nursery board

Ok so turns out that swatch of fabric for the nursery was in a pile under other unopened mail which was under the computer on the kitchen table.  Ooops.  Somebody finally cleared the growing pile this morning and discovered it.  Since I'm a smidge "thrifty" we'll say and opted to purchase a $1.50 swatch from amazon rather than pay $7.00 for a large swatch, it is pretty small.  It does show all the colors though and I'm liking how it could work in the guest room, soon to be nursery. 

Did you know about Olioboard?  You can make design boards using images in their system and upload your own images.  It is pretty fun and I just spent about an hour longer than I intended playing with it.  Here is my first attempt at a design board for the nursery.

Some things are super accurate and others are close enoughs.  It isn't our exact crib or rug but it is the dresser we have, our chandelier, the little sleeper sofa we intend to buy, the pillows I'd like, the white drape and patterned roman shade thing I'd love to happen, that rattan pouf was a random addition that it turns out I love.  I put a letter B for baby Boyd.  There would be more accessorizing etc. but this is the basic idea I had in mind.  The wall color doesn't look quite the same but again it is the basic feeling. 

It is interesting to see it all because I'm realizing I might want to pull out more blue from that fabric and we really do need more texture like the rattan pouf.  Things I wouldn't have seen if I did my regular visualize in my head only technique. 

I'm liking the gender neutral feeling.  There will be stuffed animals and toys and sweet pictures on the wall but the main decor and fabric will be simple and adult.  What do you think about a more "grown up" nursery?

It's a cup of tea

I've got a sample of that possible nursery fabric on order and several calls in to the cabinet maker who is supposed to be working on our kitchen cabinets.  That's all I got.  No calls back, no fabric yet.  We are kinda at a stand still with projects.  Well, that is not entirely true...  there is always trim to be painted but who wants to do that?  I will be slapping the final coat of paint on the trim the day we sell our house at this rate.  So, with nothing to do (or that I want to do) I'll have some tea. 

When having lunch with some friends weeks ago my friend told me about this wonderful tea.  They actually had it on the menu so I enjoyed some with dessert and that week she sent me a little package with two tins of tea.  I have been thoroughly enjoying the peach tea, I haven't tried the autumn blend flavor yet although with the chilly day we had yesterday it might have been appropriate. 

Harney and Sons teas come in these pretty tins and the tea bags are made with silk and it all around feels a bit more decadent and lovely than the lipton green tea I've been sipping as of late.  I've been enjoying it with a smidge of sugar and milk

and it doesn't hurt went you have a little cupcake to enjoy courtesy of your husband's post dinner sweet run : ) perfect on the porch in the sunny breezy weather we've got today.

I've been trying to add a little patriotic flair to the porch as well.

Happy hump day, hope you are getting more done than I am!

inspiration again

Thank you for the comments yesterday.  I needed to talk it out and be reminded to enjoy the now.  It is nice to know I'm not alone in my impatience and my desire to always hurry on to the next step.  I don't know that I'll be able to stop stalking Trulia entirely.  Truth be told I think it is a bit of an addiction and I've been looking at houses since we moved here.  There are waves when I look more and periods of time when I'm more contented.

Clearly I'm a little fixated at the moment but the news I have to share might clarify my current desire to more forward and expand, to find a home that feels more permanent and suited to our family long term.  It might clarify why my posts have been infrequent at best the last two months...

We are pregnant!

I didn't want to share until we were in the safe zone and we are finally there.  The first trimester had me feeling sooooo worn out and yucky.  It do think I felt much worse that I felt with my son although I do firmly believe that one of the wonders of motherhood is how quickly we are able to forget our discomfort and have more children!  I'm nearly functioning like a normal person again which is wonderful.  There is certainly some serious exhaustion at times but overall I'm a lucky lady.

Our house has another bedroom and we can fit another bundle in here.  It is a little funky and has a door to the kitchen as well as the hall but it will work.  We'll be feeling a little crowded after a while and undoubtedly will be moving on at some point.  I couldn't help but get excited about the idea of finding a family home that we will fit our expanding family better.  The place we'll live when our little ones go to school.  Where they will make friends with kids down the street.  The idea of getting there now started to sound reasonable to me, never mind it didn't make much sense financially or headache wise with a toddler and pregnant.  I figured, well, we'll be moving with two kids at some point so what is the difference?!  Maybe so, but talking it out and reading your comments has me settled down a bit.  If something comes along too good to pass up, so be it but I need to get re-inspired and enjoy our house and focus on bringing home another sweet baby to this home we've made. 

So.....

The guest room is becoming a nursery

I can't think of a better decorating project can you?

...and that means that our little guy's big boy room transformation will be completed.  He will get into a big bed so that crib can move to the nursery.  Here is his room at the moment.  I like the progress so far but I can't wait to get that iron headboard in there.

That is two projects to complete and I'm excited and already have some ideas for the nursery.  We'll be finding out the sex of number two but I like the idea of a light pretty decor that isn't terribly gender specific.  The room doesn't get a ton of natural light because the only windows lead out to our screened porch.  I want to keep that green color on the walls and I saw this fabric the other day.

khanajhali glacier

The colors aren't quite spot on here.  It is more bright.  Like this pillow shows.

Source: etsy.com via Teresa on Pinterest

I think the green could tie in nicely with the walls.  I love the pattern and we've got a tan and white striped rug that could be great with it.  It feels light and fresh and calm to me which all sounds ideal when you'll be sitting in a room all hours of the night nursing a baby.

Wouldn't these sheets be pretty up against it?

Source: target.com via Teresa on Pinterest

Being a fickle and emotional pregnant lady I could most definitely change my mind but I'm really loving it at the moment.

So, I hope to be posting more regularly now that I'm feeling better.  This blog has been a great outlet for me and a place to find inspiration but it has been a sweet surprise to find understanding from afar as well.

Have a very happy weekend!

patience

We've been in our home for a little over two years now.  I started getting the itch again.  The thing is I haven't lived  anywhere longer than two years since I left for college.  Between dorms and apartments life was broken up in 1 year here, a two year lease here, always moving on.  Now we are in our own home and logic tells me that I should be content to stay put for a while...   but the itch is there anyway.  I saw a house the other week that was on a really unique private lot.  It needed lots of work.  I even went so far as to look at it with a realtor and discovered it needed waaaaay more work than we were capable of so I let it go.  But the seed was planted...

I'm not a terribly patient person.  I'm more of an instant gratification gal.  If I want something (within reason and budget, we are not talking ponies and sports cars) I generally find a way to make it or buy it or fudge something enough so it does the trick for a while.

Houses need patience.  Unless you are one of the rare few with a tremendous budget and the ability to buy or build just the house you want it takes time.  You either settle for something as we did and work to transform it as best you can or you save and save and save for as long as you can stand it so you can get what you want, or at least close.

A house I day dream of looks like this

Source: bhg.com via Emily on Pinterest

or this

Source: bhg.com via Jill on Pinterest

but our home looks like this

Don't mind the hose running across the front walk.  I'm trying to keep the lawn green in this ungodly heat.

I'd like a back yard that looks more like this

Source: theattiasgroup.com via The Attias Group on Pinterest

We have a cute little yard but large and private it is not.  Not that I'm really unhappy with our little home.  In fact when I look at that picture I think our home looks rather sweet.  We've done a fair amount of sprucing and gardening to get it that way.  It has been good to us but the plan is for it to be a starter home so our time here will be limited.  It wasn't intended to be limited to 2 years of course... If the location were a bit better we'd probably stay and work to transform it into the cape cod style home I'd love.  We will have to move on though and I don't know when that will be.  I'm sort of half heartedly looking around now with the knowledge that what we'd like doesn't exist in our budget.  Even something that we could transform into what we'd like isn't really in our budget, at least not on a good lot, or in a better school district.

I have to be patient because as my Mom reminded me yesterday something will happen.  It always does.  This house was there for us and really was the perfect answer at the time.  Something else will happen, when and what and how we don't know.  Such is life I guess.   

My good friend and I often talk about how our husbands get irritated when we talk about our "next houses".  Why can't you just be happy now, they ask?  It is our nature and maybe most women's nature to keep thinking ahead.  What will be the next step?  Where will we be?  It isn't good to do too much of that, I know. 

Our best bet is probably to stay put for a while longer.  Keep saving and thinking and the next step will come.  I just have to remember to be patient and to look around and enjoy the now.  Enjoy the work we've done and just live for a while rather than rushing on.

Patience, patience....

scapes

We had our first CSA pick up Tuesday.  We got tons of wonderful stuff and I'm already thrilled that we decided to join.  Included in our goodies were garlic scapes.  What?  Yeah, I didn't know much about them either.  The first I had heard of them was from family last year when they were participating with a CSA.  Turns out the greens that sprout from the top of a head of garlic are rather delicious.  You can do a ton with them and they are pretty wacky looking.

You can incorporate them in lots of recipes and they blended nicely with our beef fajitas the other night.  They have a texture that reminds me of a green bean and a mild garlic/onion flavor.  I saw a recommendation to make pesto with them and since I have a basil plant, a pile of scapes and a husband who loves pesto it sounded like perfection to me.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup fresh basil leaves (loosely set in measuring cup)
• 3/4 cup coarsely chopped garlic scapes*
• Juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• A few generous grinds of black pepper
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

 * feel free to add other herbs.  I added a smidge of flat leaf parsley because I love it with everything. 

Combine everything but the oil in a food processor and pulse until it starts to combine.  Then slowly add the olive oil while pulsing until blended.  Store in the fridge.  Also freezes well!

I went a little heavy with the cheese in mine.  I can't help it. 

We'll be serving our pesto with spaghetti tonight alongside grilled chicken that I'm marinating in some of the pesto, lemon juice and oil.  Oh, and a salad with some of the wonderful greens from the CSA.  It's only been a couple days but I already feel like we are eating more veggies.  I'm not the best at getting lots of varied veggies for us when shopping at the grocery store.  We generally end up eating lots of the same stuff over and over.  This is introducing some much needed variety to our diets and I'm glad to say our little one ate a pile of raw peas fresh from the pod yesterday and also tried his first radish.  Have you ever tried radishes with butter and salt?  So delicious!

Just smear some butter on and sprinkle with salt.

Mmmm... wish we had more.  I ate them all already : )

banana bread

I make a fair amount of banana bread.  It probably has to do with the fact that we are incapable of finishing a bunch of bananas.  Even though I have tried to fine tune our purchase quantities there are always a couple left.  Banana bread is quick and easy and yummy so I make it often and since I make it often I like to switch it up.  Try different recipes, add different yummy additions...

Today I found this recipe:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups bananas, mashed (about 3 bananas)
• 1/3 cup plain low-fat yogurt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• cooking spray

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt, stirring with a whisk.
3. Place sugar and butter in a large bowl, and beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 1 minute).
4. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add banana, yogurt, and vanilla; beat until blended.
5. Add flour mixture; beat at low speed just until moist. Spoon batter into an loaf pan coated with cooking spray.
6. Bake at 350°F for 50 minutes to 1 hour (depending on size of loaf pans) or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
7. Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

 Sounded good to me.  I made some modifications.  I decreased the sugar to 1/2 cup, I used light vanilla flavored yogurt and about 1/3 cup of chocolate chips and 5 small reeses peanut butter cups chopped up.  I was planning on adding walnuts since that is my husbands favorite but we were out so no nuts this run!

I would highly recommend you invest in one of these bread pans from King Arthur Flour.  They are amazing and the bread practically leaps out of them.  They cook evenly and they are really well made pans that will last forever.  Check them out here

It's a keeper.  I'll be having it for a snack on the porch.

stuff it in a basket

Do your kid's toys slowly start to vomit out into the room?   We do a pretty decent job of corralling our little guy's toys in a certain area of the living room but they start to multiply and before you know it they are creeping outward.  You are tripping over them and cursing them and the worst part is the more toys there are the less they seem to play with them.

Last weekend we did a major living room toy overhaul.  Babyish toys that are too young got packed up.  Broken bits and pieces were tossed.  Some toys got moved to the basement, some toys got moved upstairs and we added a basket in the entertainment area to help keep it tidy.

This wall is a major focal point of the room so I try to keep it looking as neat as possible.

Only when you slide the bins out can you see the true mania.

Since we eliminated some toys our little guy is actually playing with everything more.  Too many toys can be overwhelming.

It is no easy feat to keep the main living area of a home looking like an adult space with some kid things in it rather than a kid space that happens to house your furniture as well.  I love a clever way to hide the crud so you can still see the room overall.

Like these:

Source: remodelaholic.com via Hillary on Pinterest

Source: younghouselove.com via Miranda on Pinterest

Source: iheartorganizing.blogspot.com via Lisa on Pinterest

I'm not the most organized person in the world but a little tidy up makes me so happy.  How do you hide the mess?

how does your garden grow?

Ours didn't seem to be doing much of anything then we went out of town for Memorial Day weekend and Wham!

Everybody is looking big and bushy all of the sudden. 

I got really excited when I spotted these.

Yup, those are little green strawberries.  I'm already nervous that our anti bunny theft mesh system might not be enough to keep them out and am debating wrapping more mesh around it.  What do you think?

We are going to have a little salad with our greens this evening.

Everything is looking good with the exception of our peas.  They look dried out.  It may have gotten too hot for them already?  I might dig them up and use the valuable real estate for somebody else. 

We've got our first CSA meeting this Sunday so between our garden goodies and the produce we get from a local farm I'm hoping we won't need to buy veggies from the grocery store at all!

Now that's some paper!

We decided to avoid calling the electrician and try to move our doorbell chime in the kitchen to free up the wall space for our new cabinets.  Much of the electrical wiring in this place has proved to be a little wonky.  Turns out to move the chime box it would be more work that it is worth.  So we wrapped the wires and jammed them in the wall and instead bought a wireless doorbell that is working perfectly thus far.  I'm glad to have avoided a pricey electrician visit.  

Our house was covered in wallpaper, well IS covered in wallpaper.  Most of it is painted over and the only rooms that actually have the paper removed are the kitchen and the bathroom.  It was a torturous process trying to strip all the wallpaper in our kitchen and I will never again heckle those couples on House Hunters who complain about wallpaper in a house.  I used to yell "oh stop it!  just peel the wallpaper and move on!"  but now I see what a fool I was.  Anyway, I actually like wallpaper but we probably won't be adding any to this home.  Especially since we'd be papering over painted paper, can you even do that?

Look at this paper we uncovered when removing the old doorbell chime.

and a close up

Wow!  Avocado green, orange and metallic gold.  Looks like we have a royal lady, a coach, something about perfume?  An interesting choice for a kitchen.  Can you imagine facing a whole room of this in the morning?  Funny enough the green is rather close to my green accents in there but I think I'd skip the orange and gold. 

We toyed with the idea of wall papering the kitchen.  When I was removing the old wallpaper and finding some imperfections in the walls we thought it might be nice to cover them up with paper.  I still think it would look nice but the mere thought of doing it makes me tired.  There is no doubt wallpaper can look great in a kitchen though.  I'll leave you with this pretty image of a kitchen filled with trees.  Happy Monday!

Source: dreamyhouse.tumblr.com via Carissa on Pinterest

master pillow

Sorry for the absence.  You know how it goes,  a little of this and that and well life gets in the way!

I had a lovely Mother's Day weekend and went to a mother daughter tea with my Mom at a once private home here in NJ that now hosts classes and events in their public gardens.

 

We got to have tea sandwiches and scones with clotted cream and drink really delicious tea out of proper china tea pots on the veranda of this grand place.  Isn't it fun to be fancy sometimes?

My Mom brought down my gift with her.

A new pillow for our master bedroom.  We're getting more yellow in here little by little.

I'm not sure how to arrange it yet.  Like this...

or this

or this

It looks pretty to me every way.  She did an excellent job, complete with contrasting striped piping.

Well done Mom, I love it.

at the picket fence

letter gift

It is pretty clear that I like letters.  I use (or overuse) them in our home decor really often.  When my friend was getting married last year and her M was becoming an H, I figured  I'd spread some letter love and put a little more H in her life.

I ordered a monogrammed tote from Lands End.  There are tons of options in colors and styles.  I went with a medium size tote with tide pool aqua trim and had them monogram a letter H for her.  You can check out all their options here.

I picked up a letter H hook from Michaels and a little monogramed H notepad as well.  Then I picked two platters she had on her registry.  I know people register for things because they actually want them but I'm never a huge fan of only getting registry gifts, especially when it is a close friend.   Getting a couple things from the registry and a couple that I picked always feels like a better balance to me.  I wrapped the platters and got it all together...

and we were in business.  It was a hit and she has used everything in her home and toted around that tote plenty.

I did a silhouette of her and her fiance for their wedding gift.  They kindly displayed it at their reception and it now hangs in their home.

The happy couple will be married a year this June.

swing

I've got a new print to share.

A big old tree with a swing.  I never had a swing hanging from a tree growing up.  I love the idea of swinging and looking up through the leaves and branches to the sky.

I mixed up a tealish green for this one.  I'm going to experiment a more with printing in colors.  I also picked up gold printing ink and tried out the peacock in solid gold.

Suits that fancy bird I think. 

The interesting thing about the carving and printing process is once you carve it away, its gone!  I had intended to leave that hole in the trunk to absorb ink but I was carving away and forgot myself.  I get in a bit of a rhythm and forget my plans at times. 

storage!

When I talked about my home goals for the year I mentioned we wanted to replace our baker's rack with real cabinetry.  I showed a picture of it like this.

Looks pretty tidy and not half bad but it generally looks more like this.

and this is after I removed the empty dog food can and assorted crud off the counter top.

It pretty much always looks like a sloppy mess and so I'm a glad to say that we will be replacing this with more cabinets!  An upper double cabinet that goes to the ceiling and some open shelving too.  Some lower cabinets, a little spot for a stool and a garbage drawer.  We'll be putting a butcher block counter there because we don't want to spend the money on more granite and I like the way the wood looks on the bakers rack so I think it will be a nice touch.  We're not excited to spend money but really excited to have more storage because we truly don't have enough room for food in this place.  I can deal with being minimal with kitchen dishes, pans and gadgets.  We have a spot in the basement for overflow and things we don't use all the time like the crock pot but not having enough room for pasta and canned goods is a serious problem!

So it will be about a month or so and in the meantime we have to move that pesky doorbell chime up above the bakers rack that you can see in the first picture.  This may be beyond our limited electrical capabilities so a call to the electrician will be in order. 

I'm excited.  It is another big step in making this house more functional for us like I talked about in my Home Goals:

7.  Work on making this house work for us.  Our house is on the small side but the truth of the matter is there is more than enough room.  The more we can fine tune the way we live in our little house the happier we'll be.  We might have to be creative and resourceful but this is and can continue to be a great home for us.

I'll keep you posted!  I have to get matching hinges, knobs and pulls for the new cabinetry.  It was only a year and a half ago I got everything so I'm assuming it is all still available.  Fingers crossed!

iron bed

I haven't mentioned much about the big boy room transformation in a while.  We are at a bit of a stand still.  Things are as updated as they can be until we put our little guy in a real bed.  At the moment we have removed the side of his crib so he has a toddler bed/day bed situation going one which he has been doing very well with.

I'm a little anxious to put him in a real bed so I can finish up the room but I don't want to rush it.  While we were driving to Trader Joe's the other weekend I spotted a yard sale with an old iron bed out front and screamed "I want that!!!!!" so we stopped the car and found an awesome antique iron bed on sale for just 45 bucks!  Old iron beds were generally made to whatever size they wanted and they don't adhere to the twin, full, queen, king world of today.  This bed frame was just a few inches wider than a twin and the same length.  Sold!  We crammed it in the car and still went to Trader Joe's then returned home with a trunk full of junk!

We brought the bed frame down in the basement when we got home so I could check it out further and realized that one of the bed rails wasn't fitting quite right.  They are tapered pin rails and once I examined them a little closer I realized one fit the headboard and footboard properly and the other was very similar but didn't slide all the way in.

I got a little swept up in the purchase and didn't look at it as closely as I should have.  Without finding a welder or trying to purchase some other antique rails that would fit  (which are triple the price we paid for the whole frame on ebay) we wouldn't be able to make it work for our little guy in a way that I would be confident was safe.  We only paid $45 for the whole thing and I was pretty happy with that price for just the fantastic headboard.  So we decided we'll be painting it and attaching it to the wall then placing a regular twin bed frame in front of it.  Works for me!  The foot board might have shrunk his little room a bit too much anyway and maybe in the future we'll figure out a way to make it work.

Here is the headboard.

A terrible photo from the basement but you get the idea.  It is very tall and has a worn gold paint job at the moment.  We were unsure what color to paint it but then I saw this.

crate and barrel

and realized that is would be fantastic in black.  Especially against his light blue walls.  So that is the plan!  We just have to decide when to make the leap into a twin bed for him.  When did you transition your little one?  I think he would be fine with it but we are a bit hesitant because he is sleeping so wonderfully right now, who wants to mess with a toddler's sleep?!

We took a trip to an art supply store this morning.  It has been a while since I wandered around a proper art store not just A.C. Moore or Michaels.  Not that I don't adore those stores as well but a real art supply store is entirely different.  I got more supplies for my prints and enjoyed browsing all the goodies.  I'm a stocked up and ready to create so hopefully I'll have more to share soon.  Have a happy weekend.  It is supposed to stop raining here finally I think!