Home decor in the gardening section

Hey all! Hello FRIDAY! I’m SO HAPPY the weekend is here. :) And we have a huge snowstorm coming too – I’ve just given up and decided I’ll just enjoy being snowed in for a few more days. Spring will come eventually…I think.

I think I’ve taken approximately 25 trips to hardware stores in the past week, and on my last walk through Lowe’s I noticed some really beautiful new items for spring and summer. They’re all supposed to be for the outdoors but I think most of them work better for inside. I thought I’d share a few of my favorites (and a few finds at Target too!).

There were a TON of candleholders – and a LOT of glass. These blue and green opaque holders were really pretty:

I bet they’d be gorgeous lit up! The blue/green planters below would look awesome on a shelf all by themselves as well!

These ceramic holders were pretty as well and were very West Elm looking:

Again, I bet they’d be beautiful lit up!

I’m not sure who can keep this much glass outside but I liked these hurricanes with the navy blue bases a lot:

These wouldn’t last long on our deck but I think they’d look great on a mantel!

These little candleholders are super cute for spring:

They’d make a great little vase as well. :)

I love seeing the new outdoor pillow designs that come out each year:

I’ve totally used outdoor pillows in the kiddo’s space – they’re super easy to clean!

Target had some great outdoor-but-could-be-used-inside stuff too:

Have you seen how much real vintage olive buckets cost? Wowza. Target has a cute version in the outdoor section:

They’re great for storage or filling with flowers (with a vase inside of course). They’d look adorable in a laundry room!

I LOVED these ceramic candleholders as well – they had small and large versions:

Loved all the colors.

Target came out with some great outdoor poufs last year and there’s more this season:

These would be FUN in a playroom or kid’s bedroom!

So there you go, some decorating inspiration in the gardening section! Have you seen any fun decor in the outdoor aisle? I bought several outdoor lanterns years ago that I still use inside to this day.

Have a great weekend! The next before and after party will go up this Monday morning! :)

 

P.S. Tickets for the Haven Conference go on sale tomorrow, March 1st at noon! We are so excited to host another fantastic conference this summer! Hope to see you there. :)

Trout Caviar “Fish & Chips” – And the Oscar for Best Hors d'Oeuvre Goes to…

Sure, you could serve some high-end Beluga or Ossetra caviar at your Oscars viewing party, but the problem with that plan is you’d have to get rich first. I’m not saying you won’t eventually be rolling in it, but the Academy Awards are Sunday, and we don’t want to rush you.

Instead, you can go with a more affordable option like the gorgeous trout roe seen glistening herein. This was only $25 for a 2-oz jar, and that’s purchased in San Francisco, one of the most expensive places on earth, so I’m hoping you can do even better than that.

It’s so obvious that I didn’t even mention it in the video, but of course this will work with any type of caviar. Having said that, when you consider value, it’s hard to beat these golden beads. Trout roe has a fresh, clean, briny flavor, and an absolutely beautiful texture. The feeling of those little, subtly salty eggs popping on your tongue is one of life’s great food experiences.

As far as portioning goes, if you use as much as I did on the first batch (pictured right), which was about 1 gram per chip, you’ll get between 50-60 hors d'oeuvres. If you want to stretch things a little further, then do smaller 1/2-gram portions, and get 100-120 still amazing tasting bites.

If you’re like me, and haven’t seen any of the movies yet, the only good reason to go to an Oscars party is for the food and drinks; and getting to enjoy something like these caviar “fish & chips” will make sitting through all those acceptance speeches almost worthwhile. Enjoy!

Ingredients for 100-120 bites (using 1/2-gram of roe per chip)

2 oz golden trout roe (or any other caviar or roe)

120 potato crisps or chips (I used original flavor Popchips)

about 1/2 cup sour cream

chives as needed

Storage in the closet!

HEY everybody! Man, I’ve been busy. I’ve been working on a master bedroom project and the master closet for the past week or so and it’s all coming together really well. My body is screaming uncle but I’m so excited about the progress. :)

I wanted to give you an update on the closet redo I’m working on! A few weeks ago I shared how I’m planning to rework the back wall in there that’s just begging for some storage and organization. Up till now we’ve had random dressers and a bunch of wire shelves and they just aren’t working.

So I came up with this plan I showed you:

Imagine that’s a fancy rendering, OK?

Those black rectangles are supposed to represent the new storage -- using kitchen cabinets of course!:

    

So getting these cabinets home and upstairs was quite a feat. First of all, did you know cabinets are crazy heavy? Yeah. I’m used to carrying around the uppers for projects and those are bad enough – the bottom ones are monsters.

My sis and I went to Home Depot last week to pick up all the cabs because I can rent a truck to get them home. They found three of the six that we needed but couldn’t find the others, so they offered to deliver them all together the next day. I paid for the delivery but they graciously offered 20 percent off the whole purchase for the delay, which I thought was awesome.

So the next day it’s all delivered and since my husband was out of town my sis came by again…God bless her. We carried each cabinet up the stairs and yes we are BEASTS. The tall pantry cabinets were a little rough. I swear they weighed 200 pounds each. We got the six of them up stairs and then I realized my mistake in measuring – I had two inches less than I thought I did. Two inches is a big deal when the cabinet is 18 inches wide and you only have 16 to work with. GAH.

So…we took the two middle drawer cabinets back down the stairs (cursing a little at this point) and I had to rethink my plan for the middle. I finally came up with something that may work even better:

I ended up with the two drawers on each side, the taller pantries and then in the middle I put a 30 inch upper cabinet. This one holds shoes. :)

The great thing is, this spot was always going to be a vanity-like space but a chair would have been awkward right there. (With the original cabinets coming forward so much.) Now I’ll put the counter there and there will be a great spot for a stool. :) I don’t know if I’ll really use it as a vanity often (and actually sit down), but it will be a good spot to put on socks and stuff like that.

I’m REALLY excited about the possibilities of all the storage! The taller cabinets are absolutely huge:

They go back two feet. Because it’s so deep I have a plan to install more shelves and the make roll out drawers eventually. When I’m done I think it’s going to be awesome storage. For now I just love that we’ll be able to put everything in there and shut. the. door.

I’m not a great cabinet installer but I did it all myself in one evening and it went pretty smoothly. It’s tricky to get them all level and flush and even but I got close on everything. You just have to make sure the cabinets are attached to each other and the back wall (in studs). These are really sturdy and aren’t going anywhere, which is most important to me.

As you can see by the photos the light is horrible in there. I installed one of those directional light things (three lights that you can point wherever you want) years back and it doesn't work. I knew we needed something that just shines everywhere. I found this at on clearance at Lowe’s the other day and fell in love:

It’s pretty tall so I’m crossing my fingers I can make it work in there. We may just have to duck to walk under it cause I love it so much.

So that’s the progress so far – it’s coming together pretty well! So much left to do and as you can see in the photo above we still need to go through a pile of the hubby’s clothes. :) But we’re already using all the cabinets and they are working great! YES!!

Next Up: Oscar Night "Caviar" Special

Pancetta-Wrapped Leek Gratin – Simply Amazing

I’m all about simply prepared vegetables, but every once in a while I need to cover them in caramelized pork and cheese, and this stunningly delicious pancetta-wrapped leek gratin was one of those times. I love those times.

This “umami bomb” is so flavorful and satisfying, it almost seems disrespectful to serve it as a side dish. Pair this with a slice of buttered bread, hedge your bets with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, and enjoy a truly special lunch.

For extra credit, after you finish your meal, call your best French friend and describe what you had. They will love and hate you for it. So, whether you make this for lunch, or use it to upstage a steak or grilled piece of salmon, I hope you give this great leek gratin a try soon. Enjoy!

Ingredients for 2 portions:

3 large leeks

about 4 oz pancetta

2 tsp olive oil

salt, pepper and cayenne to taste

1/4 cup chicken broth

1/4 cup drinkable white wine

1/3 cup heavy cream

finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese as needed
chives to garnish

My sister’s blog

Hello and how are ya? I’m knee deep in a bunch of projects in the house – after I showed you the new floors in the master yesterday I went in and tore all the door casings down to do my DIY craftsman trim in there. What the heck -- the house is already a disaster right now, why not add to it?

So today I’m sharing a blogger very close to my heart…my sister. :) I actually have four sisters but this one is the one I grew up with so we have a special bond. She’s also ten years younger than me (she likes to specify that it’s really nine and a half) so I still tell what to do a lot. And she gets stuff for me. It’s going to be that way till we’re old and gray – I’ll be all, go get my my teeth! She’ll be all, whatever, get your own teeth! And then I’ll pull the older sister card and she’ll get them.

Anyway. Back when I started this blog my sister Elizabeth was known as “stink eye” around these parts. She lived with us for a while after college and it’s so crazy that she’s now a married woman with a blog of her own. Sniff. They grow up so fast.

My sister is a great cook and loves to be in the kitchen (that gene skipped over me), so that’s what her blog, Organizer By Day, is focused on for the most part. She brought some of these over yesterday and I ate four within minutes:

I would have eaten more but she had to take the rest back home to take “pictures for the blog.” Blah blah. (It’s a little weird to know someone else who uses that phrase all the time now.)

These strawberry cupcakes were delish!:

We always go strawberry picking together in early summer so I’m hoping she’ll make me some more of these. :)

Her 20 crock pot meals post was super popular:

She makes them ahead of time and freezes them – brilliant!

This apple pie chex mix was super yummy too:

I love how she changes things up – she likes to experiment with ingredients and try new things and it usually ends up pretty darn good!

These homemade cheese its looked so good:

That cute cutting board was from me. Just sayin.

And this loaded baked potato chip dip looked amazing…but I wouldn’t know how good it tasted cause she didn’t bring me any:

Whatever.

My sister Elizabeth is so creative and loves to craft – I thought this wine cork heart was SO cute for Valentine’s Day:

Love it!

By the way, she goes by Elie on the blog, but don’t listen to her. Her name is ELIZABETH. Whole word. I don’t know an Elie.

As you can tell, it’s fun to have younger siblings, cause you get to harass them. :) But in all seriousness I don’t know what I would do without her and I am so proud of her!

Check out her site if you love to cook or bake or even if you just want some easy snack ideas. Be sure to tell her her awesome older sis sent you. ;)

Next Up: Leek Gratin

Hardwood floors in the bedroom

Hello my friends! Welcome to another (cold!) week! Hope you had a great weekend – my husband was out of town and I had finally recovered from the stomach flu, so my boy and I went out and took advantage of our beautiful weather here on Saturday. We did our Indy children’s museum, the zoo and the state museum all in one day. It was SO wonderful to get out without coats!

I’m super stoked about the new floors that were installed in our bedroom over the weekend! We are slowly moving this house over to hardwoods throughout – it started with a bum fridge that leaked all over our laminate floors years ago. Because of that insurance check we were able to pull out the carpet on the main floor and put in hardwoods throughout. We do finished on site wood and I explained why I love them and the pros and cons here. They do take longer to install than engineered floors, so there’s more patience needed. :)

We got a quote about a year ago to have them put in upstairs but it was more than we wanted to spend at the time, so we decided to break it up. We started with the master because the carpets were truly, truly gross. Four animals and ten years tend to do that.

On Friday they pulled the carpet and tact strips out and then laid the floor in a few hours:

We use white oak, three inch wide boards. Back when we had them put in downstairs I wanted wider planks but was warned against them with our Midwest climate (that sometimes changes 30 degrees in 24 hours) because of buckling. I quite love the three inch though – they are classic.

They use wood filler on the floor and then let that dry overnight.

The next day the meticulous sanding is done and then the first coat of stain goes down. Yesterday he came back and I’m pretty sure he buffs the floor again just a bit because that first coat of stain usually has some imperfections. Then the coat of poly goes on and by last night it was dry:

The poly doesn’t completely cure for a few days or even weeks but I may start moving a few things in later today. As long as you don’t drag items around it’s fine.

As always we went with the Jacobean stain by Minwax and a satin poly:

The satin poly makes my life SO much easier (instead of a glossy) – you don’t see foot prints on them at all. It makes a HUGE difference!

Our room is big, but it looks massive without any furniture! It makes me want to just put our bed back in and that’s it:

The floors will darken just a bit over time but this stain is a good color – not crazy dark but dark enough that it contrasts against the white trim. My very favorite thing. :)

So if I was a better planner and if I hadn’t been hit with the bug last week, I would have tried to do things like paint the walls in the room before the floors were installed and pull up the old baseboards as well. Our base is installed so dang well it makes me sweat and swear to get them out.

Now that the floors are in they are going to be even harder to get out:

Grrr. I so should have done that before! I was just going to extend them using some molding but I am doing a wall treatment and really want to have a different base. So, we’ll see. As anxious as I am to sleep in our comfy bed again, I may try to do this while everything is out of the room. Makes most sense, it’s just hard for my impatient brain to accept. :)

So I have a ton of work to get this room back in order but I LOVE the floors! And I can’t wait for this to arrive tomorrow:

I hope it looks as good as I think it will! I got it 70 percent off last week and it looks like it’s 50 percent off right now!

So could you live with hardwoods in the bedroom? We’re not sure yet if we’ll do hard floors in the other bedrooms someday or just replace the carpet. After seeing what came out of our carpet the other day I’m leaning towards hardwoods. ;) It will be an adjustment to walk around on hard floors in there but I think the rug will help quite a bit (I’m planning on picking up some padding to put under it today.)

So far I’m happy with this change – I’ll let you know if I still love it in a few months! :)

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How Not to Make Roasted Pork Loin with Grapes and Rosemary Cream Sauce

Well, you can’t win them all. This perfectly fine looking pork roast was the victim of a few easy-to-make mistakes, and hopefully by watching this you’ll avoid such mishaps in the future. In exchange, you’ll have to promise not to make fun of me.

The first, and most obvious error was way too much freshly minced rosemary. I always tell people to be super-careful about adding this resinous herb. I wasn’t paying attention, and just added what I had chopped without thinking, and it was pretty much all over at that point.

Adding cream helped nothing, and only made the herbaceous reduction more caloric and offensive. I probably could have added some lemon, mustard, horseradish, or other heavy-hitting condiment, but by that time nothing was going to unrosemary this train wreck.

On the bright side, the grapes were really good, and even after 30 minutes in the oven, had a juicy, still-firm texture. Their warm sweetness went very well with the meat. So, I hope you watch, critique, and maybe adapt this potentially amazing recipe into something worthwhile. Enjoy!

For real

Well hello and happy Friday! Here in Indiana we had thunderstorms and near 60 degree temps just last night and now it’s 35 and snowing. AWESOME. I don’t know why I always talk about weather here. Because it’s annoying, that’s why.

Anyway, I shared all of the paint colors in our home yesterday and as I walked through the house last night I had to laugh. I like to share real life from time to time and thought today would be as good a day as any. There’s a lot going on in the house today and it shows. :)

First up, the mud room. It’s delightfully empty in the most recent pics, but we do actually use it:

I gotta say, this is pure bliss compared to how it looked way back. Always a pit. It is SO NICE to be able to come in the door and hang our coats, and sit to put on our shoes before we leave the house. I LOVE this spot.

The shot of our family room looks like this currently – with the random Valentine/in between Christmas/mostly empty mantel, smooshed cushions and all:

I cleaned and picked up before these pics, I spared you that. :)

Remember the “chopped” pillows I showed you last week? Well, this is how they usually look:

At least they’re not on the floor.

I’m working on the master closet and the pile of donate/sell has been sitting around for about a week now:

The floors are filthy because of that beautiful pile of wood in our living room. The guys are here today to start the installation in our bedroom and they’ve been in and out all morning. Whooo HOO! So happy!!

And who doesn’t love a little Christmas in late February?:

Fa la la la la…I need to take those down.

And this is the loft currently, with everything from the bedroom piled in:

It’s going to be a fun few days, but I’m happy to live with it. 

So that’s a snapshot of our home right now. Any projects going on in yours this weekend? Have a great one!

Next Up: Pork Recipe Fail