Laundry "Room"

Our laundry-room is my least favorite area of our house. I envision a whole ROOM devoted to laundry, with crazy organization systems and bright, crisp shelves, ironing boards, drying racks, ect. Mom-in-law has the BEST laundry space. I have, well, a closet. This may be hidden  99% of the time behind bi-fold doors, but I felt like this was the perfect space to give a trial run to what I envision my someday laundry mansion to feel like: old rustic pieces, crisp white and tans and deep blues, see-through jars of detergent and stain fighter, you name it! The washer/dryer pedestal was our very first ever pin on pinterest that we actually gave life to! This is version 2, as the first version was ruined with our washer/dryer issue.

Kevin HATES these safety pins. But he loves me enough to slap them on the wall regardless! The best part, they open/close!!!

http://www.ballarddesigns.com/

I love the look of a cupboard with one door always open, filled with knick knacks: navy and white towels in a galvanized tub, burlap bean-bag, canvas pillow, apothecary jar of laundry powder, and a tea tin. (recognize this? It's the mate of the one on the mantle!)

Welcome to: The basement!

Our downstairs mantle and fireplace was one of our favorite things about the house when we were looking to buy, along with heated floors!! After a basement flood due to a service issue with our washer and dryer, our basement sat dusty, full of drywall pieces, cobwebs, and debris scattered amoung dirty clothes and stacks of DVDs while we waited for things to get fixed. Things are FINALLY almost back to normal. We completed the downstairs bathroom, laundryroom, and main area, and all we have left is to buy a piece of wainscotting to put up on this wall:

Welcome to the basement:







 Still not sure about this randomly placed outlet...?

THANK you, to Chelsey, for finding this amazing ladder during our neighborhood " big junk" day. This guy was FREE, and after a coat of stain to darken it up, a throw-blanket, and a wedding photo, we love it! Even Kevin, whos initial comment was, "Why are you putting an old ladder in our house...?" said it looked pretty sweet, which is a win any way you look at it!

This was an old, gold and red picture of a flower. After some spray paint, printable, and modpodge, we like it much better!

Burlap Bean-bag-Junk Jubilee
Tea Tin-Goodwill
Scale-The Domestic Revive ("like" them on facebook!)

Controllers and wires are hidden in these faux books. They are actually little storage containers from Pier one, thrifted for $8! Originally 24.99/ea.

A dried hydrangea from an old farmers market bouquet has somehow managed to escape the little fingers of our nephew, Jax. For now..

Since there is not a coffee-table to be found in either of the living rooms, our old coffee-table books have turned into "Canvas-tote" books. :)

Vintage silver serving platter: Junk Jubilee, spraypainted antique white, chalkboard paint over that. Still working on chalk typography...I still dont love my handwriting.

11x16 (ish) deep frame--->  add burlap, first dance lyrics to mat-board, & a 6x9 wedding photo

Our weekend

...turned out being a lazy and productive one. Lazy, in that we didnt "do" much of anything. We occupied the kitchen table for a lengthy stretch, Kevin doing his homework, Chelle making a wedding photo album, Herky...well..doing what he does best.

THEN, this came:

Thank you's and wedding photos for around the house! If you've never checked out mpix.com, do it! They are a professional printing company for many area photography businesses, and are incredibly cheap! We loved the quality of their products.

It seemed like these were the tipping point in our weekend. After these arrived, Thank you's were in the mail within 24 hours:

Having our wedding pictures in, Chelle also got inspired to finish up decorating the basement!

What's in a Lamp?

Can you believe we tried to sell this old lamp at our garage sale last month!?! Dummy!

Ive honestly been surprised lately at the projects that have popped out to me using stuff I already have around the house. Im not sure why we always have this need to get rid of our own junk, and go search out other people's junk. Maybe we just get too used to looking at it, so it no longer seems appealing, even to rehab, but either way, Im glad I gave this lamp a second chance. I have another just like it if someone is itching to try a lamp re-do of their own and wants to award my garage with some more free space. :)

Let me tell you, it was no quick task taping off the glass, cord, and lighting fixtures to paint all of the nickel a satin-y (official term, ya?) black.

But after 2 trips to the local big box store to find right jute cord to match the color of burlap we have, and an all day "burlap flower" experimentation session, Im SO glad this lamp hasn't lost a place in our home just yet! :) Im really into black and tan right now, is it obvious?

Thank You Cards

We've been struggling to choose a thank you card we liked. After much deliberation, we've made our choice. Watch your mailbox to see which one made the cut!

Downstairs bathroom makeover!

Remember this post? Wellll, so it took longer than a week. And it's still not "Technically" finished.

I have 2 old dresser drawer shelves that are painted to match that belong on the wall adjacent the toilet; however, they are heavy, and I am in need of Husband's assistance to hang them. Enter: the waiting game! :) Ill surely post a final picture when they're up. Until then, here's what we did!

We painted this set of old shutters a bright "daffodil" yellow, added some green reed-grass, and BOOM: corner planter!

Then, our favorite part, a HUGE 3D wall painting. This is actually a piece of leftover plywood from a different project that fit perfectly in this space, so it just felt wrong not to put it here. :)

We painted white and "new black" (A deep shade of navy to pull in the black and blue hues in the bathroom) stripes of differing thickness, and then added 3D fabric rosettes out of an old T-shirt cut to make our "thread".

We added a mesh brushed nickle wastebasket, a galvanized pail with some vanilla potpourii, and a vintage candlestick, painted white, attached to a black "holder thing" (official, right?) filled with a sea sponge, and some travel lotions/hand sanitizers.

*do you see Kevin's football hall of fame picture!

What do you think of the color combo?

Wedding photo party

I am having a wedding photo party. Attendees: myself, my dog, a glass of wine, & the Mac! I have over 700 photos to drool over and turn into stuff! Our photog gave us our photos in this cute gift bag (in our wedding colors) with a little thank you card! How sweet!

Stay tuned and we'll post a few of our faves

Being Outdoorsy-ish

This weekend, Kevin left for a week-long wilderness trip with our church. Praise God for any spiritual growth Kevin is sure to walk through, but man, its hard being patient waiting for him to return home! So I decided to try anything humanly possible to keep distracted from the fact that I won't be speaking with my husband until Thursday!

To pay homage to Kevin, who is likely carrying a canoe on his shoulders as I type, I tried my hand at several "manly" things; things that usually he takes care of for me. :)

Things like, trimming our Bonsai tree:

and after:

And cleaning all of the cotton off of our AC (I just LOVE being surrounded by cottonwood trees!)

and after(also minus the old mulch bags that needed to GO)

**As you can see, our back yard is in SERIOUS need of some landscaping. We're saving our pennies, trust us!!

And cleaning the garage, something that never seems to stay clean, no matter how hard we try!

and after:

Pinterest Tried & Loved

Spring Shells & Cheese

Ingredient Roundup!

• 2 pounds medium zucchini
• Kosher salt
• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• Pinch of cayenne pepper
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 6 cups whole milk
• 4 sprigs fresh thyme
• 3 bay leaves
• Grated zest of 1/2 lemon
• 1 pound medium pasta shells
• 4 shallots, minced
• 2 large egg yolks, lightly beaten
• 4 ounces parmesan cheese, grated (about 1 cup)
• 4 ounces gruyere cheese, grated (about 1 1/4 cups)
• 4 ounces baby spinach

Grate the zucchini into a colander using the large holes of a box grater. Toss with 1 tablespoon salt, then place in the sink to drain, about 15 minutes. Squeeze out the excess liquid.

Meanwhile, melt 4 tablespoons butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the flour, nutmeg, cayenne, 2 teaspoons salt, and black pepper to taste and mix with a wooden spoon to make a paste. Cook, stirring, until the paste puffs slightly, about 3 minutes. 

Slowly whisk in the milk, then add the thyme, bay leaves and lemon zest and bring to a boil, stirring. Reduce the heat and simmer until thickened slightly, about 25 minutes. 

Strain into a bowl; discard the herbs.

Meanwhile, position a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat to 425 degrees F. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil; add the pasta and cook until al dente, about 8 minutes. Drain and add to the sauce.

Grate your two cheeses. (It was at this point of the recipe that I seriously stopped for a moment to pay homage to all of those old-world Italian ladies who spent decades grating their own cheese. This was a pretty strenuous task!)

Melt the remaining 4 tablespoons butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the shallots and cook until translucent, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the zucchini and cook, stirring, until almost tender, about 4 minutes. Add the zucchini mixture to the pasta along with the egg yolks and all but 3 tablespoons of both cheeses; stir to combine.

Then add spinach.

Transfer the mixture to a 9-by-13-inch baking dish and sprinkle with the reserved cheeses.

 Bake until browned on top and heated through, 25 to 30 minutes.

 Let rest 10 minutes before serving.