Room Planning

Since I pretty much have a one-track mind these days (new house) I spent my Saturday evening planning the living room furniture arrangement. I Googled "free room planner" and got tons of hits! I just went with the Bassett furniture one, and boy, was it fun!


You can put in the exact measurements of the room and all the furnishings. This is what I'm thinking for the living room. Don't have the chair yet, because one of the main purposes of this little exercise was to see if an accent chair would fit. Here's the layout I came up with:


I decided to "float" the furniture....a.k.a. not push them all the way up against the walls. I decided this because on the left side of this room is where the entryway comes into the house and the kitchen/dining room, and on the right side is where the stairs lead to the 2nd story (I'm not advanced enough to depict this on the drawing). By moving the furniture inward, it allows a walkway to go upstairs without having to circle the whole living room. While this is what I had been thinking to do all along, a show I was watching on TLC yesterday mentioned this exact idea. They talked about this idea of moving the furniture in toward the center of the room to create one focal point (in this case, the fireplace with the TV above it). Makes sense, right?

Speaking of the house, wanna see what it's looking like? Well it just so happens that I drove by today (and everyday) and here it is:

Ground Beef Gadget

Last month, I was at a bridal shower where the bride received one of these.

Everyone started talking about how handy these things are, how they use them all the time. I started thing, "Hm. Maybe I need one of those." Then it occurred to me that I might already have one. Sure enough, I found it stuffed in the way back of my kitchen utensil drawer. Of course, I started using it right away.


It's called a Mix N Chop, made by Pampered Chef. I think my mom gave it to me a long time ago when she felt obligated to buy something at a Pampered Chef party. But it actually is really great for browning ground beef and mixing in seasonings.

It retails on Amazon for about $17, which is pretty pricey, but it is now one of our favorite kitchen gadgets. If you are one of those people that obsesses over making ground beef very fine, this is definitely what you've been looking for!

A Not So Simple Project

Remember that $15 chair we bought from an Antique Mall a month ago?

One of the first things that attracted me to it was it's color, and also the sturdiness of it. However, it had a few signs of wear....

And while I liked the bright painted look of it, it didn't really go with the color scheme we had going in the office. So I decided to strip the old paint, a very tedious process with no pictures to prove it, but let's just say that chair had been at least 3 colors before it made it's way into our home. After literally hours and hours of stripping the old layers of paint, I primed it:

And painted it! Then fun part :)


We went with "Desert Mirage" which I thought would turn out a little more burnt orange rather than pastel orange, but that's alright.

Then I put 2 layers of polyurethane on to make the chair less "sticky" feeling.


Before:


After:

Eat Your Veggies

I do my best to eat vegetables every day, but I tend to get sick of the same old ones fixed the same old way (usually microwaved). So for the unbeatable price of 6.99, I purchased this round grilling skillet from Bed Bath & Beyond to explore a new way of preparing veggies.


I bought a zucchini and yellow squash, then added an onion and some carrots that I already had that were headed towards rotting.

After I sliced everything, I drizzled them with a little olive oil and sprinkled a few spices on top. Kyle threw them on the grill, set on medium-low for about 20-25 minutes.


After they were cooked to perfection, Kyle brought them in and we I enjoyed them for dinner.

I highly recommend a grilling basket if you don't have one already. Next stop, grilling fish!

The Organization Bug

It's happened again. Lately I've been itching to organize and reorganize. It might have something to do with our upcoming move. Or the fact that I'm type A all the way. Or that it gives me a great feeling of accomplishment to make a space more practical.

I've organized my scrapbooking stickers (which was previous a heaping pile of stickers thrown in the bin).

I've organized our already organized file cabinet (this time by combining Kyle and my files and adding fancy easy-to-read labels).


Who's the next victim of my organization obsession? Time will tell.