Chic Little House

Adventures in Homemade Baby Food

2012-02-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

I've been making baby food for Avery for over three months and so far its been a fun adventure. I'd decided to share my experiences so far. I started thinking of making my own baby food for Avery when I was about six months pregnant. I really wanted to make healthy fresh baby food for our baby. I also liked the cost savings verses, buying jar baby food, but that wasn't the deciding factor. The deciding factor was starting healthy eating habits ( fruits and veggies ) from a very early age. I want Avery to love all types of fruit from mango's to watermelon. Most importantly to love veggies: peas, carrots, beets, cauliflower, spinach etc. After talking with our baby's predication, we starting introducing 'solids' at four months old. From four months to six months we fed our little guy mini meals of rice cereal and eventually oatmeal. We didn't introduce fruits and veggies until he was six months old, which is around the age most babies are ready to start on solids aka pureed food.

Recent veggie and fruit purchases for large batches of baby food: strawberries*, potatoes, sweet potatoes, bananas, apples, beets, carrots and parsnips.

*I recently started feeding Avery a small amount of cooked pureed strawberries that I add to his applesauce. We've had no allergic reactions

What I use:

While I was still pregnant I bought a Baby Bullet after seeing their infomercials on one of my many sleepless pregnancy nights. At the time they had a buy one get one free special going on, so my friend Summer (also a fellow blogger) and I bought one together and got one free! Gotta love those late night specials. There are a so many options if you want to make your own baby food, you can use a blender, food grinder, food processor or baby food maker (like I bought) For me I like the idea of using a device that was exclusively used for Avery's baby food and nothing else. Most baby food makers range from $ 19 to $ 114.00 it all depends on what works best for your family and needs. You can buy baby food makers at Target, Wal-Mart or online like Amazon. I've seen baby food makers that both steam and puree all in one device. I like the baby bullet for a few reasons: clean-up, easy to use, large batches of food, cost, storage (the bullet came with fridge and freezer trays) I've always read & heard good things about these brands: Beaba Babycook, Baby Brezza.

Baby food making musts:

spatula
baby food blender or grinder (as mentioned above)
small paring knife
chopping board (used only for baby food)
metal steamer basket
casserole dish or cookie sheet (for roasting)
silicone freezer trays or baby food freezer trays
Freezer storage bags
peeler

Shopping:

I go grocery once a week for our household and for Avery's baby food. I buy a combination of fresh and frozen veggies for Avery. I always buy fresh fruits for his baby food, you can buy frozen fruits, which is perfect when they are out of season. Typically I buy peas, green beans, cauliflower and broccoli frozen. Carrots I go back and forth between frozen, if I'm making a soup for my family that week I'll buy fresh. No soups planned, I'll buy frozen carrots. I also like buying steams in the bag frozen veggies (if on sale) I always buy plain frozen veggies. When actually I get around early enough on Saturday mornings, we head to our local Farmers Market for fresh produce, they typically have a good affordable selection.

Frozen peas, in my metal steamer basket

Making & Storing:

Making baby food is pretty simple and fun! I always steam or roast my veggies and fruits until tender before pureeing them. I steam Avery's veggies and fruits using a metal steamer basket, I bought one at Wal-Mart for $ 4.99. I find it faster to roast certain vegetables like: sweet potatoes, potatoes and squash then it is to steam. I love the smell of fresh baby food, it smells amazing! The color and taste (yes I've tasted) is hands down, so much tastier than buying store bought baby food.

Here's an example of how to make sweet potatoes. Tip: Buy smaller sweet potatoes because they roast faster and are easier to peel. Heat your oven to 345 degrees, clean the sweet potato and. Place the sweet potato on the cookie sheet, I line my cookie sheets with parchment paper for. When I'm able to cut the sweet potato very easy with a parring knife I know sweet potato is cooked though and its time to puree. After the Sweet Potatoes are roasted, I peel the skin of off and then cut the veggie into small chucks and place in my baby bullet 'large batch' blender. I also add about 3/4 of a cup of water, then I mix until smooth and creamy. Using my spatula, I make sure there's no chucks left, if they're chunks I keep blending until smooth. As Avery gets older, I will start making chunkier baby food.

Pureed sweet potatoes in the large batch blender

Baby food can be kept in an air tight container for three days in the fridge, so when I'm making food I leave some in the fridge and freeze the rest.

Wal-Mart, great price and works great. The brand is NUK with Annabel Karmel 'Fresh Foods' click here for the website. I also like the bowl and food masher I saw while shopping there and might buy it when Avery gets older, perfect for older babies and on the go eating. For some reason Wal-Mart doesn't show her products on their website, so it appears they sell her products by Nuk in-store only.

Sweet Potatoes in the AK Fresh Foods from Nuk silicone freezer tray

After the baby food servings are frozen, I transfer them into freezer bags. I write the frozen date & veggie /fruit name on each bag and place in a larger freezer storage bag. Baby food can be safely kept a freezer for 3 months. I use the oldest date baby food first, you can safely thaw food in the fridge or in the microwave using a microwave bowl, I'd would cool in the fridge to avoid 'hot spots' caused by the microwave.

Frozen green beans, originally frozen in the Baby Bullet silicone freezer trays.

Frozen Carrots

Time Management:

I don't feel making homemade baby food is too time consuming. I can easily steam some peas in the morning, and then puree them, store and freeze in about 30mins while I get ready in the morning. I work full-time 40 hours a week, so for me its easy to plan on making large batches of baby food once a week. Kind of like I'm cooking a larger Sunday dinner, instead I'm steaming, roasting and pureeing food for our little guy. I also prefer making large batches once a week, because I can make so much food at one time. For instance two medium size bananas (plus water adding for blending) makes six portions of baby food. I get help while I'm making baby food, Hasani will watch Avery or I'll put Avery in his highchair and talk to him and tell him what I'm making for him. I do buy some food in baby jars, a few fruits that are out of season. Here's a quick list of baby food Avery's had so far, I've been feeding him way more veggies than fruit so far. We introduce new foods every three days, to make sure he has no allergic reactions.

Fruits: apples, pears, bananas, peaches, prunes, cherries, avocado
Vegetables: peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, green beans, potatoes, squash, butternut squash, spinach, beets, kale, broccoli, cauliflower and parsnips

I recently introduced Avery to potato and beets swirl, at first he wasn't sure if he liked the beets but after a few spoonfuls he loved it! I find that if he doesn't like something at first after a few more bites, he ends up liking it. He's still not a fan of green beans, so I always feed those with apples, which he loves.

Potato and Beets swirl, recipe from the book The Baby and Toddler Cookbook

A typical snack and lunch for Avery.

Snack:

mum mums or yogurt melts
peach yogurt mixed with rice cereal (more on yogurt below)

Lunch:

Peas mixed with barley
Pears

Resources:

I like the website Wholesome Baby Food its was full of useful tips. But I really wanted a resource book and cookbook to make exciting combinations ( beyond banana and apples) of baby food from now until he's a toddler that would continue promoting eating healthy. Plus I want to confirm what fruits and veggies are age appropriate. Amazon has a huge section of homemade baby food books, click here for the book list. I recently purchased The Baby & Toddler Cookbook, I'm really happy I did. I've had the book for a few days and have already tried one of the recipes the beets & potatoes puree, that I already mentioned. I've already book marked a few recipes to try with Avery: beet, squash and quinoa swirl and summer fruit smoothie. The smoothie looks so good, its made up of bananas, nectarine, blue berries and apple juice. When he's 12mos plus I'm looking forward to making these recipes: mini salmon cakes and mini apple pancakes.

In addition to making Avery's baby food we're also starting to teach him to feed himself snacks. We recently introduced Mum Mums which he loves and yogurt melts. I also feed Avery baby yogurt. Its so cool, that babies can have yogurt! Its really good for their digestion. I buy the Gerber brand yogurt so far he's had peach, blueberries and strawberries. I plan to start making his own yogurt combinations. Thanks to the book, I bought know what type of ready made yogurt buy and will puree fruits to mix in. Yogurt can safely stay in the fridge for one day, and frozen portions are safe up to three months (in the freezer)

He also eats bananas and streamed apples in the Nuby Nibbler. He can eat super messy super fast when feeding himself. It's so cute. I love using them, but they are a pain in the but to clean.

I'm only a few months into our homemade baby food journey and already I'm having so much fun. For my family making homemade baby food really works out well. Sometimes I feel like Diane Keaton in Baby Boom, when I'm making large batches of baby food. I'm sure watching the movie 1,000 times over the years made it easier to decide to make baby food this time around. With our older son I used jar baby food ( there was so little information about making baby food back them ) I kid with him, I'm going to start feeding him pureed food :) lol. That's my journey so far on making homemade baby food.

Did / Do you make your own baby food, what are your thoughts on the subject? Are you planning or thinking about making homemade baby food when you have children? I'd love to hear your thoughts, please feel free to ask me any questions!

Valentine

2012-02-14T08:20:00.000-08:00

From my Valentine, he's always the best at finding the perfect cards for me! Love you Hasani :)

Happy Valentines Day Everyone!

Family Dining

2012-02-10T06:49:00.000-08:00

We recently added a new piece of 'furniture' to our dining room, which now allows for family to all dine together. I'm in love with our newly bought highchair! Remember when I was thinking about looking for a vintage highchair on Craigslist? Well after looking for a few weeks, we decided to buy the Ikea Blames highchair. Before we got the highchair, we would put Avery in his Bumbo, on-top of our dining room table { carefully supervised at all times } and feed him there Due to having the Bumbo on the table we hardly ate together as a family, we dined in shifts. First Hasani and Tabari would eat, then I'd feed Avery and then I would finally eat. Our little guy, in his Bumbo.

We bought the the highchair a few weeks ago, and it was super easy to put together. I put it together while Hasani was doing a Starbucks run for me! I must have a vanilla latte at least once a week, lol. You may remember when we were originally considering spraying painting the highchair grey, but after building it we soon realized it looked so good as is. The dark highchair, works perfectly with the dark legs of our dining room chairs and our walnut stained dining room table.

I love how the highchair has a small footprint in our already small dining room.

It doesn't overwhelm our space at all. I also like the tray it wipes clean super easy and its not big and bulky.The smooth finish on the highchair also wipes clean. We also bought the little cushion insert for the chair, it was super affordable only $ 5 bucks. I'm planning on recovering the cushion with fabric from my stash so it blends better in our dining room. When the highchair is not bring used we place it in the corner of our dining room, I'm glad t takes up such little space.

As Avery gets older and we no longer need to use the tray, the high chair pulls up nicely to the table, not perfect but nicely.

Avery also loves his highchair and knows when I put him in it, its time to eat.

Our little guy is growing so fast.

Have you bought anything recently that makes you smile?

PS Don't forget to enter the Kirkland's Decorative Keys Giveaway

Giveaway: Kirkland's Decorative Keys

2012-02-09T08:47:00.000-08:00

Do you love the look of vintage style keys? But they are super hard to find, right? I've been on the lookout for quite sometime. Well, Kirkland's has teamed up with CLH to Giveaway a Decorative Key Set to one lucky reader!

Decorative Keys

Kirkland's also sent me a set to review and I'm happy to say I love them. They are super heavy in weight and have they aged antique look. You can hang them on the wall or just place them on a table etc. { since they are flat one side }

I've read about Kirkland's on other peoples blogs, but was disappointed they didn't have a store near me. Well I'm excited to announce, Kirkland's just opened a store in the Greater Sacramento Area, Folsom to be exact! There're also opening a store in Vacaville, for all you locals. Click here to find a store near you, you can also shop them online. This weekend I'll be shopping at Kirkland's to check out their lamps! They have amazing lamp collection online. As you know i'm looking for a pair of lamps for my living room, can't wait to see what they have.

Giveaway Details

Prize: Decorative Keys Set

How to Enter: Post a comment my blog, and share where the decorative keys will hangout in your home. Please click here for additional fine print

Giveaway Starts: Thursday 2/9/12
Giveaway Ends: Thursday 2/16/12 (at midnight PST)

Number of Winners: One
Prize Ships in US (Open to only US Residents)

Good Luck to everyone that enters the Giveaway!! PS Do you have a Kirkland's store near you? If so do you like it?

** Please include your email address in your comment, so I can contact you faster if your the winner!! **

Be Mine: Sweets Done

2012-02-08T09:37:00.000-08:00

Last Wednesday I shared the Valentines Day projects I planned on making. today I'm sharing the my Sweets Project. I decided to make to sweet deserts. First up a spin on Cake Pops the easy way a mix of store bought and homemade. Here's how I 'made' my cake pops. I bought Entenmann's donut holes and lollipop sticks from the store. You can buy donut holes at in any grocery store or better yet buy them from a mom and pop donut store. I didn't want to make two stops that morning, so just bought those.

I made homemade vanilla glaze using this recipe, the glaze is super sweet and yummy. I rolled each cake ball into the glaze, then sprinkled the sprinkles on top and then added the lollipop stick. I placed the cake pops in the fridge for about an hour to allow the glaze to firm up.

The result very yummy and super sweet cake pops, they are so sweet so having one is perfect! I enjoyed my cake pop with a cup of coffee, mmm mmm

Next I made for the very first time I made homemade sugar cookies cut into shapes. I bought a bag of cookie cutters from Target and ended up only using the large heart. I made a few cookies with the x and o's but they were so tiny, we made the rest all heats. I used Martha Stewart's sugar cookie recipe and my cookies came out so nice!

As a first time cookie baker using cookie cutters, I never knew how involved the whole process is!! Make the dough, chill the dough, let the dough stand, roll the dough cut, re-roll the dough. Let the cut cookies chill in the freeze, line the cookie sheets with parchment paper and on and on! Most of my Sunday was consumed with following all the steps Martha gave. As a result my cookies tasted so good and held their shape, some edges weren't perfect but that's OK.

Next I made my own white royal icing, which is super simple to make and again crazy sweet all sugar, a little water and egg whites, click here for the recipe. I bought some gel frosting for the outline and to decorate the inside, here's where I went WRONG. I didn't know at the time, gel frosting doesn't harden. It stays 'wet' which sucks when your filling the inside of your cookies with royal icing that does harden (but stays yummy) So when I went to fill the inside it got tricky and things ran and I ran out of the gel frosting. I just had enough to outline all the cookies, so wasn't able to decorate the inside of the cookies. Here are my cookies, sorry for the bad lighting it was late and they were so tasty { all gone } I was unable to take better pics.

Next time I make sugar cookies, I plan to using Royal icing again and have food coloring on had to make pretty colorful outlines and decorate the inside. The cookies are lot of work! I learned some much making this batch of cookies, and I hope I keep improving. I'm anxious do decorate some more, its all trial and error for sure!

Have you made the any treats for valentines day? Or are you a cookie pro, would love to know your icing tips and secrets :)

PS. Dont forget to hop over to Summer's Blog and see what treats she made

Lamp Love { Target }

2012-02-06T08:56:00.000-08:00

I popped into Target Sunday evening and it was perfect, thanks to the Superbowl I had almost every aisle to myself. I spent crazy amount of time checking out all the new decor stuff Target has. I should also add, since my husband was watching the the game, I felt 'un-rushed.' Hasani is at his Target limit if we've been in the store for 45mins and I only have two items the cart. I need to time to think and dwell on stuff! He really should know this about, by now :)

Did you notice Target's Dwell stuff is on clearance { napkins, table cloths ect. } I hope this means they're just coming at with new stuff, and not ending their relationship with Target.

My living room is in some serious need of lamps, I have one sad lonesome lamps, it either needs two friends or its getting placed elsewhere in my house not yet sure. So I popped into the the lamp aisle and found three on contenders. You know I love yellow, so I really think this lamp might me a go, its brighter in the picture { taking with my camera phone } than in real life. I like the base and the height.

A

I've also been in love with glass lamps. I love that glass lamps don't add extra visual color to a room. I'm not a 100% sold on the oblong shape, buts its a maybe.

Then I looked up and so two more lamps. The yellow one is the bees knees, although might feel short and squat in my living room? I love the glass lamp the base looks like the perfect size!

C & D

Here's a quick reminder of how our living room currently looks. It's going to go though a serious change once we start building our bookcases in, more on about that here { so can't wait } As you can see we have pops of yellow throughout our living room { pillows, tray, candlesticks, artwork }

I'm still trying to decide which lamp(s) to get for our living room! I need help! I think the yellow will look so good, but I also like the idea of glass lamps?

Ok, what lamp do you think will look better A, B, C or D ? Or should I keep on looking, I should also add I often check out thrift stores, but people only seem to donate one lamp, almost never pairs. If I do happen to find a pair, its not cute and not vintage and no amount of spray paint can make it looks good, lol :)

Crush

2012-02-03T12:03:00.000-08:00

Simply put, I have a crush on this Juicy Kindle Cover....you may have seen me 'pin it'

Everyone, have a good weekend! I have lots to do on my project list, so let's hope I get some of them done, so my house we'll be a little more organized and further along its way to becoming more 'us' :)

Do you have any new crushes lately?

Stamped

2012-02-02T08:53:00.000-08:00

For the longest time, I've wanted pretty custom address stamps. Even though, we pay most of our bills online. I'm thinking how much we need the address stamp for: Invitations, Mailing Family Pictures, Cards etc. With Avery's first birthday fast approaching, its time for me to order a custom stamp :)

Here's a few I've been lusting over for quite sometime. The ones I adore have a feeling of modern and classic lines.

via Etsy Seller Simple & Pretty

via Esty Seller SavetheDate

via Esty Seller ForYoo

I love the pretty wood stamps, but think the more practical route will be going with a self inking stamp. I'm excited to order our address stamp soon, makes me feel like a grown up! lol You know like when you buy your 'real' first sofa, yeah the same feeling. Now I just need to pick the right one :) I'm also going to check out this stamp website 'Rubber Stamps'I found thanks to Pinterest - that lets you create your own stamp, maybe I can get creative and design our address stamp. We shall see.

Do you love custom address stamps? Do you have one?

ps: I'm also thinking about making a Chic Little House stamp, just because :)

Be Mine: Sweets & Crafts Projects

2012-02-01T06:00:00.000-08:00

I was chatting with my girlfriend Summer about doing some Valentine's projects this since its both our our little baby boys 1st Valentine Day we wanted to make the month/day extra special. Plus I wanted to start a new tradition of making sweets & crafts with my boys. All I had to do was mention the word sweets to Tabari and he was in { such an 11 year old! }

Back to our conversation, we decided to team up and each work easy to do Valentines sweets & craft projects to share with you all. I didn't want to go on a shopping spree for Valentines stuff, so I hunted though dollar bins, used coupons and looked for sales. I gathered lots of ideas on Pinterest { how how I love thee } you can follow me on Pinterest here. Here's my V-Day loot I'm working with. I found colorful sheets of paper at Micheal's on sale for twenty five cents each + I had a coupon. I also found the metal stencil letters at Micheal's in the dollar section and knew they where a must.

This time in Targets dollar section, I bought cookie cutters. I really like the X & O's and large heart ones the best. I also bought some sprinkles, such a great deal :) I also bought two sheets of felt, and decorating gel { pink, red and black} I also bought a heart punch for 6 bucks thanks to a Micheal's 40% off coupon { heart punch not pictured }

Now that you've seen my V-Day sweets & craft loot, here's what I plan on making. For my sweets project, I really want to make pretty cookies to gives as gifts to friends and of course eat some at home :) I've been pinning & Google-ing pretty valentines cookies like crazy. I've never decorated a cookie before, other than slapping on some thick frosting and sprinkles. So this is for sure out my comfort zone. I promise to share the good and bad and the ugly in my cookie making efforts. I'd love to make pretty cookie, like the ones below.

{ via here }

I plan on making pretty heart garland with the paper I bought. I'm not sure what style my garland will look like, but I adore the paper and think the mixture of solid and printed will be so pretty. I love how the garland below is a mix of smaller and larger hearts

{ via here }

I plan on using the felt to create two things. First a pretty heart paperweight. Lastly, I planing on adding some love to Avery's clothes. I'm really inspired by this image from Martha Stewart, cute hearts sewn on a knit hat. I can't reveal my exact plans, just yet. But I'm super excited to share!

Nest Wednesday February 8, I'll share my Valentine sweets and craft projects. If your undecided on DIYing some Valentine goodies, I hope to inspire you to try some simple and fun ones like I am.

Now jump over to Summer's blog and check out the sweets and crafts projects she's planning doing for Valentines for her family.

Are you planning on making any V-Day crafts this year?

I'm Reading....

2012-01-31T09:10:00.000-08:00

Currently I'm reading three different child developmental books. I love reading baby books, I have a stack I read last year all about pregnancy, baby names etc. you can read more about them here. Here's what I'm reading: 'Baby 411', this was given to me by my BFF who swears its a must have read, so far I like! It's really helped me get though the beginning of Avery teething. Its and easy read, I love all the information. Even though I have an older child who's 11 - I know things change over time, so its good to stay current.

My mom bought the book 'The Secret Language of Babies' for me recently. I love all the pictures and baby cues 'about what you baby is saying' so far so good.

Once upon a time, our little guy was amazing sleeper. He slept in his cradle or his crib all by himself the entire night { except for feedings} Now not so much, he's mostly in our bed. We need to break this habit, but I personally I can't do the 'cry-it-out' method, hearing my baby cry for a long period of time would be too upsetting. So when I came across The No Cry Sleep Solution I thought I'd give it a chance. I found the book at The Goodwill.

Mommy Tip: Shop the thrift stores for Child Developmental books! Usally they The Goodwill has a ton, just skip past the outdated ones and look for the books that are new, with topics that interest you. Trust me you'll never know what you'll find.

Here's a better look at the book

I'm only a few chapters in, trying my best not to skip ahead, lol. This Mamma needs some sleep, and if you ever slept with a little one in your bed then know you get almost zero sleep. When I start applying the sleep techniques in the book, I'll be be back with a review

What are you reading right now? Any baby books like me? Or please feel free to suggest a 'grown-up book' that's a must read!

Design Trends to Love or Hate?

2012-01-25T08:57:00.000-08:00

A year and and a half ago, I wrote a blog post titled Design Trends { Skip it ? } after I read an article from MSN Lifestyle about design trends that should go away. You can read the blog post here. I weighed in with my opinion on how I felt about the design trends, which by the way a year and a half later some still are going strong :) So when I came across another article via Apartment Therapy sharing an article they read in Elle Decor about the Worst Design Trends of 2011, and I had to read it and weight in. Here's the article form Elle Decor along with my thoughts.

Elle Decor: “I adore books and cannot imagine life, or my home, without them,” says Ronda Carman, of All the Best Blog. But for her, books as props have a short shelf life. “Rose Tarlow put it best: ‘An object added for effect instead of affection will always look like an affectation.’”

CLH: I agree, I love books, I love to read. I only buy books for my home that I love and plan to read. It's a plus with they come with pretty colored spines, because they look so pretty on bookcases. So if you see a pretty book like the classic Pride and Prejudice by Penguin Classics in my home, please know I love Jane Austen and that's why I bought the book. I plan on buying more Classics books for my home { The Secret Garden & Northhanger Abbey to name a few } when you buy the books you love, you value you them so much more.

The books are all pretty, but I'll only buy the ones I love to read :)

Elle Decor: Antiques dealer Richard Shapiro has modernism malaise, calling out the “monotony of one midcentury room after another, all with predictable, gratuitous, gimmicky accessories.” He lobbies for collecting objects from different periods and styles that all have a bit of soul.

CLH: Oh how I love mid century modern, after all our Rancher was built in the 1950's how could I not embrace little in my home. I do think a little goes a long way. I adore ( and get a ton of compliments ) on the MCM Secretary desk I bought via Craigslist and and refinished recently for our living room. I love the clean lines of Mid Century pieces and I personally LOVE finding old pieces { that are new to me } giving them some love and using them in my home.

Elle Decor: It’s time to retire brightly lacquered Hollywood Regency furniture, says decorator Mary McDonald: “I think we all have seen enough garage-sale junk sprayed in high-gloss Skittles colors to last through the next century.”

CLH: I disagree with Mary! I adore and never tire of seeing old cast off furniture given a new life because someone has vision. I think its great re-purpose furniture. So many pieces are given new life thanks to spray paint and a can of paint! As the old saying goes, one mans treasure is another mans junk. So whatever Mary, lol.

{ via Design Sponge }

Elle Decor: Designer Mario Buatta singles out “dysfunctional decoration,” his term for interiors that don’t relate to people. “Everything is done for styling, and nothing has to do with living— there’s no place to have a conversation or set down a drink,” he says. “The best time to look at a room is the day after you’ve had a party because you see the way people used the space.”

CLH: I agree, for me the best design is practical design. When my friends and family come over, I want them to feel comfortable and relaxed. so while the living room below is pretty, doesn't make sense for my life. Just a little too sterile and not personal enough for me.

{ via here }

Elle Decor: The DIY craze has run its course, says decorator Sheila Bridges, who has seen her share of “earthy, handmade concoctions. Just because it can be reclaimed doesn’t mean it should be.”

CLH: Seems to me Shelia is lacking some vision or hasn't been on Pinterest. I love love a good DIY project and I love so many pretty and crafty & artsy items on Esty. It's fun to 'think out side the box' in terms of retail stores. I think a mish mash of homemade and store bought goods and adds interest in a home + you put your own personal stamp when you DIY a project and you save money and up your own personal skill level. And lastly there's a certain satisfaction you get when you DIY :) I love all the early 'concoctions' below, bring it on the more the merrier :)

Mug Cozy, yes!

{ via Etsy seller Lilac Gifts }

DIY Kids Cushion, Yes!

{ via Pinterest }

For me interior design and decor isn't about spending lots of money its about getting creative and having fun. My husband and I are all about creating a home we love on a budget, and when your on a budget it forces you to get creative :) For me that's when I'm most creative.

Now I'd love to hear your thoughts on the topic. Which design trends to do love or hate and why? do you agree with the designers in the Elle Decor Magazine? Also which trends have you skipped and why?

After Christmas for Christmas

2012-01-20T08:28:00.000-08:00

Is it socially acceptable to talk about Christmas goodies I won't be using for another 11 months? Let's just pretend is perfectly OK. I didn't mean to buy anything after Christmas for Christmas, but hey when you come across items that are marked down 50 to 70% off, you need to at least look at potential goodies. My first stop checking out Christmas goodies was West Elm ( online ) I was a day late shopping online, but I still scored four red felted stockings for only $ 4 bucks each and free shipping! I didn't even have to drive to our nearest West Elm which is about 20-25 mins in my car, this makes me a happy girl. I'm so glad I bought them! Every year I intend to sew stockings, I just never find time. Next year we're planning on a colorful traditional Christmas decor.

My next Christmas loot came from Target, there I bought a box of pretty green & red ornaments for around five bucks, I also bought some breaded cranberry strings and a Christmas door mat for only three dollars! The door mat is so nice, its already packed away for next year. I also grabbed a bunch of wrapping paper for only a $ 1.25!!

Lastly my favorite buy is the vintage style Elf on the Shelf!! I'm so happy about getting this set it even comes with the book :) I paid half :) I love how its all about starting new family traditions, so this makes it even more fun. I'm so excited about the Elf!! :)

Did you score any good deals after Christmas for Christmas?

Avery's Seven Month Birthday Photo

2012-01-18T08:34:00.000-08:00

It's so hard to believe our little guy is already seven months old! Avery is so much fun, just looking at him makes my heart skip a beat! Quick reminder just in case your new to my blog, we're taking monthly pictures of Avery for the next two years in his nursery. Nothing will be planned just him hanging out, its such a fun way to watch your baby grow up. After 24 months of pictures, I will turn the photos into a book.

Avery Seven Months

I just love his bed head!! If you follow me on Twitter, you saw that I wrote, Avery + Overalls + Stripes = heart melting!!! We love you little guy and are so blessed you have you in our lives!! :)

Practical Shelving

2012-01-17T09:47:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a lovely week last week, sorry I was MIA { except for one post } I couldn't find my card reader to my camera to upload pictures and time just got away from me. With that said we have been more productive over here at CLH. Remember our bathroom project we've slowly been working on? When we last left off, we installed a new sink to our existing cabinet, which instantly made our bathroom feel fresh. Well last weekend the bathroom officially got painted Bedford Grey from Martha Stewart Living color matched to Olympic Paint. i'm in love with this color!! Its made our one and only small bathroom feel so much bigger!! I love when paint does that!.

This past weekend we installed shelves in our bathroom. At first I bought the EKBY Valter brackets from Ikea, but those had to be painted white. As much as I love painting, I decided to head back to Ikea and exchange those for brackets that were already white. I eneded up buying the EKBY Stodis in white from only fifty cents per bracket, super cheap, yes. It's cool that they are were so affordable, but I love the fact they look so clean since we opted for the exposed look in our bathroom, like our Pinterest inspiration picture. We decided three shelves in our bathroom would be perfect. Here's our new shelves. For now bath room stuff is just 'on the shelves' no pretty styling done yet. We still need to removed the stickers from the shelves { little things like that, lol } However, you can see how much storage space we added in our bathroom! Each shelf is over two feet long, so we added over eight feet of usable space in our bathroom :) This makes me a very happy girl.

I love our new shelves! I'm so happy with the additional storage space for practical bathroom stuff { face wash, lotions etc } and space for pretty too { candles, perfume, pictures etc.} We are almost done with our bathroom. Still left: clean bathroom, re-paint trim, buy artwork or create some, hang shower curtain. Oh I also love our new acrylic containers from the container store! Its had to tell in the above pictures, but they are such a great size and are very nice! I'm so glad I found a pretty alternative to glass. Love glass, but acrylic works so much better for our lives { baby, tween, clumsy husband, you get the point! }

Hopefully our bathroom will be in ship shop shape all ready from a complete reveal very soon, maybe next Monday :)

What do you think of our practical bathroom shelves? Anything on your project list taking longer than expected like our bathroom?

Baby Toys We Love

2012-01-10T13:47:00.000-08:00

These days they have the cutest baby toys for the little ones, that melt my heart! I love getting Avery sweet baby toys I know he'll enjoy for years { it's so hard not to go crazy when getting him stuff!} I put together a round-up of baby toys Avery & I love :)

Here's the breakdown and why we love them!

1. Skip Hop Hug a Dog I love it because its cute, hug-able. The arms open wide to reveal a puppy and a mirror { baby safe }
2. Melissa & Doug Rainbow Stacker I love it because it has bright colors and super soft stacking development toy.
3. Melissa & Doug Giraffe I love it because its the perfect grasping toy for little hands, the neck twists and turns in all fun directions
4. Melissa & Dough Three Little Pigs We got this gift for my girlfriends sons 1st birthday. Who doesn't love the story of the three little pigs? perfect for teaching little ones stories with 'visual aides'. All the houses stack inside each other for easy cleanup and the child can carry it from spot to spot.
5. Rings I love baby rings for so many reasons, keeping toys attached to the car seat or stroller, to count with to play with, teaching colors! So many reasons
6. Barn Friends I love these little barn animals, each one makes a sound and Avery loves playing with the barn since its a bright red. Perfect for imagination play
7. Carters Stacker I love it because babies MUST have more than one darling stacker!
8. Fisher Price Piano I love that's its colorful and the keys make a cute sound. Avery loves tapping away on it. We might have a little pianist!
9. Skip Hop Animal Trio - I love owls and these are perfect for the stroller, they also make sounds, perfect for little hands
10. Sophie the Giraffe, Avery loves this giraffe she is a must have for babies that are teething the rubber helps soothe his gums and he's able to grasp it himself

We have all the toys above { except number four, which he'll get when he's a little older } Avery loves his baby toys and plays with the above toys all the time. It's so much fun watching him military crawling to play with his toys we place just out of his reach. Baby toys have gotten so much cuter and developmental since we had our tween 11 years ago, its fun being a mommy to a little one again. Oh, and I'm not being paid to share our favorite baby toys just thought I'd pass along the ones we love :)

What's you favorite baby toy from the list above? Or which baby toys did/does your little one adore?

Peppermint Bark (Homemade)

2012-01-06T08:41:00.000-08:00

My son and I recently made homemade Peppermint Bark its super easy, oh so delicious and a great way to use left over candy canes for Christmas. We actually made bark on Christmas Eve, but we ate it all up before I could take pictures. So we just had to { insert mischievous laughter } make more to share the recipe with all of you. For the recipe you only need three ingredients: Peppermint Candy Canes, Milk Chocolate or Dark Chocolate { I'm a Milk Chocolate girl } and White Chocolate. Next grab a small or medium cookie sheet and parchment paper or wax paper for easy cleanup and follow my directions below.

Directions

Line your cookie sheet with Parchment Paper or Wax Paper
In a microwave safe bowl heat 1 cup of chocolate chips for 1 minute, then stir until all the chocolate chips are melted. Then pour the melted chocolate onto your cookie sheet and spread. Repeat with the additional chocolate left in the bag.
Cool the melted chocolate in the fridge for 10 mins
Break your candy canes into chunks. We placed our candy canes inside of a zip lock bag and smashed them with a hammer! :) DIY baby!
Removed the chocolate from the fridge
Repeat step '2' heating instructions for the white chocolate. Pour the layer of white chocolate over the the milk chocolate. Then layer your candy cane chunks on top of the white chocolate and gently mush chunks into white chocolate using the back a spoon.
Place the bark into the fridge and let chill for 2 hours
Grab another cookie sheet and turn the bark upside down. Then break apart chunks with a knife.
Enjoy!!!

Our Peppermint bark, ready to be broken up in chunks

Peppermint bark is my new obsession its so delicious!!! I like eat my all by its self or with a cup of hot coca YUM! I stored the bark we made in zip lock bag and kept it in the fridge. Next year we plan on giving Peppermint Bark away as Christmas presents :) Here's how our yummy bark turned out. Tabari just refers to it as 'bark' such a tween :)

See, proof that Peppermint Bark makes kids happy! lol

Even bigger smile!

Here's his, 'OK mom can I please eat my Bark already' look :)

Have you made Peppermint Bark before? What new sweets recipe did you and your family make over the holidays? Please feel free to share your recipe link with us!

DIY Gold Bowls

2012-01-05T08:57:00.000-08:00

I love when I come across ideas that are so simple yet inspiring that is a total DIY must. I saw these pretty little gold bowls on Pinterest and knew I had to DIY a version.

{ via Pinterest }

All you need to re-create a DIY version of the bowls above are; simple white bowls, gold paint and a craft brush. I found three mini bowls at Cost Plus { they're actually small tea cups } and a medium square bowl with round edges at Ikea. I love the little bowls cute and they where cheap, only 99 cents each. The Ikea bowl was a little pricier around two bucks. After finding the perfect bowls, I bought a bottle of Acrylic Gold paint from Walmart for only 97 cents. Love that they bought their craft section back! I can stop in there and pay next to nothing for craft supplies and some sewing supplies.

Here's what I did. I poured a small amount of paint directly into the bowl and slowing painted the entire inside of my bowl. I left the paint dry for 3 hours and then applied a second coat of paint.
For the Ikea bowl I wanted to try something a different. I wanted to have a pretty design inside of the bowl, so I used a butterfly pattern ( left over from my wedding). I placed double side tape on the butterfly and placed it inside the bowl and then painted the entire inside gold. After allowing the paint to dry for an hour I carefully took the pattern out of the bowl. Then I waited another hour and carefully painted another coat of gold paint inside the bowl.

Here are my little DIY gold bowls. I really like how they turned out. The gold paint is so vibrant in color and it shines. The small bowls are perfect for rings, earrings and small precious jewelry. I'm going to place two on my nightstand and one on Hasani's for his wedding ring. I plan on placing the butterfly bowl { its new name } in the bathroom.

Here's the butterfly bowl, not perfect but perfectly imperfect. The the natural light in my house was starting to disappear when I took this last photo, so I I had Hasani hold the bowl. I love how the butterfly is center towards to bottom of the bowl.

It's funny, I love sliver and pewter shades in my house, but now I want to pull our my paint brush again and pretty up some more items with gold. This is such an easy project and a must to add to you DIY to do list. Little bowls painted with a variety of colors on the inside would also make pretty gifts:)

What do you think of the little bowls? Are you a 'new' fan of gold again? Like I am.

Top Five of 2011

2012-01-04T13:02:00.000-08:00

Wow we are officially four days into a New Year!! Last year went by so fast, but I think they all do when you have kiddos and now that we were blessed with a new baby in June I'm sure time will speed up even faster. It's fun to look back over the past year and reminiscence about my favorite fun projects. I decided to stick with my Top Five Projects of 2011 broken down by category, the projects big and small that I had fun doing. From painting to sewing to crafting ( a little) here they are.

Top Five of 2011

Best Refreshed Furniture Piece

Mid Century Modern Desk
- I love how many purposes this pretty desk has in our home. The dresser holds, our DVDs, board games and even provides a work space. Gotta love a multi-functional piece that we bought for only $ 80 bucks for. All it needed was a little 'PP&P' that's Primer, Paint & Pulls :) Read more about its makeover here.

Best Use of Glossy Spray Paint

Mirror Makeover
Transforming an old dated mirror I bought at a Thrift Store proved to be easy peasy when I used super glossy Krylon Fusion Spray Paint in Navy. The result a pretty focal point at the end our our hallway. Read more about this project here.

Best Use of Ribbon

DIY Back Tab Drapes

Who knew Ribbon could be so useful when making back tab style drapes? Ribbon ended up being the perfect solution to make my DIY drapes appear pleated and more polished. You can read my how to here.

Most Fun with Mini Pom Poms

DIY Giraffe Softies

I made two darling little giraffes for Avery's nursery, thanks to the help of a pattern I found on Woman's Day. I changed up the pattern just a little bit and added cute mini pom poms for the giraffes mane. I used the same fabric for each giraffe just in a different color. Read more about this sewing project here.

Most Fun with Colored Paper

Baby Artwork for the Nursery

I had so much fun transforming color paper into pretty artwork for Avery's nursery. For the artwork below, I used left of dot garland I made for my baby shower and framed it. The dots are varying shades of blue. They look so sweet in his nursery. Check out the other color paper projects I completed here.

That's my round up for 2011. I'm so looking forward to what this year will bring. The plan for the new year is to work on lots of projects that are both budget friendly to our wallet, but have big impact. I've already finished up my 1st DIY project of the year and will share on Thursday. Oh, and I'm almost DONE with our bathroom update!

How was your New Years eve, whats you favorite fun project you completed last year?

Relaxing

2011-12-28T08:19:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone!! I hope you all had a lovely fun filled holiday with your loved ones! We had a great Christmas spent with our kiddos and family. My posting will be a little spotty until next week. I'm going to take some blog time off to enjoy my family and work on some new projects about our house and on the blog as mentioned in this post a few months back { here } We have a bunch of projects { in progress } we are working on around the house. I hope to get a few done in the next few days, just in time for the New Year. It's hard to believe it will be 2012 in a few days!

Holiday Movies

2011-12-22T08:26:00.000-08:00

There's nothing I love more than doing a Holiday Movie Marathons with my family. In fact Movie & TV show marathons are a regular occurrence around our home. In the past we've done Die Hard Movie-thons (1-4) I'd never seen them before, and actually ended up liking the series. We've done Saw Movie-thons, Breaking Bad TV-thons, Elm Street Movie-thons the list goes on and on. Of course we save the scary movies / too young for Tabari to watch Movie-thons for us the adults :)

I love watching Holiday movies during the Holidays ( of course I could watch the movies above anytime of the year!). Every weekend this month we've been getting our into the holiday spirit with holiday movies, making a ginger bread house and baking cookies. I love watching these holiday movies year after year: Love Actually, Jingle All the Way, Family Man, Trading Places (LOVE THIS MOVIE) Home Alone, Deck the Halls, The Santa Clause, Scrooged, While you Were Sleeping and The Holiday.

What are your favorite Holiday movies to watch year after year?

Built-in Bookcases

2011-12-15T08:49:00.000-08:00

A few months one of my girlfriends mentioned to me, she's planning on adding built-in bookcases to her living room for more more storage for books, movies pretty much 'life stuff.' I loved her idea and started emailing her inspiration ideas, to come up with the perfect bookcase style for her home. Not too much later it dawned on me, that's what our living room needs! I started gathering ideas for 'our bookcase style.'

I drew up some plan drafts on paper, then finally on the computer. Here's what I've come up with so far. The lower section of the bookcases would consist of cabinets. Which is the perfect spot to hide clutter: DVDs, DVD player, cable box etc. The top section would be a mix of long shelves and a middle section a spot for our TV. The TV would hang inside the bookcases / on the wall. I want to bookcases to be floor to ceiling, wall to wall.

My bookcase plans are very rough, nothing is drawn to scale { right now } and no measurements have been taken { yet } But this is the overall idea of how we want them to look. We want the bookcase to be placed where our current TV and Ikea bookcases are now. It makes the most sense and its the perfect spot in our living room for them. I like the bookcases we purchased from Ikea awhile ago, however it just makes more sense to have built-in ones. I found the image below via Pinterest and love the simplicity and style of the bookcase. I want ours to feel clean lined and have faux feet, like in my sketch above and in the picture below. I think the chunky feet style really give the feeling of a more modern clean lined look.

{ via Pinterest }

Another example of how I want the feet to look on the bookcase.

We decided to DIY our bookcases after seeing how amazing Sara via Russet Street Reno's turned out. Yup, Sara and her husband built the bookcases themselves! Lovely, huh! It really adds to much appeal and style in our 'Woman Cave'

{ via Russet Street Reno }

Our plan is to do a mix of ready cabinets for the bottom bookcases { like Sara did } and the top make 3 - 4 long bookcases depending on measurements for the upper portion of the bookcases. My sketch below is an example of the individual upper bookcase unit we would build. Each bookcase portion then would be connected to the cabinets.

After we tweak our plans to achieve exactly the style we want ( with measurements etc.) the next plan is pricing and cabinet shopping for the lower portion of the bookcases. We'll be doing a lot of price comparing to get the best deal. Here's a picture of in stock cabinets from Lowes 36x30

Here's a look at how our living room currently looks. Can you see my vision? Floor to ceiling bookcases with long thick shelves and a perfect spot for our TV to hang.

I'm really looking forward to this project and the amazing transformation of our our living once its completed. I know they'll be many hours of sanding, painting, cutting and screaming { me } But I can feel the end result will be amazing!

Can you picture it?

'Tis the Season

2011-12-13T10:50:00.000-08:00

It's starting to feel more like Christmas now that we have Holiday Decor and our tree up in our living room. I like to keep Holiday decor sweet and simple, a little can go a long way. For a few years we've been decorating our home with blues & silvers, next year I want to go crazy with the color! Crossing fingers I can find lots of pretty colorful ornaments on sale after the Holiday. Here's our home dressed for the Holidays.

{ Can you see my reflection in the bulbs? That's just me saying Hi! }

I wanted a little Holiday tree on top of our secretary desk, so I used a manzanita branch and spray painted it white placed it in a large round vase ( left our from our wedding) and wrap it in sliver ribbon. Then I hung ornaments on the branches (instant pretty).

A few years ago I made a white feather wreath for Christmas, this year I made a wreath twin and hung them from our bookcases. I opted to only decorate the top of the bookcases, again keeping it simple.

A closer look. Ornaments placed in vases and just resting on top.

More ornaments placed a pretty bowl! To more ornaments look pretty on the tree and scattered around the house in vases, bowls on wreaths wherever!

Finally our tree! I let Tabari decorate the tree this year, he had to much fun and didn't break one ornament, but I did! lol

My favorite ornament of all time is the gingerbread ornament Tabari made in Kindergarten, it still smells good years later. He placed his letter 'T' ornament next to it. We started a tradition last of buying a special ornament each year, he decided on the 'T' and got an 'A' for Avery. I opted for the pretty white owl { sitting on our secretary desk } Hasani also got an owl a cute felted one for the tree.

A tree is not complete without a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, { heroes in a half shell, turtle power} lol

Some beads and snowflakes dressed up our entryway.

Most of our holiday decor is done, I need a few more coats of white on my Goodwill deer and plan on making a few ornaments I saw on Pinterest with the kiddos this week. I'll share when done.

Have you finished all your Holiday decor? Any projects your still working on?

Under Foot

2011-12-12T08:40:00.000-08:00

Do you remember my little shipping trip to West Elm on Black Friday where I bought two new circle dot pillows for our living room? Well I mentioned I we also purchased something else, and would share when our shipment arrived. Our package arrived late late Monday night, seriously late. Our UPS man must have been doing some serious overtime, because we got a knock at our door a little after 8pm, then heard a truck speed off. Yeah our UPS guy never hangs around to see if we even open our door, he jumps in his truck and floors it. Now back to what we bought from West Elm. Ever since we re-finished our original 1956 wood floors, we've been wanting find a rug to go in our living room, to warm it up a bit. I love how our wood floors look, and have been enjoying their natural beauty, but with a baby that's now 6mos old its important to offer a softer soft to play on, site on, roll over on and eventually crawl on.

So while we were in there, I decided we must look at samples and see if anything will work for our space. I really wanted to show Hasani the Jute Dot rug, the same rug I've been lusting over for months.

Lucky for us they finally had a rug sample in the store { I wanted to see it in person too } I showed Hasani the sample on the floor, they have light faux wood flooring in the store and he hated it. I was sad but not ready to give up on the Jute Dot Rug just yet. I placed the rug sample on top of a dark dresser to show him how the rug would look on our floors. Like me he's a very visual person, so giving me an example of our it relates to our house made him fall in love with the rug!

West Elm had a sale going on purchases over one hundred were 10% off, we saved $ 17.90 on the rug. The rug cost $ 161.10 + tax + shipping, but I ended up saving an additional $ 61.52 on my purchase. How? Price Adjustment, baby :) On 12/8 my exact rug went on sale for 30% off the original price! West Elm has a 14 day price adjustment, I called their 800# and they promptly issued me a credit our $ 61.52, Yay!! We ended up paying $ 136.48 for a 5x8 hand made quality Jute rug! Oh how I love Store Price Adjustment Policies. Here's a pic of our rug-less living room from a few months ago before I moved the furniture around.

I was a bit nervous when we rolled the rug, what if we didn't like it? Should we have gotten a larger rug? What if its too neutral? My nerves proved to be wrong, because we LOVE the rug. It brings so much warmth into our living room. I adore the various subtle shades woven into the rug, and love the hexagon shapes ( its no a dot dot rug) I also love the subtle zig zag pattern in the rug for certain angles. Here's our new rug and first rug for our house, I can't believe we've been rug-less for almost 3 years. Patience pays off, I guess.

We've had a few family members stop by last week and they loved it to, its an instant pow! Without being to in your face, ya know. I find the texture under my bare feet to be comfy, then again we haven't had carpet in 3 years, so maybe its just personal preference.

Avery also gave it his approval.

I'm glad we went with more neutral style rug, because I'll be able to change up our living room color scheme whenever I want to. Right now I'm loving navy's, greens, and goldenrod yellow. Our pillows feel right at home with our new rug. and here's a better look at my new green pillows we got at West Elm on Black Friday .

We also made some more changes in our living room. When we first bought our sofa at Scandinavian Designs we opted for maple wood feet, well as you know most of our home has darker wood tones. So instead of buying new feet, we spray painted of sofa's feet with the left over Metallic Spray paint. I did the same thing to Avery's vintage ottoman when I get it an update over the Summer, the spray painted feet our holding up well. Our sofa's new feet color looks so good. We're still looking for a large mirror or artwork to go above the sofa. We recently hung our son's artwork above our newly painted secretary desk, so the wall's not completely empty.

I'm so glad we bought this rug, only 3-4 more rugs to go in our house!

What so you think of our new rug addition? Is there a rug you've been lusting at for your own home? does your UPS also do a 'hit and run' ? lol

Bathroom Progress

2011-12-07T09:04:00.000-08:00

I'm so happy there's a little bathroom progress to share! as I mentioned before our plan was to replace our old bathroom sink with a new one and keep our existing cabinet. We deiced to keep the existing cabinet for three reasons: #1. It was solid wood #2. I painted the wood a rich brown awhile back and we still liked the look # 3. We wanted the update to be cheap.

We bought a new sink counter from HD Home Supply, love that store. They have very competitive prices for builder grade /style updates. We always go there when we need to rent something { Floor Sanders, Power Snake } because their prices are so much lower then Home Depot & The staff is knowledgeable. We bought a simple white sink from there for only $ 53.00, such a good deal. Hasani installed our new sink with ease and no drips. He's working on a how to install as sink post, as I'm writing this post. Oh we opted to keep our faucet, since it was a teeny upgrade and still new-ish { 2.5 years old) Here's our old bathroom sink. In the pictures its hard to tell how dingy it was.

The new sink has made such a huge difference, our old sink was a tacky faux marble cream color, it was stained. No matter how much a I scrubbed and bleached the sucker it never look clean. I'm in love with our new clean white sink against the dark wood cabinet. I actually walked by our bathroom and few times and flipped the light on just to see how nice it looked. I need to do a little repair work above the sink, our old sinks backslash was much taller then our new one. The repair is such an easy peasy fix.

Sorry for the dark pictures! Our bathroom has very little natural light, so why I painted it the ugly sea foam green is beyond me. I also picked up this little blue soap dish holder from West Elm on Black Friday. I'm more on a pump soap kind of gal, but loved the little pop of blue around the base. And it was only .97 cents, so I said what the heck and bought it.

As I mentioned before, I planned on painting our Bathroom again making this the third time I painted the bathroom, second time this year!. After much debate with Hasani, we decided to paint the bathroom Bedford Grey by Martha Stewart Living. We had the paint color matched to Olympic Paint, in satin finish at Lowes. . My goal was to paint the bathroom over the Thanksgiving Holiday, but we just got to busy and I never made the time. We still need to take down the old hardware, patch holes and then I can paint the bathroom. The gallon on paint is sitting in our garage waiting to be opened

{ Bedford Grey Martha Stewart Living }

I also bought six EKBY Valter brackets from Ikea that need to be painted white. I bought them from $3 bucks each, so I spent $ 18 dollars on them. I'm going to go to Lowes and buy the wood or MDF board for the shelves, I'll have them make the cuts for me.

I wanted to buy the EKBY Stilig Brackets, but they weren't in stock a few weekends ago. There now back in stock, so I'll go to Ikea over the weekend and exchange the ones I bought for the ones I want. They're a dollar more each, but the require no painting so its a tie.

I can finally start seeing some progress in our tiny bathroom and boy does it feel good! Plus its nice to see a small bathroom update ~~upgrade~~ can have such a nice impact on in our bathroom. Its already feeling more fresh and modern-ish.

What do you think our our little sink refresh?

Secretary Desk is Done

2011-12-05T06:00:00.000-08:00

Do you remember the Mid Century Modern desk I purchased in September? If not here's a quick reminder, I found the desk one night while trolling Craigslist looking for a Secretary desk to help De-clutter our living room. I paid $ 80 bucks, they were asking $ 90 bucks. The desk is worth every penny and then some. The previous owner, had the the secretary desk for over 40 years and only parted with the desk when his wife wanted him to De-clutter { oh the irony}. We talked about staining the desk a dark walnut or painting the desk a shade of griege. Here's a reminder of how our desk looked before its makeover.

Before I even completed the makeover, I loved how the desk looked in our living room. Its such a great piece and so well made { solid wood }

I decided to paint the secretary desk by Cobblestone Martha Stewart. It's the perfect shade of griege.

The original stain was worn thin and flaky on the top of the desk, so I used my power sander on the entire desk to removed the old varnish. Its the same basic power sander I used on my sons desk, compact but works good. After sanding the entire desk, I applied three coats of Zisner primer with a sponge roller. I allowed each coat to dry 6 hours before reapplying the next coat.

I really liked using the Martha Stewart paint, but its very very thin, I ended up applying 4 coats of paint! This time I waited 24 hours before applying the next coat, I wanted to allow each layer of paint to fully cure before applying the next coat. I used a sponge roller to apply the paint and then went back over the the paint with a brush. I use Purdy brushes for a nice smooth finish. I decided to keep the original pulls, but wanted to change up the look of the first drawer. Originally the first drawer had six tiny knobs, I replaced those with four knobs I bought at HD Supply for only $1.67 each. The drawer now has four knobs, I used wood filler on two of the holes and the faux notch drawer. I felt six knobs looked too busy on the drawer and desk, I'm glad I went with my gut and changed it up. I spray painted all the pulls oil rubbed bronze. I had a left over can from spray painting Avery's ottoman. I really like how the oil rubbed bronze gives off a nice metallic shiny finish. I bought a little can of Valspar black gloss to paint the feet on the Secretary desk. Here's our secretary desk. It turned out so nice!

It took awhile to complete the Secretary desk, but it was so worth it. I'm in love with how it looks in our living room, its such a great multi-functional piece. We plan on using the top piece that pulls down to store our office stuff, one side will be Hasani's and the other mine. The first drawer will be for more office stuff: chargers, paper, misc items. The bottom two drawers are nice and deep perfect for movies and board games.

What do you think our my Mid Century Modern Secretary desk redone?

Have you painted any Craigslist finds recently?