Valentine’s Day & Martha Stewart

I hope everyone had a very sweet Valentine’s Day.  I know we did!

 

Back in November we made a trip to our local outlet and found what has become one of my favorite cookbooks…

The book has 52 seasonal menus, which is a big plus, because that means we are eating fresh and the most economical stuff on the market.  The menus consist of appetizer (most of the time), main course, side item(s) and desserts.  The whole idea of a planned menu to me sounds ridiculously romantic and special.   Seriously,  when do you have a meal that has all of these things at once???? …  Never?  Or perhaps, only on special occasion at a very fancy, expensive, restaurant? Right?  Exactly! but this cookbook allows you to have a very nice meal at home!

You are probably thinking that this must take all day, but it doesn’t!  It really doesn’t. Every menu in the book has a preparation schedule, and I honestly think that anybody can do it in an hour to an hour and half.   Anywho, I thought that it would be very nice and special to cook the planned menu once week and ever since we purchased the book I have been cooking the menus. Okay maybe not every week but almost every week   The results:  The food is delicious, simple and very special.  So because we had decided to stay in for Valentine’s day I thought it would be appropriate to cook one of Martha’s sesonal meals   This is what we had for Valentine’s Day…

Spice-Rubbed Beef Filets with Port-Glazed Pearl Onions and Golden Potato Puree

Nice, huh?  If you don’t have the book, you should get it ASAP.  Even if you don’t think you have time during the week, you can make it on a Friday and have a super romantic Friday night, wink wink.

… and then, there was light

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Hello everyone!

Not sure that I have ANY readers left, or that I ever had any .  Either way I am still here, not as active as I had originally thought but even if I don’t have any readers or as many post as I’d like, I still think a blog is an awesome way to document anything and everything, in my case how we slowly but surely upgrade our house.

Any who, I have an update on the office. IT IS ALMOST DONE! Yes, I know, I haven’t blogged about the office or anything lately but there wasn’t too much to blog about.  The office project  suddenly came to a  halt,  everything stopped, nothing was getting done it was sad and depressing and who wants to read about that you know?

It wasn’t long though before inspiration came back into our world.

Our inspiration….

We found this awesome light fixture on sale!  I was so happy, I was ecstatic because it is gorgeous and fits into our design perfectly AND it was on sale.   So after we got home Bill got  to work right away.  He climbed into the attic and rewired the switch from the wall socket to our brand new light fixture.

Let me explain, the office and the guest bedroom did not have a light fixture or an outlet  to install a light fixture.  It only had a light switch that is connected to a wall socket, I am guessing for a lamp, I don’t know!  All I know is that we needed to do some rewiring to have the switch connected to our new light fixture and install some can lights to highlight the bookcases.  First we thought we’d probably have to hire an electrician but after Bill climbed into the attic he realized he had full access to the office ceiling and could do it himself. SCORE!  It really only took him about a day and he even installed a light in the closet.

I am also happy to report  that my curtains are done and hung.  They look beautiful and they definitely add this something to the office.   All the bookcases are installed. The walls are touched up.  We only have a few things left…

1. Find a chair that we can reupholster.  remember from my sketch

2. Office chairs – We bought a pair of very comfortable chairs from my previous employer however these chairs only have one quality, comfort. They aren’t very fashionable and they definitely do not fit into the design, actually they stick out like a sore thumb.  We need something like these or like these.  Not sure exactly what kind of desk chairs we will buy. Honestly, it will have to wait, desk chairs are very very expensive.

3. the most daunting of them all – organize all of our junk. Oh my, I have had unpacked boxed in my office since we bought the house.  Not so much because of laziness but because of lack of storage.  I’ve started unpacking and I hated because when you first start going through all of your stuff it always looks like you went backwards, you know?  It’s not so bad though. I don’t have many boxes left. Things should be done pretty soon!

4.  Oh yeah decorate – geez, after going through all of this it seems like I am not as close as I thought I was. lol

Stay tuned!

Office – Floor Plan

Inspired by Candice Olsen,  I decided I would sketch our home office floor plan.  Now don’t get your hopes up,  mine looks nothing like hers, and in my defense this is my first time sketching ANYTHING!  So please don’t be too harsh!  Here it is…

As you can see the back wall will be covered with built-ins and there will be a two person desk that comes out from the built ins.  The desk has crossed legs like this one from Crate & Barrel (minus the bar between the two set of legs). We liked this design because it gives a more open feeling versus having a desk like this.  Of course, we also had the option of going with straight legs, like this, but that was to simple for this room.

The only other thing that we can fit into our space is a chair and a side table. I am still debating whether or not I want to put back the closet door. If I didn’t I could place the chair on that corner and then get a nice piece of furniture for the wall where the chair is supposed to be in this sketch.  First though I must find a chair, soon

Hope everyone has an awesome weekend!!!

Celia

Office – Window Panels

The walls and trim have been painted!!!  The black walls look awesome. The room looks very chic and not gothic or dark at all. All I have left to do is to cut in, which I am so over at this point.  Bill usually and successfully paints the top of the trim free hand but because of the contrast between black and white you can see every imperfection so I decided to give Frog Tape a try because according to the Youngsters it works wonderfully! See this post.  I also need to paint the tiny closet that is in the room, which means i have to get more black paint boo I was hoping a whole gallon would be enough to paint the office since I was only painting three walls. Anywho, my goal is to finish painting tomorrow because the built ins are coming in next week!!!

My next project is to sew the window panels.  I bought the fabric this past weekend, check it out!

I have to admit I am a bit nervous.  I’ve never sewn and this project is not going to be  simple. I have to sew two sections to make one panel which means aligning the patterns woo hoo. I also bought some of these black grommets to give the window panels more of a custom and professional look.  So what do you think?!

Blackberries

Oh the joy’s of summer!  A few weeks ago, more like a month ago, we went blueberry picking and let me just say if you haven’t been it is a must!   We had a lot of fun.  We were able to bring Azul with us and I think he enjoyed himself as well.  He was adorable, all he did was eat blueberries from the ground and from the lower parts of the trees, he loves them!   The place where we went also had a few picnic table so we packed up a few items and had ourselves a picnic!

When we got home I was so excited, I made blueberry muffins, blueberry pancakes and blueberry jam and oh my GOSH, there is nothing like homemade jam.  I can’t wait till next year, I will be making all kinds of jam… strawberry, blueberry, blackberry, peach, you name it and I’ll make it lol.  I actually felt like Monica from Friends on the episode where she is trying to get over Richard by making jam, lol, except I am not trying to get over anybody I am just making tons of jam   We also froze some blueberries so we could have some for the rest of the year to remind us of the wonderful things about summer!

C

Office Inspiration

Hello everyone! I’m back

Guess what Ive been working on?!?!  My office!  I’m so excited, I’ve painted the walls and Bill has installed the floors.  Now, I need to make a trip to my local fabric store because I am planning on making my own curtains! I am also looking for a bench or small comfy chair so  I will also be making a trip to a few thrift stores.

Here is my inspiration picture for the office…

Bold, huh?  I know, I thought so too but I think it works for this room because it gets lots of sunlight during the day.  The office is located on the front of the house and it has a decent size window (maybe twice as big as the one shown on the picture). I can’t wait to share pictures of the office with you guys!  All comments, questions or concerns are welcomed!

C