.