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Apples & Pumpkins

I finally got my perfectly crisp fall day this past weekend, and it was well worth the wait. I'll let the pictures tell the story:

Fall is here!

But you'd never know it. Here in NH, the temperature will climb to almost 90 degrees with high humidity. HUH???? It's the end of September and how the heck am I supposed to get into the spirit of all things fall with this heat?
I want to go buy mums and pumpkins in the worst way, but the mood has to be right, and it's so much better on those apple picking and hayriding excursions when there's some leaf-crunching going on under foot.

Fortunately, it's not supposed to last more than a couple days, and by my birthday (on the 29th, people!!! wooo! 29 - AGAIN!) maybe it will feel more like the season it's supposed to be, instead of the season that seems to be dragging on in an endless loop!

I am looking forward to lighting a nice little fire in my newly revamped fireplace . I love that cozy, relaxed feeling of sitting by a warming fire. It defines "home" for me. Not to mention it's a nice way to keep our oil bill on the down low.
For anything you ever wanted to know about alternative home heating, follow this link to read up and compare a ton of options. Even if you're in the middle of a heat wave like me, it's never too early to prepare for colder days ahead.

P.S.
As you might have noticed, I entered Remodeling My Space's "Remodel, Blog & Win contest. If you like my style, it would be great if you'd take a minute to drop a vote for me. (just click on that button in the upper right hand corner) Make sure you check out my older posts to see what we've done up to this point.

90% Done

I patched...
I sanded...
I primed and painted...
And here it is so far!

This little room has taken up so much of our time, but the end is finally in sight! The last 10% on the to do list is finishing touches. Curtains, pictures on the walls...er...closet doors. Maybe it should be more like 80% done.

Everything came from IKEA, and these magazine organizers are my favorite thing in the whole room. It manages my huge addiction to Real Simple. I love how neat and orderly everything looks now.
Speaking of IKEA, we had such a good experience shopping there. It was an all-day event, but we ended up getting exactly what we needed for this room. Even putting everything together wasn't as painful as we had anticipated.

Soon it will be 100% done, and then it's on to finish my sad looking bedroom. (after a well-deserved break!)

DEMO!!!

I love demolition. It's fun, and it means that there's a BIG change coming.

Yesterday, I tore part the ancient built-ins in the office. The previous owners had them installed in the early 80's as sewing room furniture. They weren't worth keeping, as they were not made with the best materials in the first place, and they were pulling away from the walls. The pieces were built on site, and consited of large, deep shelves on one end, a laminate run of countertop in the center that was entirely to low, with shallow drawers. On the other end was a tall closet that was used for various sewing projects and ironing.

I got to work bright and early in the morning, and even that early it was exceptionally hot and muggy, but there was no turning back- when the inspiration hits, I have to do it all the way!

Tearing out the old stuff was harder than I thought. Even though it appeared to be falling down on its own, it was was all held together pretty well.

I sawed:
I pulled:
I found these fabulous 70's artifacts: After about 300 trips up and down the cellar stairs, and out to the garage with all the debris, the room is clear, and looks huge!
I have a few ideas about what this room will look like. It will still be an office, but it needs to do double duty as a guest room, so we may do a daybed, or window seat/bed thing. I am having enough trouble deciding on colors roght now, buit I will try to sketch out a few things and see what works.
That's it for now, I will post pictures as we go!

Blank Wall No More

A couple years ago, I tried my hand at this faux finish in the dining room (translate= eat-in kitchen). It was so simple to do (just dunk an old t-shirt into some glaze and slop and swirl it on!) and added a ton of texture and visual interest. Unfortunately, the large expanse of wall remained blank for the better part of 2 years. I was at a loss as to how to fill the space. Later, we would like to add on and add windows, but I wanted a more affordable fix for now.
One day, I was at The Christmas Tree Shop and found these 2 ledges. $9 bucks each! I have to say, it was tough hanging them, and my husband and I were furiously flinging drywall anchors at each other (jokingly) by the end of it. I hate keyhole mounts! gaarh!!! We have too many chairs! lol , but the wall is no longer a boring stretch of nothingness. I would like to shop for more interesting doo-dads for the shelves (bigger things would look better up there) but for now, a few favorite things will do.
I had to mention this red piece of furniture. This was the center part of a small entertainment unit that my Aunt had built years ago. It had bookcases on either side, which she kept, but gave this to me when she moved into her new apartment. It spent a while in our office as a tv / printer stand, until I moved it in here to hold my cookbooks and table linens. That Grape-Nuts picture on the wall is an old grape-drying rack. That hung in my childhood home until my mother gave it to me for my first home, almost 10 years ago, and I love it. My friend Kelley threatens to smuggle it home every time she's here! LOL

Curtains...finally :)

I can't believe it's been over a month since I last posted about the new living room stuff. In that time, I've been super busy - school let out, and my son has been doing all sorts of summer activities. Speaking of my son, I started a diabetes blog and have been devoting some time to that as well.

Where we left off last was curtains for the living room. I hate to buy new when a coat of paint will do, so I took a can of spray paint to the gold colored curtain rod , and transformed it to a "wrought iron" look.

So, without any further ado...

New Stuff!!

I have always had a kind of decorating identity crisis. Deciding on a style is like picking a favorite family member...it can't be done! I like too many different types of stuff. Modern stuff, antique stuff, shabby stuff, shiny stuff...you get the idea.
So, once I finished painting the living room, the search was on for pillows and curtains. Picking colors and knowing what "goes" with what is not my strong suit. (This affliction crosses over into my clothes closet, too. I could be a prime candidate on "What Not To Wear". Stacy and Clinton would kick my ass!! )
Back to the pillows and such...I looked and looked forever. I wish I could sew my own custom made things, but my knowledge of how to operate a sewing machine got left behind at Hunking Middle School 8th grade Home Ec class.

I found these beauties at TJ Maxx.

Silk -(with a 9 year old boy, a husband and 2 cats) am I crazy?? LOL
Blue is not something I would have ever chosen but it looks so pretty against the new gold in my wall color, and it's the color of a Tiffany box- big thumbs up. I have a gorgeous curtain rod with pretty finials and such, but it needs to be spray painted. Once I figure out how to do that without spraying paint all over myself, I will post hanging curtain pictures!

When you've got no material, talk about food!!

No new home projects happening around here (yet) so I thought I'd switch gears a little bit.

Heidi Swanson over at 101 cookbooks posted this recipe for Delicious Big Bowl-Quinoa back in February that had an ingredient I had never heard of in my entire 33 years on the planet. Quinoa.
The simple cooking method and ingredients had me so interested, not to mention Heidi's description of the type of days that led her to make this particular dish...something about turbulence and a rainy Sunday.
I couldn't stop thinking about the combination of some of my favorite stuff. Potatoes, onion, garlic, asparagus!! Finding that one ingredient, that quinoa, was something of a scavenger hunt. No-one in the 3 supermarkets I frequent knew what the hell I was even asking for.
me: "It's called quinoa. (keen-wa)"
supermarket dude: "Is it a vegetable"?
me: "No, I think it's a grain...or a seed. Something little like cous-cous"
supermarket dude: "Couscous is in aisle 3."
me: "It's not really the same...oh well maybe it will jump out at me'

I had at least 2 other supermarket dudes at 2 other stores tell me they had no clue, so I assumed they must not carry it.
Today I found it in the teeny-tiny health food section at the store that never usually has any kind of specialty item. I was so ecstatic! It is the perfect rainy raw dingy and grey day for some low-down good comfort food.
I made mine different than Heidi, but seriously you could put pretty much anything with this, and it will be awesomely delish. I did kale instead of asparagus, added mushrooms and for the nuts, toasted up some slivered almonds.

Really, really exquisitely good and so warm and filling. I should make some for supermarket dudes 1, 2, and 3 so they know what it is! By the way, it was is aisle 7.

Check out the rest of Heidi's blog for more incredible food-topia type entries. She is the bomb!

Just because you have 2 favorite colors...

...does not mean you should put them together. I mean, I love sage and purple together, and really wanted my bedroom to reflect that. Unfortunately, I didn't know about accent colors and how to use them creatively. I thought "if I like it, I'm going to drown in it." Bad idea.

This is the story:

I was so excited to do a room from scratch! I never had a completely blank canvas before. I tried to pretend I was a real designer. (yes, I'm a dork!)
The first thing I did was run to the carpet store. My choice was inspired by the gorgeous Laura Ashley carpet my mom has in her bedroom. So I copied her, just in a different color.

When you go from matted, ORANGE shag carpet to this, you just have to enjoy with your piggies:
We had done the smart thing and painted the walls our dusky purple color before the rug went down, but what we didn't count on was :
1. the windows were bare at the time, letting in some nice, bright light -making the paint color look pretty light.
2. we were dead tired and living in a single bedroom at my mother's while we got the house ready before moving in. My husband worked 10 hour days, came here and worked till midnight. I worked here during the day, went to my part-time job at the bank and came back here to finish up the night with him. We had about as much common sense as zombies.
"that look good....?"
"uuuungh."

Needless to say, we ended up with a cave-like effect that depresses me on a daily basis. I love a light, bright but cozy room. What the hell was I thinking? I was sleeping inside a giant grape every night. The pictures here don't do it justice. In real life, it's so gloomy.
So it's been almost 3 years of other commitments, projects, and improvements and we're ready to make another go of it.

On a recent trip to Home Depot, I cleaned them out of practically all their paint swatches. I love these little cards. Anything that shows different shades of the same color is so calming to me. (I get the same feeling shopping for scrapbooking paper).

Just taping them to my walls made me happy.
I have asked the opinion of everyone except the UPS man (ok, I thought for a split second about inviting him in to take a look) and I think we finally have a winner after a week of observing the differences on the colors depending on the time of day, position of the sun through the window, lamp light, etc. I will keep it a surprise until the finished result, but I can tell you it's not any of the colors below. Watch for updates!

Oh!! Before I go, what the hell should I do with this area? I need the storage, but I've seriously had that bureau since I was an infant...maybe do a built-in? I'd love to hear your ideas!!

Happy Easter

I thought we were in the clear...

We woke up this morning to no school, electricity knocked out, and this:

It's not that surprising, really. There is a saying around here. "If you don't like the weather in New England...wait a minute."
It's not unheard of to have snow in April. One year we had blizzard conditions and a foot or so of snow on April Fool's Day!
We just spent the past weekend raking the yard and getting it all neat and tidy, and now you can't even see all our effort and hard work!!

Ah well, seeing as we had no power for coffee making of our own, a trip to our favorite cafe, BeanTowne was in order. This place is great, and my son loved it. He wants to go there every day! I got the most DELISH (and definitely not on my eating plan) Mocha Latte. Complete with a little cocoa powder star on top. Tres Cool!!

By the time we got back home, the power had come back on, and my son and I have been having a lazy day. It's not so bad. We got to spend time together, just us, hanging out doing "a whole bunch of nuthin'" and enjoying each other's company. I can't imagine that someday soon, on days like this, it will be so uncool to hang with mom.

It's coming down again as I type, and it just occurred to me.
Snow days are not so bad at all.

Serious Lack of Landscaping

I love my house- hate my yard.
Ok, hate is a strong word. I strongly dislike my yard. I wish you could have seen what it looked like when we moved here...everything was overgrown, the front of the house was completely shrouded by ancient junipers, and rhododendrons. Juniper is my least favorite plant, that has a scent I can only describe as cat pee. I know- gross, right? Well, they were living right under our windows, so I wanted them gone.

Fortunately for us, we made fast friends with our neighbor Rob. Rob loved yard work. Especially yard work that involved demolition. Rob had a truck and a chain, and he offered to yank those suckers out for us.
It was nothing short of a thrill watching the guys attach the chain, get into that old truck and floor it. The tires spun! Mud was flying! I held my breath hoping the rear bumper of the truck would stay attached. Not only did it stay on, but it yanked out those God-forsaken bushes by the roots. I think 21 in all.

But now what to do? Yes,we had a blank canvas, but no vision.
The picture here, of the front of the house is completely barren, and continues to be even now, a season later.

We do have grass now, but like everything else, there's a story for that, too.

The yard had no grass, instead there was a layer of moss over the whole surface. It was neglected for so long, that we had to start over. That meant tilling, raking, planting new grass seed and watering like crazy. If anyone has ever done this, you know how bone-shatteringly tiring it can be. If not, you are extremely lucky and I'm insanely jealous.
The grass grew in beautifully, but it grew only because I didn't touch the seeds. That was my husband's territory. I have a cursed "brown thumb" and am not allowed to participate in anything that requires the growing of a plant.
That being said, you can see why I have nothing in the way of curb appeal going on here. I need some major help. I want something "clean" neat, nothing that's going to grow all crazy-tall and out of control. I want lighting, pretty mulch, flowers for all seasons....I need a gardener! ha ha.

The Silver Lining:
There is one very cool feature, that we need to focus on though. It's in our side yard and it's gorgeous. This area was a wet, yucky low-lying drainage area. My husband dug down, laid down plastic, and poured gravel to make a dry creek bed. Then he made about a gazillion trips with the wheelbarrow filled with all these big rocks, and hand placed them one by one. The rocks came from our neighbor's yard overhaul (thanks Rob and Betsy!)
I think this project took him about 2 months of weekends, and some nights after work. He lost about 20 lbs. in the process, too.
Neighbors driving by would slow down, and tell him it was "looking good" and "great job". I think so too.
It not only looks cool, it really does divert the rainwater into the drainage pipe way better. It used to collect in this one spot, and I guarantee mosquitoes were having raves in there.
He did an amazing job, and I know he will continue to tweak it this spring and summer, so stay tuned!