Kids' parties

My beautiful niece turned 2 and her parents threw her a great birthday party this weekend.  There were so many kids running around in her backyard, playing with toys and enjoying the sun.  My sister hired a woman who sang songs to the kids and played the guitar, and she also made them balloon animals!  Quite a talented woman, and the perfect party entertainment.  They served pizza to the adults and children, since it was easy to order and serve, inexpensive, and a food that both the adults and kids would love.  For the second year, I made the birthday party dessert.  My sister and brother-in-law asked me to make something healthier than birthday cake for the kids, so I looked on Pinterest (the source of so many things wonderful) and found this great idea:

FRUIT CONES!

Fruit cones are a fast, simple, and HEALTHY children's party dessert.  I made a fruit salad of strawberries, blueberries, seedless green grapes, and nectarines.  The strawberries were cut in half or quartered, the grapes were cut in half, and the nectarines were cut into small bites.  I bought kiddie ice cream cones at the grocery store and filled them with fruit right before serving them (so the cones didn't get soggy).  The cones were easy for 2-year-olds to carry around with them and eat, and they mostly used their adorable little fingers to get to the fruit.  It was a hit.  I have a feeling we'll be repeating this children's party dessert in the future.

Before pictures

Since we're working on transforming our rooms and making them our own, I thought I'd post three before pictures today.

1. Living Room

We're going to put in this room a sectional couch, coffee table, comfy chairs, a side table for the couch, a console table behind the couch, a standing globe, our wine rack, and a wood dresser to hold the bar. We'll also have a lot of plants in here near the windows.

2. Upstairs guest bathroom

We're in the middle of a DIY renovation on this room.  We took down the wallpaper, towel rods, medicine cabinet (to the right of the mirror, not pictured), shower rod and curtain, and mirror. We put up a new, curved shower rod, and now we are adding drywall, sanding, and prepping the walls for paint.

3. Master bedroom

So far in this room we have our bed, a table behind the bed, two nightstands, our dresser, and an over-stuffed chair in this room.  We have a few small rugs in there, too, but we need to figure out whether we want to get a larger rug or big piece of carpet to make the room more cozy.  We also need to replace the windows and put up blinds and curtains. For now we have stick-on blinds (which work great).

Baking up some fall apples

IT'S APPLE SEASON!

I have a great apple cake recipe that I really like to bake during apple season.  My friend Ali passed the recipe along to me a few years ago.  Here is the link from when it was posted in The Washington Post in September 2006.  It comes with a honey sauce recipe, but I always make it without the sauce, and it's delicious!  I often have apple slices left over after I fill the pan, but I'm ok with that.  They're covered in cinnamon and sugar and make a great snack.

Since I'm still unpacking the new house and organizing our kitchen, I haven't baked this cake this year. But I'm thinking about it.  Maybe this weekend or next....

West Elm Sale

I love a good West Elm sale!   West Elm is giving customers 15% OFF clearance items until September 23 with promo code FALL15.  They have great house decor items, and I did a little online shopping yesterday and am now awaiting the arrival of these three pretty items.

Sculpted Origami Pillow Cover in Heather Oatmeal

Final sale, $19.99

West Elm

SHORT NARROW VASE in WHITE

Final sale, $14.99

West Elm

CROSS DYE BASIC NAPKIN SET in red pepper

Set of 4 on Final sale, $9.99 

West Elm

I plan to use the heather oatmeal color pillow and the small white vase in our bedroom.  I'm thinking the color scheme of our bedroom will be shades of grey, blue, and white, with dark wood furniture.  My inspiration pictures are here, here, and here.  So far, we have dark wood nightstands and a dresser from Ikea and a gray duvet cover.

The red napkins will add some cheery color to our table, and they are also more earth-friendly than using paper napkins (right now we have a big bag of Costco ones) when guests come over.  Double win. :)

Travel Dreams - Stateside

My new husband and I love to travel, and we have taken some fantastic trips together in the past three years.  Now that we bought a house, we might be taking fewer overseas trips in an attempt to save up for all the house renovations we want to do.  Maybe that means we'll take more vacations in the US and near our home.  I've been thinking about travel the past few days and great US destinations.

Of all the places I've been to in the US, my favorites are (trying not to put these in a particular order):

1.  Chicago - so much to see, even more amazing restaurants, plus the best free events year-round.

2.  California wine country - Napa and Sonoma are gorgeous and full of incredible wine and food.

View from the Castello di Amorosa Tuscan castle and winery

3. New Orleans - New Years 2010. It's a fantastic place to bring in the New Year!

Delicious beignets at Cafe du Monde

4.  Alaska - we visited Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay, and Ketchikan on the Norwegian Cruise Line for my 30th birthday!

5.  Las Vegas - we went for our friends' (non-Vegas style) wedding and had a blast on the strip.

The common attraction:  fun things to do and great food.*  Guess that's what it takes to reel me in!

Where do I want to go next?  Here are a few thoughts:

• Montana - the scenery is supposed to be breathtaking
• Mountain View, California - to visit my li'l brother
• Outer Banks, North Carolina - I've heard the beaches are beautiful
• Delaware beaches - maybe an easy drive for my family to take a beach trip next summer?
• Sarasota, Florida - my mom is going to be living there full time starting this winter, and it's time I get down there to visit! Plus, Key Beach is often rated the #1 beach in the US.
• National Parks out west - the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Zion, Bryce Canyon, and others

* I wouldn't say the cruise line food was great, although it was much better than I anticipated. Alaska made the list because of the gorgeous natural wonders and views. It's breathtaking and I highly recommend a trip out there in the summer!

Guest Bathroom Makeover - Part 3

Part 3:  Transforming a Medicine Cabinet to Open Shelves

Our DIY guest bathroom renovation continues!  When we took out the medicine cabinet so we could remove the wallpaper around it, we decided not to replace the cabinet and instead use the existing space for open shelving.  We have a few reasons for doing this:

1. The medicine cabinet is old and not in great shape
2. In a guest bathroom, we don't see a need to keep things that will barely get used in there (like medicine bottles).
3. We have a linen closet just outside the guest bathroom where we can store lots of extra bathroom items, like tissue paper, medicine bottles, extra shampoo and conditioner, etc.
4. There is very little space on the bathroom counter, so guests will be able to rest some of their toiletries on the open shelves -- we're thinking toothpaste, makeup, deodorant, etc.

Luckily, my handyman hubby was up for the challenge when I suggested the open shelving idea.  Last night, he got to work!  I provided lots of moral support, one very important karate chop, and my cell phone for pictures.  Here's what the medicine cabinet looked like before we took it down to tear out the wallpaper.

Here's how we began our transformation from medicine cabinet to open shelving:

Step 1: We measured the space in the hole left by the medicine cabinet.

Step 2: We bought a piece of patching drywall that we could cut into pieces to cover the walls, top, and bottom.  (We didn't have to cover the back wall because there was drywall there already.)  It only cost $5 since we needed a small amount -- 2 ft x 2 ft x 1/2 in.

Step 3: My hubby used a pen to mark on the drywall where he needed to cut a piece for the side

Sell home items on Craigslist

I already posted about the wonders of Freecycle.org in this post, and I continue to look on Freecycle often to see if there are items we need for our new home that we can get at no cost.  Another great resource is Craigslist, both to find and sell items.

My mom is selling her house and wants to get rid of a lot of great items, so I suggested she post them on Craigslist.  It's easy and you can make some good money, and the best part is that people will come to pick up the items, so you don't have to do the work of driving them anywhere or lifting anything heavy.

In my experience, to sell items on Craigslist, you should:

1. Include key words that people will search for
2. Post good pictures
3. Write short descriptions in bullet format so the post is easy to read

I really like this Craigslist selling guide from Seventh House on the Left.  Check it out.

Making Old Furniture New

This past weekend we moved a lot of furniture into our house that was giving to us by my parents.  My dad was storing furniture for a few years with the idea of giving it to his children when they moved into houses.   My mom recently sold her house and will be moving to Florida, so she is also giving us a lot of furniture that she won't be taking with her.  I am very happy to be getting some beautiful pieces that have been in our family for decades.  Some of the pieces are in great shape, and we wouldn't think of touching them with paint or taking them apart.  But others... let's just say they could use a little TLC.

Which got me thinking about how best to make some of our old furniture new.  There are many great tutorials out there on the WWW about painting wood furniture, some clever IKEA hacks, and much more.  Here are three of my favorite furniture makeovers that I've seen recently.

1. Censational Girl's Thrift Store Cabinet Makeover

Wow!  Kate used a sander, paint, custom cut glass, and pieces of flat lattice to make this old piece look like new.  Can you believe it cost her a whopping $10?

Censational Girl

2. Dressed Up Dresser

Claire Zinnecker posted this into a great, modern piece on Camille Styles.

Camille Styles

3. Reupholster a Chair

We have some great chairs that could seriously use a new, fancy outfit.  Jessica wrote out a step-by-step tutorial here that I am itching to try.

Four Generations One Roof

So... which of our old pieces of furniture is up first?  I'll have to think about that.

August in pictures

Besides moving in August, and MANY HOURS of unpacking, moving things around, working on our guest bathroom, and making at least 10 trips to Home Depot or Lowe's, we had a few really fun days with friends and family.

On Labor Day, we went with friends to Breaux Vineyards in Purcelville, Virginia.  It was a beautiful, one-hour drive from DC to the vineyard, and the $10 tasting was fun.  We then spent a few hours on the patio with a picnic lunch and we bought two bottles of wine to share: a 2011 Jolie Blond and a 2005 Merlot.  I highly recommend a day at Breaux!

My little niece, B, hanging out on our porch during move-in weekend.  She enjoys the southern charm of our front porch as much as I do!  She likes to look in each window and count the columns.  I measured her against our baby lemon tree (not pictured), and they are about the same height. I wonder if the lemon tree can keep up with her....

Two of our favorite people got hitched in August in Amherst, MA.  Andy and Becca looked amazing and threw a music-filled bash.  My favorite parts were seeing Becca in her Vera Wang dress, watching them get hoisted into the air on chairs during the dancing, secretly decorating their room with rose petals, and chilling at the end of the night on the beautiful deck in front of the fireplace at The Lord Jeffrey Inn (a great wedding location)!

September promises to be a busy month as well:  moving things out of storage from Massachusetts to Maryland, fixing up the guest bathroom, and organizing our linen closets and just about every other room in the house.

Guest Bathroom Makeover - Part 2

Part 2:  Tales of Taping, Sanding, and Joint Compound

Over Labor Day Weekend we made a lot of progress on the guest bathroom makeover.  To start, we used painter's tape to tape off areas of the bathroom that meet the wall.

We don't want to paint the window trim, vanity counter, shower tile, light fixture, etc.  The painter's tape is very easy to use.  You just need to (1) make sure it's lined up well so that it lies straight against the edges of the wall, and (2) flatten out all air bubbles so paint can't get underneath.

Then, my handyman hubby took down the mirror, wall-mounted soap dish, towel rods and took off the toilet tank so we could sand the wall behind the toilet.

Next, he used a hand sander to sand the wall down so it is nice and smooth.  He used safety goggles and a face mask, since the dust from the walls goes everywhere.

After that, he mixed joint compound in a big, orange all-purpose bucket.  It was very easy to mix the joint compound.  (You can buy it pre-mixed, but it's less expensive to make your own.) We got a Super Grout Mixer and attached it to our drill, poured the dry joint compound powder into the bucket, and then added water from the hose.  We mixed it until the joint compound was about the consistency of peanut butter or cake icing -- not too watery, but thick enough to cover the wall and not drip down.