Weekend Bits

This weekend I took things fairly easy. Who am I kidding, I take most weekends easy. Sleeping in is always featured heavily, as is plenty of couch time. But I did manage to get 30 minutes of driving practice in on Saturday, and without crying- bonus. I also reorganized the kitchen pantry, and as a result the spice cupboard got a little tidying up as well. Falling under the "Use What I Have" resolution category I made good use of spare containers I had in the kitchen for my pantry reorganization. I had two large plastic containers that I had bought ages ago for freezing leftovers, but had decided I didn't like very much and since then had only occasionally used. I transferred my powdered and granulated sugar into each of them which makes for much better storage than the bags I had them in, and is much easier to stack and keep track of on the shelf. I also got rid of some old cake flour that I never seemed to finish using, and I'll use that jar to hold my corn meal now. I dumped out some old flavoring extracts, slowly peeled the labels from them and had Josh wash the little bottles up. I'm looking forward to trying my hand at making my own vanilla, or maybe a small amount of flavored oil. Whatever I make, I'm sure I can find a cute use for them. And of course, now that everything is much more organized I can actually SEE what I have, making it much easier to USE it.

That was the most productive part of my weekend. Sunday I caught a $5 matinee of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with my pal Holly. It was an excellent mystery; they gave nothing away until the very end. I'm hoping I can go see it again with Josh, or maybe my mom. After an afternoon of grocery shopping my cousin Angie came over and I made a quick version of Shepherd's Pie and some Pumpkin Bread Pudding for our little Downton Abbey premiere viewing party. We had such a good time she's going to come back next Sunday to watch the next episode again. I can't wait!

A Few Checkmarks

I got a few more things checked off my to-do list over the last week or so, and thought I'd share my completed project. I mentioned before that I'd finally gotten my Pottery Barn wall organizers up. The space I wanted to put them up in was too small to use their rail system that they insist you buy to hang them. So, I removed the rail pieces from them and attached picture hangers in their place. In addition to that I used 3M Command Strips for extra support, so now they hang great and look like they're just floating there. Above them I put an Ikea Ribba picture ledge to display several of my favorite cookbooks and I also framed one of my grandmother's recipes, for brownies, to put up next to it. I'm so pleased with how it came out!

For some reason I went wandering around etsy looking for trophies (honestly, I can't remember what gave me the idea, ha) and stumbled across these blue spray painted trophies and loved the idea. I have been trying to think of things to liven up our entertainment center and this was just perfect. My family was big into bowling, so I stopped by my mom's house to see what was laying around. I found an old bowling trophy of my Grandpa's from 1971, and she gave me the go ahead to remove the top portion for my project. All this idea cost me was a $3 can of spray paint. I love how it turned out and it's the perfect pop of blue on our shelves. Plus it has genuine family value to me!

And then this week I finally checked a huge to-do off my list- my family photo wall. I've been working on this for over a year and I was finally motivated to get off my duff after coming back from seeing all the family in Iowa. Again, instead of using nails to make a bunch of holes in my hall, I turned to those 3M Command Strips. For reals guys, I love these things. Josh helped me to try and make sure my arrangement looked good and everything was symmetrical and level. I'm going to change out two of the photos, but what is in there for now looks great. The frames I got from Pottery Barn. Not as cheap as the Ikea ones I usually opt for, but our hall is quite narrow and the PB frames were thinner. I really love how this turned out, and my only regret is it took me so long to get it done!

Someone's in the Kitchen....

Take a peek at our new kitchen over at my food blog, Small Time Cooks.

Pantry Project- Before

Who knew that when I was dreaming way back in 2007 that I would so soon have a pantry of my own to make pretty. Not me! But now I do and as it turned out I was just in time to catch the last weekend of the Container Store's elfa sale. So, after some consulting and confusion we picked up all the ingredients for new shelves and a cart for the microwave. Now that I have so much more counter space I don't want to donate any of it to the ugly appliance. The nice elfa-elf that helped us was almost giddy to hear that I shared her distaste for the cooking box. I will someday also get the over-the-door storage system, but I couldn't go whole-hog just yet. Maybe next year's sale will bring the opportunity. Anyway, here's what I'm starting with. You fortunately can't really tell just how gross and grimy it is in there right now. I'm going to tear out the shelves and supports, scrub the walls something fierce, and maybe even paint it (if I could choose the right color, which we all know is quite the ordeal). I am very excited about having a nice, new and well-organized pantry in my future- even if I have to work hard for it!

The Casa: Before Shots Volume I- The Kitchen

Okay, posting some pics of the house as it stands, before we really get down to work this week and weekend. Starting with the kitchen/dining room. Looks a little messy because I took these after we had dragged in our supplies for staying the night.

















The refrigerator has now filled in the space on the right. I'll have to take a new pic of it in all it's shininess.



















































Here is half of the dining room area. Small door is the pantry (I have a pantry!), and larger door goes to the garage. I'll be sharing my pantry plans later. And of course, I just realized since we're not even painting this space there isn't going to be a huge difference between the before and after. Oh well, ha. Going from a 64 sq. foot kitchen to this space makes me giddy. I only have 2 drawers in our apartment kitchen. My new kitchen has 5 times that many! And more cabinets than I currently know what to do with. Josh was a good husband though and stood glassy-eyed, but patient, as I rambled about which cabinet I think I'll put the plates in.