Tag Archives: kitchen

Things I’m Putting Off, But Desperately Need To Do

1. Reorganize our pantry.

I got off to a good start at the beginning of the year, hauling home a huge amount of totes and bins from Target, but due to other members of the family not paying attention to my system (Tom, I’m looking at you), it demands a re-do. Our pantry has also become a bit of a catch-all. I don’t there’s anything too unrelated to kitchens / dining in there, but now I’m scared to look.

2. Create a filing system.

Tom and I have had separate filing methods since we got married 5 years ago. He takes care of his, and I take care of mine. And the problems with this are numerous…

– We now have a lot of joint accounts and shared assets, from savings accounts to our mortgage payments.

– We constantly lose W2 forms during tax season because they wind up all over the house.

– I use a pretty simple Banker’s box system; Tom… well, I’m still not really sure what his filing system is. But statements have turned up in some pretty random places around the house, including a drawer of our nightstands.

I have no idea where to start. As soon as I start thinking about this project, I feel completely overwhelmed. I feel like I need to take at least a week of vacation to sort it out and do it properly. Please, oh please, help me find the inspiration, determination and endurance to complete this task!!!

3. Stain the deck

While Tom will probably take the lead on this one, I should probably offer my services. At least to pick out a nice stain color 😉

We’re waiting for the weather to cool down before tackling this one, but then I see college football and Bengals games eating up our weekend afternoons…

4. Seal the driveway

There’s been some debate recently about how important this one is. Do we really need to seal our driveway? I guess it would help it last longer, because the last thing we want to do is pay thousands to have it re-poured in a few years. Thoughts? Any tips on driveway sealing?

What tasks are you putting off? Let’s inspire each other to conquer them!

List-O-Mania

I don’t know about you, but I love making lists. In the Notes app on my iPhone. Especially when Tom & I are driving to work (we carpool; he drives), running errands, or in those moments when I can’t fall asleep because I have too many thoughts running through my head. During our 13 hour car ride back from Florida, I made a lot of lists. Tom gets carsick if he’s not driving, so he drove the ENTIRE 750 miles home. And I spent those miles reading the September issue of HGTV magazine, and coming up with countless ideas and projects for our house. The best way that I could think of to soothe my racing mind was to create room-by-room lists.

I am sharing these with you in an effort to help 1.) Turn some of these ideas into reality. Decorating is like dieting. If you tell people what your goals are, you’re more likely to follow through and stick to it. Right?? 2.) Have a back-up, just in case I lose my iPhone or accidentally hit delete!

Obviously, there are more rooms in our house than are listed here. But I’m starting with the ones that seem reasonable and realistic.

Family Room:

– Gallery wall above small bookshelf; maybe small wall of photos between TV and stairs (MUST make progress on this soon! I should probably give myself a deadline…)

– Add a basket/something to stash pillows and throws

– Buy a rug for the corner where the piano will go

– Have piano moved from my parent’s house

– Accent table needed between cream leather occasional chairs

– Paint! (this is on the books for early 2013!!)

– Crown molding

– Frame out windows or build cornice boxes

– Eventually… would love a pouf! And a new coffee table and end table

 

Kitchen:

– Add a tile backsplash

– Paint!! (also early 2013)

– Install under-cabinet lighting

– Crown molding

– Considering a fun, modern wall-paper on the wall underneath our island, that faces our family room

– Eventually… would love custom blown-glass pendant lights.

 

Master Bedroom:

– Dressing table and chair

– Armchair (and ottoman?)

– New bedding

– Art / photos for walls

– New lamps for our nightstands

– Crown molding?

– Custom closet system

 

Library/Office:

– Built-in shelving and window seat

– Window seat cushion and pillows

– Frame out window

– Crown molding

– New desk & desk chair

– Hang art

– Feature wall for quilts (my mom is a quilter; she’s made me some cute, sentimental and “inside joke” quilts over the years and I need a way to display them!)


Now, the fun part will be seeing how many of these we can actually accomplish! Is it silly to admit that I’m nervous?!!?

 

Placemat Project

The first plans I had for my new batch of fabric were new placemats for our kitchen table. Our current placemats are a basic navy-ish blue; they don’t really match our dishes, or anything else in our kitchen, for that matter. I thought some fun yellow-patterned placemats would be just the thing to brighten up the kitchen.
As I’ve said before, I’m not really talented when it comes to sewing – my mom is. But with all of these new ideas swirling in my head, I wanted to give it a shot. The last time I sat down to a sewing machine was probably sometime in 2001 or 2002, when I took Home Ec in high school (yes, my all-girls Catholic high school still offered Home Ec). But placemats seemed easy enough for a beginner! And my mom is a willing teacher (thanks Mom!).

My mom and I studied the fabric’s pattern (Suzani Slub in yellow/white by Premier Prints) and compared various dimensions to decide how big we wanted our placemats to be. We decided a 13″ x 17″ double-sided rectangle would be the best. The double-sided decision was to give them a bit more stability and a more finished look.

pattern-planning

making my first cut!

I was too focused on sewing straight lines to take some in-progress photos. But here are some “glamour shots” of my new, handmade placemats on my kitchen table!

a cheery table setting

loving the yellow-green-orange combo

close-up

Instructions:
– Cut 2 rectangles for each placemat, 13″ by 17″
– Arrange pairs of rectangles so patterned sides are facing each other
– *Serge one of the long sides first, then unfold into a 13″ x 34″ rectangle and serge the 34″ side
– Fold back into a 13″ x 17″ rectangle and serge the remaining short side and long (17″) side
– Sew from the corner towards the center of the open short side about 3″ and back tack. Do this for both corners. (Those short seams make it easier to form the corners when you turn the placemat right side out.)
– Turn placemats so pattern is now facing out
– Hand stitch the opening closed.
– From here, the placemats could be finished, but we decided to stitch in a border to help keep the two sides more securely in place. I chose a 1.5″ border – measured this out, then stitched around, and… voila! placemats!

*NOTE: The placemats could be sewn entirely on the sewing machine without serging. The serging was done to prevent raveling.

House Tour: Part 2

I finally seemed to have timed things right in terms of daylight and some much-needed kitchen cleaning. So, are you ready for installment number 2? Today, we’ll be focusing on the rest of the first floor, including the family room / kitchen / pantry / powder room.

Here’s the family room & kitchen table. Check out the blog’s namesake! (I think this is their first appearance! aww!)

On to the kitchen, which is my second favorite room in our house, behind my “library.” When we made our design selections for the flooring, cabinets, and counter tops, we had to choose from small swatches. I was nervous about how it was all going to come together, but I think it turned out pretty nice!

The door that you can see in the photo on the left leads to our garage. If you continue down the hallway, past our kitchen table, you’ll find our walk-in pantry (that’s right, I said walk-in pantry), a powder room, and a coat closet. Please excuse the pantry clutter. I attempted to organize it around the same time that I organized our linen closet, but it has since been overrun. Re-organizing this is definitely on my to-do list, but I haven’t been super motivated to clear it out and start over. It was much easier when we had only been here a month and didn’t have a lot stashed in there yet!

Well, that concludes the first floor! Next up – the second floor! And maybe the garage.