Decorating Endeavors Part IV: the Dining Room!

Clearly, it has been a while since I updated this.  I started school. That is my excuse.  I do nothing now but work, go to school, study, and listen to Georgia whine incessantly for attention (sorry Georgia)!

This is Georgia's default position these days

I also spend a lot of time painting my nails. It is part of my mental process, don't ask. I did manage to make it to the Baltimore Book Festival and the Harbor East Fall Festival yesterday- Friday nights/Saturdays are my days off.  I also saw "Easy A" on Friday night and it was a nice, fun little escape.  All these people were lined up to see serious movies like "Wall Street" and "The Town" but these days I prefer movies that have either a) penguins b)dancing c) a lot of sarcasm or d) dancing sarcastic penguins. 

ANYWAY, I promised pictures of the dining room to half a dozen people or so, so here they are!!

The dining room, in the beginning- notice there is nothing there...

Dining room round 1.

First, we tried painting the dining room and the living room this yellow color.  It stayed yellow for approximately 3 months, then turned this tan/brown/ill color.  Dan insisted it was fine but it gnawed away at me.  It actually looks a bit green in this picture but what do I know?  Also notice the lack of dog crate in this picture...

There's the dog crate! Edmond decided to try it out and since I am evil (see previous post) I politely asked Georgia to join him.  She kindly obliged, Edmond was confused.

Then, I decided NO MORE VALSPAR! TO HELL WITH THEM AND THEIR CHANGING COLORS!  It probably wasn't their fault.  I moved on to Benjamin Moore, dill pickle.  It ended up being... browny green.  I don't know what it is about this house and color.  It sucks it up.  Granted, I also decided that the color swatch was lying to me and that the green would look greener in person.  I was wrong.  You can see dill pickle behind my lovely, confused, caged animals above.  It did not please my delicate sensibilities.  At this point, Dan decided that painting was a job I could do myself unless he was EXPRESSLY asked to help.  I don't blame him. Smart man.

Third time's the charm!

If this isn't green, then I can't pick green out of a line-up.

Tada!!!! Grape green by Benjamin Moore.  It is green.  Very. Green.  I love it!  Also you will notice that the furniture is different.  My mom decided she didn't want her marble top Saarinen tulip table.  Who does that?!  I reap the benefits :).  

In an attempt to create a reading nook in the other room,
we moved this big cedar bookshelf into the dining room for storage purposes.
I think it works out quite nicely, as does Edmond.

So the microwave had to find a new home when we moved the kitchen about.  This is what happens- I try to "clean up" one room and then I find myself shifting the entire house around.  It's a domino effect.  The whole house is communist now too (bad history joke, sorry). 

Dan built this table out of some old shelves we had.  It is a perfect tea station/dog crate cover.
Georgia likes having a cave too!

Like I said, GREEN!

After 3 different colors, multiple furniture placements and a lot of swearing at the ceiling fan for blowing dog hair around when I was trying to paint ( I wised up to its plan and turned it off eventually), I have my lovely dining room.  Yay!

Next stop... the living room!

Decorating Endeavors Part III: the Bathroom!

I watch WAY more design shows than is healthy.  I watch psychotic homeowners take out a whole kitchen's worth of cabinets because they are oak, not cherry, and replace them for like... $10,000 when they could have just STAINED THEM.  STAIN! Come ON people!  I watch people who don't know how to hang a picture try to flip a house.  I deviously laugh when they fail (hey, they put themselves on tv, I get to laugh at them) and I am happily shocked when they get their asking price too (I'm not TOTALLY evil, just somewhat evil...).

Anyways, the one thing people spend a gazillion dollars on and swear they will get every penny back is the bathroom.  Nevermind that they chose a shower with 50 jets and 30 speakers that play the Rocky soundtrack with corresponding light show instead of a, you know, boring bathtub.  I refuse to live somewhere without a bathtub.  Maybe I am persnickety but you can't take a bubble bath in a shower even if it can solve complex math equations and automatically wash your dog.  That being said, we spent roughly $50 on our bathroom and damnit I hope we get that back! Just kidding.

Before

I really love the 1950's look that the kitchen has.  What I do not love is that horrific brass sliding door.  Sliding doors are typically nice since it keeps water from spilling everywhere and you don't have a shower curtain attacking you whilst you try to rinse off.  BUT when one of the doors is a mirror and it is located DIRECTLY next to the toilet, let's just say that there are a few aspects of daily life that don't need to be reflected in a mirror.  Also, I would like to draw your attention to the GIANT WINDOW in the shower.  Yeah, our house backs up to another row of houses in the back.  Every single person in that row can see DIRECTLY into the bathroom, especially at night.  I see this as being potentially problematic, just a thought.

After

Dan picked the color.  I love it! I think it is one of the more feminine colors in the house (Antique Map by Martha Stewart-Valspar that they don't make anymore) but it is very very retro and awesome.  

Have I mentioned that the room is also Paris-themed?  It's the only "themed" room in the house and it was kind of completely by accident.  I also am one of those people that ends up with 10 different kinds of shampoo because I fall prey to commercials.  I wish I was kidding.  We had to put a shower curtain and some frosted contact paper over the window because the wooden window frame didn't like being hit by the shower head and we didn't want to put on a show all the time for our neighbors.  Hey, you can't get it for free!

Well all we did was paint, change the light fixture and replace the door with a curtain.  I think it was a success!

Decorating Endeavors Part II: The Office!

The office was the only room in the house that we pretty much put together right away and haven't changed it (i.e. I haven't repainted it 5 times and the furniture has stayed put).

Before

Ok, this is not the office, this is the dining room.  However, I don't have a picture of the office "before" and it is directly above the dining room so they are identical, just about, minus the fan.

The office (or second bedroom) is much darker than the dining room for some reason.  Since I am in school and Dan is getting ready to start school, we wanted a warm, studious area.  So.....

After

Tada! A perfect reading chair!

And a nice desk!  Ignore the leaning pictures, we were hanging stuff in the basement and they weren't done yet.   So, from all white boring room to a nice cozy study room!  Now I just need to learn to pry myself from the living room and actually do my reading up here!

Decorating Endeavors! Part I, the Kitchen.

Dan and I moved into our Hampden rowhouse about a year and a half ago.  It was entirely greyish-white, the kitchen was outdated, the basement was a mess, and the yard looked a bit droopy and sad.  We picked it for a few reasons: 1. it was a very good price 2. it is an end of row house, so it has windows on 3 sides instead of the normal 2 for rowhouses and 3. we wanted something we could work with to make our own.  Since we had pretty much a non-existent budget and I change my mind about 3 times a minute, it was a bit of a challenge.  Now, the house seems pretty much done!  Let's start with the kitchen, shall we?

Before

Hmmm nothing to write home about.  There is an old, nasty fridge and a broken stove.  The floor is covered in stick-on tiles.  There is no backsplash.  That weird light thing above the sink? Yeah that thing doesn't work.

What did we do? Well, first, we decided to paint it red...

In Progress

New stove! Moved the fridge! Bye bye stupid useless light!  It's an improvement, but it is still all cluttered and obnoxious.   Notice all the craziness??

Yeah only one of us can cook at a time and we have zero counter space.  Really.  Maybe a foot. Tops.  See the dish rack?  That is because we have no dishwasher.  It takes up the only space we actually have. Dude.

So... it took us a year and a LOOOTTTTT of switching, sweat, tears, mania, etc.  but we SUCCEEDED!!!! BEHOLD!!!!

After!!

First, we couldn't afford to replace a fridge just because it was ugly... soooo we painted it with chalkboard paint! It is a bit banged up right now but it is a VAST improvement to the ugly stained white thing.  

The ugly builder's grade wood cabinets are now white! Dan and I put up the tile ourselves and it was soooo much easier than I thought it would be.  Now I am eyeing the bathroom....  Notice a shiny stainless steel appliance that wasn't here before?? Yep, that would be a DISHWASHER there! I had NO idea the dishwasher would affect us as much as it did.  The kitchen is clean about 95% of the time.  The dishes stay clean, things don't linger in the sink, and we have reclaimed our countertops!  Of course, we lost the only big cabinet we had for storage so we had to get creative. First, we hung those lovely pots and pans above the stove- very very handy!

Second, we decided to put up pegboard a la Julia Child for the rest of our pots, pans, etc.  Edmond seems to appreciate the change!

We also decided to replace the ugly little light with a $40 "track lighting" fixture from Ikea.  Go Ikea!  Now we can actually see what we are doing!  So, after many many coats of paint, tiling, 2 new appliances, 1 new light fixture, and a lot of door handles, we have a somewhat new kitchen!!! Dan wants to replace the stick-on tile.  I can't figure out what to put there instead...  We will have to wait and see!  Overall, I think we had a very successful remodel! Yay!!!

Birthdays and Adoption Days!

Sunday (June 20) was Dan's birthday!  We celebrated on Saturday and I did my absolute best to get Dan exactly what he wanted.  Those things included:

• having people over to
• eat breakfast for dinner (cornmeal pancakes with blueberries and apricot compote)
• watch Tron and Total Recall
• play games- we ended up playing Pandemic (which is an awesome game and everyone either wins or loses- we lost, oops)

(save the planet! cure the diseases!)

• getting a robe as a present

Dan is a man who knows what he wants.  I also made him breakfast on Sunday, which I never do.  We accomplished everything on his list.  I highly recommend Pandemic for anyone who wants to tie themselves to other smart game players and ride their coattails to victory (or defeat in our case).  There are 4 diseases- red, yellow, black and blue- and each player has a special role (scientist, operations specialist, dispatcher, medic, etc.) and you all work in a team to "discover" cures to each disease and eradicate it from the map.  If there are too many outbreaks (no monkeys involved) then you lose.  We were THISCLOSE to finding the cure for our last disease (pesky blue!) and there were one too many outbreaks and dun Dun DUN! We lost.  Oh well.

Sunday was also the 1 year anniversary of adopting the pooch!  Happy Adoption Day Georgia!  She probably weighed 10-15 lbs when we got her and she had a bad case of kennel cough.  Now she is a very robust 41 lbs and couldn't be a happier doggie.  I swear she smiles!

    (Dan holding her when we got home)    (Georgia checks out her crate on day 1)

Now, remember that image above... and we have a bona fide monster below!!!

(this was taken about 4 months ago, she's grown since then!)

I will post a better comparison shot later.  What a pooch!

Contact Lens Suicide

I have been a bit... squinty lately.  I have one good eye and one bad eye.  Basically, my left eye does all the hard work and my right eye sits around eating ice cream and dreaming of shoes (or whatever an eye would do on a day off I suppose).  So, clearly, my solution to this dilemma is to wear ONE contact lens- like a fancy pirate.  I also have reading glasses that are red and awesome that I wear to work on the computer.  The reading glasses don't work without the contact lens in, by the way.  One side is plain ol' plastic and the other side looks like a coke bottle- it's awesome...

(this is my sad, overworked eye :( )

ANYWAYS, so the other day I was eating dinner (that I cooked by the way) and I noticed my eye felt funny.  Ironically, nothing looks different when my contact falls out because my left eye (see picture) takes over and takes care of business.  I looked down at my plate and there was my contact lens- right in a pile of zucchini.  Sad day.  Of course, this is the only contact I have left.  Dan convinced me that zucchini-eye was probably some sort of incurable disease.  So far, I have been too busy/lazy/cheap to order more contacts and so I have been sitting, squinting at my computer in pain for a week.  Although I can *see* just fine, my head doesn't like having to work so hard.  Also, my already-dubious parallel parking skills are shot.  This is my Monday lament!

Crab flavored popcorn

Yes, my friends, I saw it at SuperFresh! Such a thing as crab flavored microwave popcorn does exist!  My tongue shrivels up at the thought of the generic Old Bay flavoring sprinkled onto already-sodium-saturated microwave popcorn.  Dan got me a popcorn popper for Christmas 2 years ago and that thing is the best present I have ever gotten (after my engagement ring oh so many Christmases ago!).  It allows me to avoid EXACTLY this type of thing- the temptation of preservative-covered salt soaked in salt and then spread like a rash over corn.  I can put anything I want on MY popcorn and I know exactly what is in there- corn! Plus whatever I use to season it.  That crab corn makes me feel a bit dirty.  I feel like I need to go drink a GIANT glass of water.

Speaking of food, my foray into cooking is going somewhat well!  I am relying heavily on the lettuce/feta/berry/greek dressing combo but I DID try a recipe Friday that didn't kill anybody.  It was called the Summer Saute (a Whole Foods recipe from my iPhone app- gotta love it) and involved sausage (pre-cooked, who do I look like, Martha?), polenta (pre-cooked, see previous comment), red onion, zucchini and bell pepper (NOT pre-cooked, maybe a little Martha?).  The recipe wanted me to use red bell pepper but I said NO! Orange bell pepper is FAR superior to red bell pepper! So I substituted.  Basically, you do the following:

• heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a pan (yep, don't know the name of the pan- I used the Le Creuset skillet thing my brother, Andrew, got us as a wedding present)
• add 1/2 c. chopped red onion, 1 chopped med. zucchini, 1 sliced ORANGE bell pepper- cook for 5 min.
• add 1 package cooked sausage, sliced, cook for 7ish minutes
• I forgot to mention to slice the polenta 1/2 in. and cook- somehow- there were no specific instructions.  I stuck them on a griddle until they were warm and it seemed to work
• put polenta circles on bottom, everything else on top, serve!

Dan likes to make fun of me for only reading directions once I start cooking.  This time was no different.  BUT the recipe was so easy, I couldn't really screw it up.  I suggest everyone try it!

If it is made of wood, metal, plastic, or, well anything else...

I seem to have a spray paint addiction.  No, I don't like the smell or anything (well I kind of do, it's like gasoline and oooh I love gasoline- ignore that I said that) but I find that the SECOND it is warm enough to hang around outside without shoes on, I start spray painting things.  The newest victim was the screen door.  It is still half-painted.  Poor thing.  I can't decide if the green is a) retro b) hideous c) a crime against humanity d) chic.  It is probably a combination of these things.  Normally, I am a split-second decision maker.  This door befuddles me.  I can't decide if I should soldier on with the "ivy leaf" aka "avocado" green or give up and go for a nice sunny yellow and call it a day.  Only time will tell...

I am adding some pictures as further proof that my house is a technicolor mess- if the pictures of the basement weren't proof enough!  Disclaimer, these are not the prettiest pictures I have ever taken- not anywhere near actually, and the house isn't even "clean" exactly.  Well, it is clean in the sense that there isn't any spoiled food and I can see the floor.  We aim high in the Peterson house.  Behold!

I would like to point out that the red thing on the dining table is an unidentified red deer/dog/horse thing that I nabbed out of a pile of things my mom was getting rid of.  Honestly we have NO idea what it is.  Atomic deer?  I think that is the best guess so far.  You might have noticed that I am fond of ... lime green?  Why yes! Don't mind if I am!   The whole house is a work in process every day. Next pictures, the yard!  I know everyone is overwhelmed with excitement....

Clearly I am not very consistent

So the snow is long gone and now I am up to doing things like digging holes in the yard, painting ceilings, and spraypainting things that shouldn't be painted (not really).  Yesterday, my spraypaint victim was the wicker chair on our front porch. I left it au naturel for a few months or so, but then it got wet and started to turn kind of a weird grey speckled color.  Now, traffic cone orange.  The can said pumpkin orange but I think it may glow in the dark it is so bright! Tonight, my newest paint victim is a brand new screen door for the back.  Right now it is white.  It shall be green! I will post pics.  Killing the ozone, one can at a time.  (I hope not!)


After being stuck on the couch for a week and a half thanks to some lovely surgery, I think I am acting like I was in a coma for a few years and now I have to put my life together again.  I am behind in work and house stuff.  Fortunately, the daily trauma known as law school is currently at recess (yay summer!) so I didn't miss any school.  Georgia keeps looking at me like I am crazy and Edmond has always looked at me like that, so, no change there.  My house is all different colors now and we finished the basement!!! It is now "calypso orange" with black carpet and a polka dot rug over that.  It looks less like Halloween than you would think.  I love it down there but right now we seem to be having circulation problems and it is quite warm down there.

As other people in school and working may tell you, things have a tend to kind of fall apart during the school year.  There just isn't a lot that can be done between 10pm and 7am in the way of exercise, cooking, cleaning, studying etc. that allows you to also, you know, sleep, play with the dog and MAYBE have a conversation with loved ones.

That being said, summer is a little like New Years to us students.  We all sit around in April/May and fantasize about how awesome we will be when we aren't slogging through textbooks the size of aircraft carriers.  It turns into a bit of the resolution season.  SO! I shall write mine down in some sort of attempt to hold myself accountable (uhuh right because guilt ALWAYS compels me to act nicely, rather than say, just making me feel bad for eating a pound of pound cake):

• I promise to cook more
• I promise to get outside more
• I promise to play with Georgia more- preferably outside
• I promise to actually get exercise, hopefully in the shape of pilates and yoga
• I promise to help out around the house
• I promise to catch up with friends
• I promise to do creative things as much as possible
• I promise to catch up on all those movies I wanted to see when they came out in the past 10 months and neglected to see
• I promise to catch up on work in the hopes of staving off disaster for a few more months!

So far, I have gotten outside more.  That means I have seen the sun a few times- not hard to do.  I also have been seeing friends more, helping out around the house (see above paragraphs about spray paint) and I have cooked a few times! My dear friend Beverley and I are scrapbooking like infinitely cool soccer moms right now, which helps with the creativity.  She is making an album of her recent trip to South Africa and I am working on my wedding album.  It would be nice to actually finish that before our third anniversary- don't judge!  My ultimate goal is to create good habits that are sustainable during the school year.  IT CAN BE DONE!

Things to inspire me along the way:

• Shutterbean! - these recipes don't seem horribly complicated and they look so purdy!
• Design Sponge Online - everything is pretty and happy here, very inspirational for both house stuff and creative pursuits
• Apartment Therapy- (and the various incarnations like the Kitchn) where else can I spend HOURS finding all sorts of things that I have to do/buy/grow/make right now?
• Body + Soul- I must get my health in order!
• I shall add more to this list!  I need a good gardening blog 

To be continued!

Me and My Shovel

Today, the snow stopped blowing.  I love being able to get the door open when I want to.  Ah the simple things in life.  So far, I had gotten away with not shoveling anything.  Dan has been the official shovel aficionado of the 2009-2010 winter storm season.  We only have one shovel and not that much sidewalk so  I suppose I am only somewhat of a slacker for not helping before now.  However, I must say that I am a big fan of shoveling!  It is kind of like the snow version of vacuuming.  You can see the progress immediately!  That is, if your snow walls don't cave in, which mine did a few times.  I managed to make a 5 ft pile of snow, which actually didn't take much honestly.

Georgia hasn't figured out yet that she can climb over the fence.  I don't plan on showing her how to do it.  She only kind of likes snow.  What a wimp!   Dogs are supposed to frolic in snow! Georgia just likes to give me the "what is this wet and cold stuff and why is it clinging to my fur?" look.  Indoor dog.  I think she is ready for spring, not that I blame her.

I did a bit of homework today at least.  I watched a little video thing for my research class with the most relaxing narrator in the world.  Seriously, I was getting sleepier and sleepier as I listened about the wonders of key numbers.  Oh what a wonderful world of research that lies ahead of me!  Until next week for more school adventures I suppose!

Thank Goodness for iPhone Monopoly

So this is not my first blog.  I had one of those extraordinarily weepy live journals back in the day with the little emoticon that said how I was feeling at all times.  I had one when I went to France.  I suppose I could have picked up with the France one (mousepaint.blogspot.com if anyone is interested) but I decided to preserve its integrity.  Also I spent a lot of time typing into it from French keyboards so there a lot of typos and that drives me crazy.  Not that you can expect perfect typing from me but I deserve a fresh start with a keyboard that isn't adding circumflexes in random spots.

Anyways, I have been snowed in since Friday, FRIDAY.  It is now Wednesday.  My chain-link fence is a distant memory.  My boxwoods, what boxwoods? Apparently my house is made out of ice, icicles, and snowdrifts. Any minute now a big red and white striped pole is going to pop out of the ground and penguins will slide by. The dog, Georgia, and the cat, Edmond, have been chasing each other with excess energy. I have had about 10 gallons of caffeine, which led to me doing kickboxing on demand (thanks Comcast!) at 11pm last night. You would think that I would be super productive, what with the week off from law school and work, but no.  I saw a fabulous episode of 18 Kids and Counting yesterday.  I watched almost an entire season of CSI.  This is what I have been doing for DAYS.

I have to say, being snowed in does funny things to people. For example, I found great pleasure in watching the snow plow guy driving down the street with the plow part of his vehicle suspended in the air, mullet blowing in the wind, sun bouncing off his aviators, rocking out to Beyonce.  I think that part of the plow is supposed to touch the actual snow.  The purpose isn't to catch the flurries as they fall, though I guess that might keep SOME of this snow off the ground. Who am I to judge right? I am not a professional snow-plower.  Maybe he is a preemptive plower?

Yesterday, I went on a grand Hampden adventure.  Since Dan was off at work like a brave soldier, I was  trying to do something aside from sit and went into a few shops on the Avenue.  I learned 2 things.  First,  there are more potholes in the street than previously thought.  I know because I found them all.  I haven't been puddle jumping since I was little and regardless of the wet jeans, it was kind of entertaining!  Second, people get chatty when they get snowed in, including myself apparently.  I spent a good 20 minutes hanging out in a store talking about snow and plows and the like.  People are friendly when they have been cooped up for a while!  That probably doesn't apply to jails.  Just a thought.

Anyways, part of my adventure was going to the grocery store, which wasn't full of chatty, happy people.  Rather, it was full of a bunch of people just trying to get food and get home before the next wave of snow.  I stood in line for a good 30 min waiting to check out (self-check, that's how I roll).  Thankfully, since I have the attention span of a 1st grader, I have monopoly on my iPhone.  I am pretty sure that people thought I was insane, since I kept shaking my phone (that is what you have to do to "roll the dice").  The highlight of the day definitely came from yet another mulleted individual. A woman with a truly awesome mullet wearing a Ravens jersey became somewhat irate.  I don't blame her, the line was long, the wind was picking up outside, it was getting dark.  But none of these things were irking her.  She started yelling at her shopping buddy exasperatedly, "Where dem hohos?!" I did not realize hohos were such an important blizzard staple.  I suppose it isn't any stranger than my Annie's Bunny Pasta with Yummy Cheese.  Bunny pasta is always a staple.

Tomorrow, no work and no school.  I should probably get some work done.  I also plan on making a snowman, working on my wedding album (yes I know we celebrated our 2 year anniversary in October, don't rush me!) and watching Indiana Jones.  Beverley also let me borrow the True Blood books, rather one of them, and I plan on embarking on that adventure as well.  I have a huge stack of books to read and I LOVE reading but for some reason CSI is mind-numbingly more accessible.  Perhaps tomorrow I will pick colors to paint the living room/dining room and the basement too.  Lofty ideas, always start big!

As you can probably tell, there is no theme to my blog.  I live in Hampden with some crazy and wonderful people/animals, including but not limited to Dan, Georgia and Edmond.  Hopefully Edmond doesn't pull an Omen on us and burn us in our beds.  He has shifty eyes.

I'll let everyone know how my plans go tomorrow.  Since I have already accomplished my other goals of the week like painting my nails raspberry pink and keeping the door locked, I have high hopes.