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May 20 2013

Mud Room Progress + Hole Patching & Painting Tips

Hey hey hey! Are you shocked that I’ve written three posts in a row about the same space?! I am. I don’t know what’s come over me and my normal ADD… maybe I’m turning over a new leaf?

Last week, I excitedly shared our mud room plan and the doorless, cleaned out coat closet. If you’re just tuning in, part of my mud room plan is to turn the coat closet into a little nook with coat hooks and our shoe bench. So with the doors off and shelves down, I got to work filling screw holes left from the shelves. I am so in love with this nail hole filler that I made Kreig take a cheesy picture of me holding it. The ridiculous/creepy smile is only because he refused to get a shot of me kissing the tube. Yeah, I want to marry it.

Filling holes is probably sort of boring and maybe even fool proof, but here’s what I’ve learned after filling about a zillion holes with this stuff:

Before you start filling, go over the hole with some sandpaper or a sanding block. There is usually a little lip of paint surrounding screw holes, so the sandpaper will get rid of that before you start filling. If you can’t get the lip to go away, push the edges into the hole when with your finger, then sand again.
Don’t use the sponge applicator that comes attached to the tube. Or the black tip. Screw the tip off and just squeeze straight from the tube.
Fingers are the best tools for applying it. Squeeze it onto your finger, and glob it right into the hole.
Don’t be stingy — more is more. This stuff sands off so easily that it’s better to have your hole heaping over with the filler and sand it off later than it is to try to fill it level the first time. This is probably not the “proper” practice, but trust me. It’s better than having to do multiple coats which you would have to wait to dry and still sand anyway. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
Once the filler dries, sand it with a sanding block versus regular sandpaper. Sometimes with sandpaper, you can create a little divot with your fingers, which will need to be filled again. A sanding block keeps things even with the surrounding wall, plus I think it’s more comfortable to use. You can find the sanding blocks right with the sandpaper at any home improvement store.
Once the fill dries and you sand it smooth, you HAVE to HAVE to HAVE to prime it before you paint over it. Learn from my mistakes. If you don’t prime it, when you paint over it, the filled spots will look oddly dull and different than the rest of the wall. In this case, I didn’t have any primer around, so I gave all the filled spots a coat of the paint+primer that I used in our living room and kitchen. I wasn’t confident it would work, but it did! There’s no difference in sheen over the filled spots – so there ya go.

Here’s the closet with the screw holes all filled, sanded and primed with my leftover paint+primer. Pay no attention to the color.

Once that paint+primer dried, I gave the entire closet two coats of the same stuff we used on the rest of the mud room. The paint is True Value’s Easy Care in eggshell, and the color is called “Prominence.” Of all the paints I have used recently — this, Wal Mart’s Color Place, Lowe’s Valspar, and Lowe’s Olympic One — I have to say the Easy Care goes on pretty terribly on comparison. It seems really watery. Thanks to a buy one get one free sale, we used this paint on the entire interior of the house when we first painted, and I didn’t notice the poor quality then, (Maybe because they were new walls so I expected minimal coverage? Or perhaps I breathed in too many primer and paint fumes during that long couple of weeks?) but boy could I tell this time. I don’t recommend this stuff. Olympic One has definitely been the best so far, but Wal-Mart’s Color Place is surprisingly thick as well– I got away with one coat in our bathroom!

I used to tape everything off and go back and touch up spots whenever I would paint a room, but when we painted our new house, my dad didn’t want me to put tape on the freshly sand-painted ceiling. So I was forced into cutting in without tape. I was so scared of totally ruining our nice new house with jagged paint lines along the ceiling. I googled my face off to find out the best methods for cutting in. Actually, that’s when I discovered Young House Love, which started my home-blog addiction, which ultimately led to the creating of Heroth Home! Crazy, huh?

Anyway, after that research plus the experience of painting our whole house, and repainting three more times (or six if you count the living room, kitchen and dining room space as three separate rooms) here’s what I’ve learned about cutting in effectively:

Unless you’re striping walls, painting an accent wall, or spraying, painter’s tape is a waste of time and money. Don’t be scared to get tape-less. It’s liberating.
It’s all about the brush. I am a total tight wad. I’m always willing to go cheap when I can. (Hello, Wal Mart paint and Target clothes!) I’ve learned that you simply can’t buy off-brand brushes. If anyone knows of any exception to this rule, I’d love to know about it! Cheap brushes won’t give clean lines like the good ones do, and don’t even get me started on shedding bristles. Just suck it up and drop a few extra bucks on a good, 2″ angled stiff bristle brush. Purdy and Wooster are my homeboys. I’m sure there’s other brands that work just as we’ll, but I’ve experienced these guys first hand and you can’t lose.
Speaking of brushes, I am in love with my little short-handle Wooster 2″ angled brush for cutting in and for tight spaces (like behind toilets). I’m sure this is a person-to-person thing, but the short handle just feels way more comfortable for me, and it seems to give me more control. I can definitely cut in faster and neater with this little baby. And the better news is that it’s a little cheaper than full-size handle ones. I still use regular sized paint brushes for some stuff, but I always use the little guy for cutting in.
This is hard to describe, but it’s what makes the biggest difference for me when it comes to getting a nice clean line. Let the ends of the bristles do the cutting in, not the sides. My dad taught me to cut in with the brush parallel to the edge that you’re cutting in, using the side of your bristles to create the edge line. I think this is how real painters do it, but I can NEVER make it work for me. I get jagged edges. When I turn the brush 90 degrees, so its perpendicular to the edge instead of parallel. It gives you a neater line, and it lets me move faster. See what I’m saying?

If you’re thinking that you can never cut in without tape because you simply don’t have a steady hand, just try it with these tips one time and see if they help. I probably have the least steady hand in the world, and I get straight-up shaky when I don’t eat often enough. In fact, almost every time I paint a room I end up all shaky because I get so focused that I forget to stop and eat…. but it doesn’t matter. I am still able to get clean lines when I’m really shaky. Now, theres times when I get a little hurried and end up smacking the ceiling with my paint brush, but that’s for another post. So seriously, give it a shot without tape, with a good brush, using the ends of your bristles… and see how ya do. I bet you’ll surprise yourself!

So, back to my point: the coat closet is one step closer to becoming a little mud room nook. The walls now match the rest of the mud room, and I even slid the bench in, mainly so I could cross one more thing off my list. Next up: hang some shelves for storage and hooks for coats.

Here’s how my list is lookin’:

Remove the doors from the coat closet. This way we can walk in and step to the right, into the closet and take our shoes off in there.
Paint the coat closet to match the rest of the room. I originally painted it with a light blue-ish green color that I got by mixing some blues and greens from other spaces, mainly because I thought the navy would make the closets too dark. If I remove the doors, though, I want it to look like part of the room.
Fill the indents left from the hinges and ball-catch plates on the door casing.
Move the bench into the coat closet and create kind of a little mini-mudroom within a mud room area. Check out this inspiration pic. Mine won’t be as nice and built-in looking, but see what I’m saying?
Upholster the bench, or create a removable cushion. This will double as a dog bed when we’re not home, so we don’t have to have an actual dog bed on the floor. Does this gross anyone out?
Buy or make a gate for the hallway, so we can gate the dogs in the mud room when we leave.
Hang coat hooks in the closet, above the bench along with maybe some shelves and baskets up high.
Makeover a long dresser (from my childhood bedroom) to go in the bench’s place and provide storage for extra coats, sweatshirts, and maybe even shoes. I think I’ll do better with storing coats if I can fold them instead of hanging them.
Hang some shelves and/or a rod in the laundry closet. Right now there are no shelves in there so there’s a lot of wasted vertical space going on. I may use the shelves that are in the coat closet now, but I haven’t decided yet.
Remove the hook rails from the wall and repair the holes left behind.
Relocate the key hooks and dog leashes closer to the door. Their location now (right next to the hallway archway) causes a lot of mud too, because we have to walk across the mud room with our shoes on when we forget to grab our keys.
Sand the filled nail holes on the door casing, and fill and sand the ones that aren’t done yet.
Paint the doors and trim. Because I never did when I was supposed to. You know, before we moved stuff in the house. Before I did a zillion other unnecessary projects. Before I decided I didn’t need closet doors anyway. Well, at least I have two less doors to paint now.

Tagged brush, cutting in, filling holes, mud room, paint, painting, sanding, screw holes, tips

May 14 2013

1 Comment

Decorate/DIY

And we’re off!

And by “we” I mean the coat closet doors! Yayyy! I shared my plan for some changes in our mud room the other day, and if you were paying close attention you’ll remember that one of the first things on the list was to take off the closet doors so I can turn the coat closet into a little mini mud-room-with-the-mud-room. So check that off the list, because the doors are off!

After thinking about doing this for months, I finally just grabbed a screw driver and headed for the hinges. The doors came off really easily, and for right now they are just sitting in the floor in the office. I will probably end up storing them in the basement and maybe I’ll use them in a crafty way in the future. Or maybe I’ll just use them as closet doors in the future when we finish the basement down the road. Heck, maybe they’ll even end up right back where they started. (Kidding, Kreig!)

Apparently I never sanded the filled nail holes on the inside of the door casing — add that to my list! After removing the doors by unscrewing the hinges, I also removed the little metal plates at the top of the casing. The doors have little ball-like metal pieces at the top that lock into these little plates when you open and close them. They were just attached with a couple screws, so they were no biggy to remove.

Both the hinges and the upper metal plates were sitting in the wood of the casing, so I now have some chunks to fill before I paint the trim. (Add that to my list.). I knew I waited a year to paint the trim for a reason.

With both doors and hardware off, here’s what I was working with. A mess.

I starting emptying out the ridiculousness that I called a coat closet. I’ll spare you those details, but here’s what it left the mud room, hallway and office looking like. Note that some of this stuff is still there days later. My poor pretty office.

Once I emptied stuff out, I sorted everything into three garbage bags — donate, garbage, and keep. A lot of our shoes got moved to our closet, since we tend to wear the same ones repeatedly so we only need a handful of pairs each in the mud room at any given time. Many of our sweatshirts also got moved to our closet as well. Once I got everything out and sorted, I finally had a bare shell of a closet.

Then I removed all of the shelving. I am thinking it will eventually end up over the washer and dryer, since there are no shelves in there. At this point I moved the bench in there to make sure it actually fit! It’s like it was made for that closet! Oh, and I threw the dogs up there to make sure it was an okay size to become their day bed. They were completely confused.

So the doors are off and the shelves are down, and the bench fits! Next up: filling and sanding all the screw holes and painting the walls!

And here’s an updated to-do list:

Remove the doors from the coat closet. This way we can walk in and step to the right, into the closet and take our shoes off in there.
Paint the coat closet to match the rest of the room. I originally painted it with a light blue-ish green color that I got by mixing some blues and greens from other spaces, mainly because I thought the navy would make the closets too dark. If I remove the doors, though, I want it to look like part of the room.
Fill the indents left from the hinges and ball-catch plates on the door casing.
Move the bench into the coat closet and create kind of a little mini-mudroom within a mud room area. Check out this inspiration pic. Mine won’t be as nice and built-in looking, but see what I’m saying?
Upholster the bench, or create a removable cushion. This will double as a dog bed when we’re not home, so we don’t have to have an actual dog bed on the floor. Does this gross anyone out?
Buy or make a gate for the hallway, so we can gate the dogs in the mud room when we leave.
Hang coat hooks in the closet, above the bench along with maybe some shelves and baskets up high.
Makeover a long dresser (from my childhood bedroom) to go in the bench’s place and provide storage for extra coats, sweatshirts, and maybe even shoes. I think I’ll do better with storing coats if I can fold them instead of hanging them.
Hang some shelves and/or a rod in the laundry closet. Right now there are no shelves in there so there’s a lot of wasted vertical space going on. I may use the shelves that are in the coat closet now, but I haven’t decided yet.
Remove the hook rails from the wall and repair the holes left behind.
Relocate the key hooks and dog leashes closer to the door. Their location now (right next to the hallway archway) causes a lot of mud too, because we have to walk across the mud room with our shoes on when we forget to grab our keys.
Sand the filled nail holes on the door casing, and fill and sand the ones that aren’t done yet.
Paint the doors and trim. Because I never did when I was supposed to. You know, before we moved stuff in the house. Before I did a zillion other unnecessary projects. Before I decided I didn’t need closet doors anyway. Well, at least I have two less doors to paint now.

Wow, why is it getting longer? Well, at least the first step is done…. and I am pumped to get painting!

Tagged bench, mud room, remove doors, shelves

May 13 2013

2 Comments

Decorate/DIY

Mud Room Changes are coming!

You’ve met my mudroom here, and you may have seen it on my house tour page. I’ve mentioned before that it isn’t as organized or functional as I wish it was.

Here’s the terrible-quality picture on my house tour page:

…but let’s get real people. This is how it really looks about 99% of the time.

Oh yeah, there it is. Shoes all over the place, the bench covered in so much stuff that no one EVER sits on it, hooks overflowing with jackets… not pretty. The worst part of this room is that it’s where I enter and exit every day, and it STRESSES me out. Not a good way to start or end the day. I totally think that everyone should walk into their home and feel like “ahhhhhhh.” The truth is, I do feel “ahhh” about my home in general, but not right when I walk in. I’ve been brainstorming for a while about what this room’s issues are and how I can fix them, and here’s some of the problems:

Problem #1: The entry door. It swings toward the bench, which doesn’t sound like a problem but it is. When you open the door, you have to walk all the way around it to get to a space to take your shoes off. The closet is to the right when you walk in, so you really are forced to walk around the door before you can close it. I’m not sure if you can picture this, but trust me. It puts you in the middle of the mud room, and mud comes with you. This means mud ends up pretty much all over the floor — especially when it is snowy or rainy outside. And it’s Upstate NY we’re talking about here, so you do the math! (I know, I know — it’s a mud room! But I hate getting muddy socks when I’m getting shoes, or even when I’m just in there doing laundry!)

Problem #2: The coat closet doors open right into the entry door. I designed this room and I was just so happy to have a mud room and a coat closet that I didn’t think little details like the doors being so close together would be a problem. Welllll, one year in and let me tell ya…. I avoid that coat closet like the plague. I hung shelves and had it all cutely organized this summer with little spray painted shoe boxes and I thought that would force me to use it, but it didn’t. Well, except to throw stuff in the mountainous pile of crap on the floor, or to dig for missing things and cut my hand on an ice skate. True story. I don’t have any pictures of it when I originally organized it, but here’s what it had looked like for the past several months.

Problem #3: The bench and mirror. They’re too far apart. This has nothing to do with function. I simply think the gap between the two looks huge and weird. I originally wanted a mirror with hooks on the bottom or a long hook rail hung under the mirror, but Kreig didn’t think that would give us enough room to hang things, so we hung hook rails on either side of the mirror instead. This brings me to the next problem.

Problem #4: The hook rails. They aren’t big enough, and they are up too high for me. Oh, and I didn’t hang them right (I am guessing I didn’t use anchors, and the screws aren’t in studs, but I don’t really remember) so one of them is loose. Oh and see the little in/out box to the right of the door in the pic above? Yeah, we never use it. Probably because we would trip over a thousand shoes if we wanted to.

Problem #5: Not exactly the mud room’s problem, buuuttt I also want to start gating Piper and Axle in there during the day, instead of in our Master Bathroom where they get locked in now. It would just be so easy to take them right out when we get home instead of having to take our shoes off and go get them in the bathroom. Plus there’s an ugly dog bed and their dishes in our bathroom most of the time and I feel like dog stuff is taking it over. Also, it would be nice to move their food and water from the dining area into the mud room. They drip water all over the wood floors and I can constantly see little paw prints on our dining room floor when the sun shines in. Perhaps mopping more than once every six months would probably help this issue as well, but I’m crazy and making over a room seems way easier than mopping more often.

Okay, so those are the main issues with the room. I like other things about it, like the colors, the floor, the fact that the washer and dryer are in there, and merely the fact that the room exists. I know a lot of people would kill for a decent sized mud room, or any mud room for that matter (Mom!), so I’m not complaining or taking it for granted… I’m just going to give it lots of love so I can appreciate it even more.

So here’s my to-do list so far. It could take a completely different turn at any given moment, but here’s my plan as of today.

Remove the doors from the coat closet. This way we can walk in and step to the right, into the closet and take our shoes off in there.
Paint the coat closet to match the rest of the room. I originally painted it with a light blue-ish green color that I got by mixing some blues and greens from other spaces, mainly because I thought the navy would make the closets too dark. If I remove the doors, though, I want it to look like part of the room.
Move the bench into the coat closet and create kind of a little mini-mudroom within a mud room area. Check out this inspiration pic. Mine won’t be as nice and built-in looking, but see what I’m saying?
Upholster the bench, or create a removable cushion. This will double as a dog bed when we’re not home, so we don’t have to have an actual dog bed on the floor. Does this gross anyone out?
Buy or make a gate for the hallway, so we can gate the dogs in the mud room when we leave.
Hang coat hooks in the closet, above the bench along with maybe some shelves and baskets up high.
Makeover a long dresser (from my childhood bedroom) to go in the bench’s place and provide storage for extra coats, sweatshirts, and maybe even shoes. I think I’ll do better with storing coats if I can fold them instead of hanging them.
Hang some shelves and/or a rod in the laundry closet. Right now there are no shelves in there so there’s a lot of wasted vertical space going on. I may use the shelves that are in the coat closet now, but I haven’t decided yet.
Remove the hook rails from the wall and repair the holes left behind.
Relocate the key hooks and dog leashes closer to the door. Their location now (right next to the hallway archway) causes a lot of mud too, because we have to walk across the mud room with our shoes on when we forget to grab our keys.
Oh, and this one is so embarrassing… Paint the doors and trim. Because I never did when I was supposed to. You know, before we moved stuff in the house. Before I did a zillion other unnecessary projects. Before I decided I didn’t need closet doors anyway. Well, at least I have two less doors to paint now.

I’m sure this list will grow and change forty times, but here it is right now, so hopefully that gives you an idea of where I’m going with this room. And if you’re saying “Wait, did she ever finish her office? Or the living room/kitchen makeover?” then just diagnose me with ADD right now. I’ll understand. The office is almost done, and the living room is done except I can’t make a decision about what to recover my pallet ottoman with, so I’m kind of dragging my feet on revealing that. So, I guess you could say I work best when I bounce around from room to room? Please leave me stories of your own decorating ADD in the comments… I know someone must feel the same way, right? …right?

May 08 2013

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Decorate/DIY

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

You might remember that before I started transforming our spare room into an office, there was a white and gray striped mirror hanging above the bed. I got it for some ridiculously small price at a yard sale. It was originally wood, then I painted it lime green and hated it, so then I painted it white and added gray stripes. Ahh, there it is — off center and way too small for that wall.

Bbbuuut when I started turning that room into an office, I put a different mirror on the wall and this guy was homeless. And I was sad. Because I love it and its unique shape…. so I waited for inspiration to strike. Well, guess where it struck? Yup, in the bathroom. I didn’t hate the mirror in there, but it was kind of blending in with the tan walls.

I really loved the stripes on the mirror, but they just weren’t going to work with the tan walls. So I brought her outside and sanded her down until I couldn’t feel the ridges of the stripes anymore.

After sanding, it actually looked really cool… note to self.

Then I just gave the whole frame a few coats of white glossy spray paint and hung it up above the sink in the spare bathroom.

And there it is… so much more of a statement!

And here’s an attempt at the view from the hallway…

I love how a little update like this can really make a room feel like new!

Oh and speaking of this bathroom, I was so excited when I saw my wall-mounted baskets featured on iHeart Organizing, hands down one of my favorite blogs in the world… check it out here!!! And while you’re there check out Jen’s house tour and be ready to wipe the drool from your mouth… the woman is a genious. I pretty much want to be her when I grow up.

May 01 2013

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Decorate/DIY, Spray Paint

A Teeny Spray Paint Update

So it’s no secret that I love spray paint. I love the fact that a few dollars can buy you an instant makeover for pretty much any item you have in your house. And if you know me, you know nothing in my house is off limits. Last summer, my mother-in-law began pretty much every conversation we had with “Hey Rach, what’d ya spray paint today?” Here’s a funny story: I can’t believe I’m admitting this to the Internet at large, but I once spray painted a pillow. Um, yeah. If you didn’t already think I was crazy, I bet you do now. It was one that came with our couch and I hated it, so I figured what did I have to lose? Well, unless you like crunchy pillows I don’t particularly recommend that… Anyway, since we finally have some nice springy weather in Upstate NY I have been a spray-painting madwoman. Especially since I decided to change the living/room kitchen color scheme, I have a lot of stuff to paint. I shared my “night tide” lamps with you a couple weeks ago, and now I’m onto some smaller details.

One thing that has been bothering me since I painted the walls is our little centerpiece on the dining table. This centerpiece is one of the many things I frantically bought right before our Jack and Jill party last spring. The construction of our house was finished literally one week before this party, and I was just trying to fill the place with things to make it seem somewhat decorated when our family and friends came to see it while they were in town. Most of the purchases I made that week I now regret because they were completely meaningless space-fillers that I wasn’t in love with. However, for some reason I just really like this little thing.

I got it at Wal-Mart for some small amount of money… maybe $5-ish? There’s something about these little pom-pom things that just makes me happy. I like that it’s simple — not too tall to see over, and not too big to leave on the table and eat a meal family-style as well. So while it might not look like anything special, it’s the perfect no-fuss centerpiece for most of the days of the year when the table isn’t decorated for a holiday. And sometimes looking back at my frantic decorating week, I get a little sentimental… it was really the beginning of me discovering how much I love to decorate. In fact, I was spray painting vases the morning of our Jack and Jill party. Haha, here’s another funny story – I stuck my engagement ring in my pocket while I was spray painting that morning, and as we were getting ready to go to the party, I FREAKED OUT because I couldn’t find my ring anywhere. Obviously I found it in my pocket and everything was fine, but wow was I scared. Pat and Annie, friends who were there for the ordeal, ended up buying me a ring-holder a few weeks later and now whenever I take my rings off, that’s where they go. Best gift ever. So anyway, I just really like this centerpiece, but it wasn’t jiving with the new color scheme.

So I spray painted the little pom-pom ball things. The yellow is Valspar’s “Hubbel House Golden Maize”, the white is Valspar’s “white” (go figure!), and the blue is Rustoleum’s “Night Tide.”

It’s such a small and subtle update, but man it gives me a little adrenaline rush when I look at them. No matter how small it is, before and afters just make me happy. I’m sure no one else will even notice, but it makes the table look a lot better to me…

Now I want a new runner, and I don’t know how I feel about the tan on the chair cushions anymore. Recovering the cushions would be a simple project, but the upholstered chairs are the issue… maybe I can find some slipcovers?

On another note, I got a real camera!

It’s a Canon Rebel T3. Blogging has piqued an interest in photography in me, and I have known since day 1 that my photos weren’t the best quality. I have sooo much to learn about using a DSLR … right now I’m just using auto mode, but I’m hoping to learn as I go and eventually be able to use the manual settings…. all the pictures above (except the one of the camera, obvi) were taken with it, and I don’t know about you, but I think they look way better than previous pics I have posted! I’m excited (and a little overwhelmed) to learn more, but I am having fun just using auto mode right now. I am a crazy dog-paparazzi now.

Let me leave you with some pics I snapped of my favorite little subjects.

Don’t we have the most photogenic kids?! I’m convinced they should be models.

Tagged Axle, camera, Canon, dogs, photography, Piper, spray paint

Apr 29 2013

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Decorate/DIY

5 Favorite Recipes – Sweets

I was thinking about food the other day. Okay, I think about food A LOT, but I was thinking about how I haven’t posted a recipe in a loooong time! I know some of you come here specifically for recipes, and I don’t want to disappoint… but here’s the thing about posting recipes:

I love to blog about family recipes, recipes that I create myself, or ones that I’ve changed so much that they are pretty much my creation…. and while I still have more of those coming, most of what I cook/bake are others’ recipes that I follow letter by letter, and there are so many worth sharing, but so it seems weird/wrong/pointless to write my own blog post about a recipe that someone else has created. So, I thought it would be fun to just share some links to some of my go-to recipes throughout a few different posts… so just click on the names to go see the full recipes. So let’s do this thing. In keeping with my general philosophy on life, we’ll start with dessert!

1. Chocolate Chip Cookies via Cookies and Cups

{photo via Cookies and Cups}

This has become my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe. The baking powder keeps the cookies thick, and listen to the recipe and make yourself refrigerate the dough overnight (the longer the better) because it really makes a difference. This really goes for any chocolate chip cookie — leaving them in the fridge makes them spread less when you cook them, and the longer you can stand to leave the dough in the fridge, the better the cookies will be… crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, almost like a caramelized crust goin’ on… mmm, so good. Anyways, this recipe is my all-time favorite. Sometimes I use regular size chocolate chips instead of the mini ones, and sometimes I add Heath bar pieces and other random stuff (try it with some pretzel pieces!) but this recipe is an awesome base for whatever you want to add.

2. Oreo-Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies via Picky-Palate

{photo via Picky Palate}

File these under “why didn’t I think of that?!” Yeah, these cookies are ridiculous. They are HUGE and full of flavor and textures — everything you want in a sweet treat. I made these once for a Promethean Board training and dorkily used them as a metaphor for educational technology… the oreo (information) is kind of boring on its own, but when you hide surround it in a homemade chocolate chip cookie (technology), the oreo (information) becomes way more interesting! Kind of a stretch? Uh, yeah maybe… but it’s okay because I don’t think anyone heard me because they were freaking out about how huge and insane the cookies were. What’s more fun than biting into a cookie to discover another cookie?!

3. Oreo Pudding Cookies via Cookies and Cups

{Photo via Cookies and Cups}

Speaking of oreos, these are delicious too. The pudding makes them stay nice and soft, and the chips are chunks of my favorite candy bar — Hershey’s Cookies and Cream. The ingredients are ones you’ll have to go shopping for, but it’s worth a trip to the store. Usually when I make stuff like this that requires weird ingredients, I make it once and then I don’t really think about it again…. but these are worth repeating again and again. I made these for a party and someone told me they were the best cookies she ever had in her life. They are really yummy, and kind of refreshingly different.

4. Cookie Dough Cheese Ball via Gooseberry Patch/My Recipes

{photo via My Recipes}

This one is from a Gooseberry Patch cookbook that my mom got me a few years ago. My sister Jamie makes it all the time for parties, and it always seems to find itself right in front of me…. weird… I make it a lot when we have people over and everyone loves it. It’s simple to throw together but you just have to make sure you plan ahead so you have enough time to chill it — or you’ll end up with more of a dip than a ball. I could totally pick this thing up and eat it like an apple, but I serve it with animal crackers, graham crackers, and teddy grahams.

5. Chocolate Caramel Poke Cake via Taste of Home

{photo via Taste of Home}

This is pretty much the only way I ever make cake. So easy, and so much wow-factor. My Aunt Tammy made this when I was a kid, and I have been obsessed with it ever since. I’m not a huge frosting fan, so I love that the frosting is Cool Whip… and anything with a whole jar of butterscotch/carmel poured all over it has my approval. I originally made it with chopped up Butterfingers instead of Heath bars, but either is awesome. If you use Heath bars, you can buy the already crushed up pieces near the chocolate chips.

Raise your hand if you’re hungry now! Anyone tried any of these recipes? What are your faves? I’d love it if you shared some links in the comment section!

Apr 26 2013

3 Comments

Decorate/DIY

Operation Office: Part 4

Did you think I forgot that I even started this office makeover? Although I was temporarily a bit distracted by the kitchen/living room, this office has certainly been on my mind. The last part I showed you was our desk all attached to the wall.

I still need to add some sort of skirting to hide the wall cleats, but other than that, the actual desk part is ready to be used. I knew right from the start that I wanted some floating shelves a over the desk, and I loved the idea of a big mirror in the middle. It just so happened that I had a big round mirror in the perfect wood tone hanging kind of pointlessly in the yellow room. I originally had this guy in the hallway and didn’t like it, so I threw him up in the yellow room just to kind of fill some wall space in there… Plus I figured it would be better hanging on a wall somewhere than sitting in a closet. So I stole the big guy from the yellow room and hung him centered over the desk. This immediately gave the space some vertical interest that it had been lacking. Of course I didn’t get an in-progress pic with just the mirror, but here it is in the yellow room… right above the chairs that I also stole.

Next up were some shelves. I picked up four 24″ white shelves at Lowe’s for a few bucks a piece, but I could decide on brackets. Lowe’s sells a variety of metal brackets, but I kind of wanted more of a statement. I looked at wood corbels that you traditionally see on other pieces of furniture, like supporting countertops on an island, but they are seriously expensive! So I was kind of stuck for a whole trying to figure out what I wanted.

And then I went to IKEA on our little anniversary mini-vacation. Yes, a day spent in ~~Heaven~~ IKEA is my idea of a romantic getaway. They had loottttts of brackets for me to choose from. I immediately loves the shape of these ones. I originally thought I wanted to paint them white, but then I thought staining them would be a cool contrast, and of course tie in withe all that other wood. Whenever I start with raw wood and can’t decide between paint and stain, I go with the stain because its easy to paint over stain, but not so easy to stain after painting. So I spread them out on garbage bags on our island, and went to town.

I used this stuff… Cabot’s “Red Oak” … it’s pretty close to our cabinets (and the desk), as well as the bamboo blinds in the office and throughout our kitchen and living room.

Then they stayed there to dry for ohhh, about a week. I’m kind of crazy about keeping my island clean and bare so I can use every inch for food prep, but at the same time I am totally willing to let half-done projects take over the counter on a regular basis…. total nut job, right?

Once the stain was dry (It took a few days! Ughhh, I hate waiting!) I was ready to hang the shelves. To visualize the position of the shelves, I used painter’s tape to temporarily attach them to the walls. Then I could step back and make adjustments. Once I was happy, I marked the bottom right corner of each one to use as a guide. We still had to measure and make sure everything was level, but I felt more confident seeing the general location first.

We marked and drilled holes, hammered in some drywall anchors (since the bracket locations aren’t lined up with studs), and screwed the brackets to the wall and popped the shelves on top. So here we are with all of them hung… starting to look like an office, right?!

Now the only thing that’s bothering me like crazy is the curtains… I know, I know, I said they were perfect, but in person the white with cream stripes reads overall as off-white, and it looks totally clashy with the bright white shelves and bright white chairs… see what I mean above and below?

So there may be another change in store for the window, but my wheels are still turning on that as well…. You know I’ll keep you posted!

Next up, aside from actually putting some stuff on my shelves, I seriously need to clean the big pile of crap directly across from the desk… I almost broke a bone trying to take these pictures!

Apr 24 2013

2 Comments

Organization

Behind-the-Door Storage

Let me just warn you up front that this is not going to be the most engaging blog post you’ve ever read… There’s some stuff in a house that just isn’t pretty…. stuff that decorators don’t talk about, but we all know this stuff still exists and needs to be dealt with. So continue at your own risk, and I promise I’ll be back with pretty on Friday.

Once upon a time, I read Courtney’s blog post about using a shoe organizer in her bathroom vanity to store different products. What a great idea! I finally got around to buying a an over-the-door shoe organizer at Wal-Mart for $5-something, and I planned on cutting it in half and hanging on the inside of the vanity doors in each bathroom. However, I got it home and realized that the organizer was too wide to fit on either cabinet door. Womp womp womp.

I didn’t want the organizer to go to waste, so I figured there are always trinkets in my house that could be better organized, and the broom closet door was the perfect width for the organizer. I realized that this closet has been kind of a mess lately too. I installed a peg board on the wall for tools and it has kept the tools really neat, but the shelves and floor had become a mess. My spray paints seem to be making babies on a daily basis and now the cans are all over the place. I have a tool kit that holds tools and project supplies that can’t hang on the pegboard, but it was so full and heavy that I could barely lift it off the shelf, and I had to dig like crazy to find what I needed. This shot was after I emptied the floor (which was ridiculous), but it gives you an idea of how messy the shelves had gotten… and that’s even without my big heavy tool bag on top of everything. Pretty much an avalanche.

Also, some of my junk drawer containers have been overflowing with electronic chargers that were too big for the small containers. So this shoe organizer was just the kick in the pants I needed to take control of all this random junk in the kitchen!

I threw it up there with the over-the-door hooks it came with, but couldn’t stand the way the hooks showed on the other side of the door! U.G.L.Y. I swear they were even more noticeable in person.

I knew I’d go crazy looking at them every day so I wanted to attach the organizer right to the back of the door somehow. I magically discovered these little cup hooks in my junk drawer. I honestly have no idea when, why, or where I bought them. #hoardersburiedalive

I used my new BFF the drill to drill four tiny holes for the hooks in order to get rid of the over-the-door ones. To mark the spots for holes, I held up the organizer, marked the height where the holes fell, and used a level to draw a horizontal line at that height. Then, I held the organizer back up, and marked where the holes fell along the line. (Sorry for the lack of pictures of this process — I tried, but turns out it’s not really possible to stand on a chair, hold and organizer up and take pictures. I need an assistant!) Now, if you decide to use these hooks yourself you might be able to skip the drilling and jut spin them in by hand, like if you’re working with drywall or a softer wood. Or maybe if you have real muscles? It didn’t work for me though — I had to bust out the power tool. Oh and BT-Dubs (yes I just wrote that… if you don’t know what BT-Dubs means, go ask a 12 year old because that’s how I learned it) if you’re drilling into a hollow-core door like I was, be careful not to drill all the way through. I got a little carried away with the first hole and had a close call. Anyway, I seriously digress… I drilled four holes along a level line and spun my cup hooks in the four holes, then hung the shoe organizer on my hooks.

And apparently I was too antsy to fill the pockets to get a photo of the empty organizer, so let’s just pretend it’s time for the after shot.

Check it out! Chargers, glue, more chargers, gloves, dog stuff, more chargers, sand paper, drill bits, staples, hot glue gun, hooks, wire, laser level, stud finder, and yes more chargers. All in one slim little space…. with no ugly hooks showing! Oh and look, I even have an empty pocket to fill! Does that excite anyone but me? I considered printing some pretty little labels, but decided against it because (1) the pockets are clear, so I can see exactly what’s in each one, (2) some of the supplies will be temporary, like things I buy for specific projects and (3) I want to at least wait and see if I like everything in their respective pockets, or if I want to shift things around based on how often I use the contents. They may end up labeled eventually, just because I’m a freak … a label-addicted freak… but for now, I’m good with simple. And here’s the view of the much cleaner closet now.

Yes, my spray paint collection has now begun to populate a second shelf. Don’t judge me. The top shelf still needs help, but the bottom shelves are much tidier…. and now the vacuum is actually accessible. Perhaps I’ll get around to using it more often? Rrriiight.

So now I need your help… I’m loving this storage solution, but now every time anyone opens/closes the broom closet door, the bottom of the organizer bangs against it and the noise really bugs me… I know, problems of a spoiled brat, but seriously, any ideas for how I can attach the bottom part of the organizer to the door without putting more holes in the door? I tried command strips and duct tape and neither worked…

Apr 22 2013

6 Comments

Decorate/DIY

Front Entry Board & Batten: Part 2

We left off on our little board & batten adventure when I finally got my chunky board attached to the wall. With my hole-filler drying and the bottom section of the wall painted with a coat of semi-gloss white, I started with my smaller boards, to go below the chunky top piece.

I had a few options for these lower boards. I lot of people use wood or MDF in the same dimensions as their top piece, but this creates an issue with most baseboards. If I had used more 1×6 boards, (or 1x anythings, really) the boards would have stuck out further than our baseboards. Some people replace their baseboards to deal with this, and others cut a 45-degree angle at the bottom of the boards to create sort of a visual illusion and avoid replacing baseboards. I definitely wasn’t ready to tackle something that required a table saw and no way was I replacing my baseboards, so I decided to use lattice strips like John and Sherry used. I found them in with all the other lattice at Lowe’s, near the other lumber. I found white pieces that are made out of some sort of composite material… It almost seems like really really dense styrofoam, if that makes any sense.

Not only did using these lattice pieces allow me to avoid baseboard issues, but they are also super lightweight so they’re easier to work with, and this stuff is much cheaper than wood or MDF. I got 8′ strips for something like $4 a pop.

I started out by measuring the distance between the bottom of my horizontal piece of MDF and the top of my baseboards. Then, I cut three pieces of lattice to the correct length. I used a handsaw that I got with a miter box at Lowes… It was something rediculously cheap, like $6 or $7… definitely worth it. Because the lattice is that weird plasticy composite material, it’s tough to cut a clean edge.

Nothing a little sandpaper couldn’t grind off… I smoothed the edges of all my vertical pieces and I was ready to hang them on the wall. I let my inner math geek out and did what I thought would be a super fun word problem…. I measured the width of the wall, subtracted the width of all three lattice pieces, and divided that by four. I came out with 12 and 3/4″ for the spacing in between each piece of lattice. I used a pencil and a level to mark a spot for each piece of lattice. Then I just used some liquid nail to attach them to the wall. If you have a nail gun, I would just throw some nails in there, but I was so done with nailing/screwing that I was ready to put my faith in some strong glue. Thankfully the strips are so light that it holds them up perfectly.

So here we are with my three vertical pieces all glued to the wall.

Then I cut four horizontal pieces to go in between each vertical piece. I used the same process to cut and glue those to the wall.

I sort of freaked a little when I saw how wonky the seams looked. YIKES!

Normal people would have used caulk to deal with it, but I’m seriously not good at caulking, so I turned to my BFF once again.

Yup, I slathered some nail hole filler over the seams, and sanded it off once it was dry. I probably broke some carpentry rule or something, but I was happy with the results. After that was dry and sanded smooth, I painted two more coats of semi-gloss white paint (same as all of our trim) on everything. I was worried that I should have painted the wall with enough coats before I started attaching my lattice, but in the end I was glad I only did one coat first, because there were so many pencil marks all over the wall, and plus, the paint over everything at once kind of his some gaps and really made everything look seamless and finished. Once that was dry, we attached hooks for coats, dog leashes, etc… and here we are!

Every blog post I have read about board and batten says that pictures don’t do it justice, and I always thought it was weird because it looks pretty darn good in pictures, but seriously it is sooo pretty and dimensional and interesting in person. I may or may not pet it every time I walk by it… You’ll just have to come over to see what I’m saying! You can even come in the front door and I’ll have a place for your coat.

So there you have it…. my almost-done-completely-by-myself board and batten project. The only thing Kreig did was hang the hooks, and that was just because I was feeling lazy.

I still have another project planned to really define the front entry area, so stay tuned for that! In the meantime, do you love the board and batten? Tell me you want to pet it too!

Linking up at Home Stories A to Z, Bower Power Blog Young House Love, Sparkle Meets Pop and RedBirdBlue.

Apr 18 2013

3 Comments

Decorate/DIY, Spray Paint

I love lamp(s)

Please tell me you got my Anchorman reference in the title and you don’t think I really just have some weird lamp obsession… if you’re confused, go watch this YouTube video and then come back. Does explaining my own jokes make me really just not funny at all? Yeah, I think so.

Let’s chat about my living room lamps, shall we? See them down here on each side of the couch? Yes, this was before I repainted the living room and the end table. I’m just not ready to give you the full room reveal, so I’m not letting you see the full living room shot with the blue paint. Am I keeping you at the edge of your seat?

I don’t think I’ve told you much about these lamps, but I bought them at a yard sale this summer for… are you ready for this??? Two. dollars. for. both. Not kidding. I immediately loved their shape but wasn’t keen on the brass. Here they are the day I brought them home.

I know I know… brass is back, right? Well although I do like brass in some spaces, I wasn’t ready to bring it into my living room and honestly I still don’t think I’m ready to jump on the bandwagon… So I painted them “anodized bronze,” which is like a metallic charcoal color and I tried to let a little brass show through
toward the bottom because I thought it would look cool. I didn’t mind this color with the green walls, but I kind of felt like they blended in with the walls too much. I dreamed of fun bright colored lamps, but the wall color was preventing me from making a decision. So they stayed anodized bronze. I knew when I repainted the living room that these lamps would be on my spray paint list. I threw the lamps back in place as I waited for good spray painting weather and quickly realized how crazy wrong the lamps looked with the new color scheme.

So on a warm and non-rainy day, I brought both lamps outside and gave them a couple thin and even coats of Rustoleum’s “Night Tide” in a glossy finish. It looked a little scary-bright outside, but it’s a pretty dark blue with a little green in its blood… I always struggle to describe colors in words because I think everyone has such different ideas of what colors mean are so different. So I would call this color dark teal or peacock blue, but I don’t know if my definition of these colors is the same as yours, so just look at the pictures!

After waiting for the lamps to dry, I brought them in, reinstalled their shades and bulbs, and voila!

It feels like I went out and bought two new lamps! I love the super glossy finish… they glisten!

Now I’m thinking about adding a little ribbon trim to the shades… maybe yellow? Or lighter blue? Any thoughts?

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Tagged lamp, night tide, rustoleum, spray paint

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