Monday, March 19, 2012

Adding Casing to Our Doorways

For a while I've wanted to add some molding to our two doorways in , one leads to our kitchen and the other to our hallway. I didn't think adding molding would make a huge improvement in our home, until I saw a great How To on the blog A Charming Nest. They transformed plain doorways into a lovely architectural feature, that added so much character to their home. After seeing their pretty transformation, I knew for sure we had to upgrade the look of our two doorways. I really like the pretty details of A Charming Nest's casing trim and I like the ones I found on Tar Paper Crane


Pretty!! Love all the details :)



After showing Hasani what I wanted to do, we went shopping at Lowes. We stopped into Lowes and decided to go buy wood for our door casings instead of buying MDF. We decided on wood because, all the of our baseboards are wood and wanted to keep the same look thought out our home to keep everything consistent. We went though all the wood at Lowes, and bought the straightest and smooth wood we could find. 


6: 4x8 (each one 1 inch thick) 
4: 2x8 (each one 1 inch thick) 
4: 1x8 (each one 1 inch thick)
6: Lattice pieces 


We took all of our pictures down near the walls we would be added trim to. Next Hasani has sections of the bottom baseboards on both sides of the the doorway. Then we measured marked each board and made the cuts. So far both the front and back wood trim and header is on the doorways. We love the look of the doorway casing trim in the 1st picture above, however we have to keep ours looking more simpler since we have a 1950's California Rancher. You know so it doesn't look overdone. Here's how's ours currently looks, still much much more work to be done. 



Oh, I'm already in love how with how the doorways look! Even there were only halfway done. The thick almost 4 inches wide (to me) wood trim really makes our average sized doorway appear larger and the ceilings look taller. I like when little updates make huge improvements.  




After going back and forth over leaving the top of the header plain or adding a little molding detail, we've decided to a little trim to give it a more finished look. We still have a lot left to do, I'd say were about 50% done. 






We still need to: add miter corners on the inside if the doorways for a nice finished look. Add latices (thin strips of wood) on the inside of the doorways to hide seams where the wood meets the inside frame of the doorway. Fill all imperfections for wood filler, lots of wood filler! Sand, Prime then paint all the trim glossy white! We also plan to change out our front door trim, with trim that matches are garage door trim, since both over those doors are can be seen from the same room, we want to keep things consistent. 


I plan on paint lots and lots of trim over the next few days. I'm going to repaint all the trim in our hallways and touch up trim paint in our living room. I think I mentioned before that, some of our white trim got stained while Hasani and my Dad where finishing our Hardwood Floors last year. I was way too pregnant huge and tried to attempt re-painting the trim. My Dad did some touch ups for me in the Nursery (thanks Dad) Anyways I've been putting off re-painting the trim for far too long. We should be done in a few days, and I'll have more before, during and after pictures to share!


What do you think of our new door way look so far? Have you ever added casing to your doorways? Any project, like trim paining you've been putting off like me?


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Friday, March 16, 2012

Pin of the Week

As I mentioned in my earlier post today, I will now have tow new features on Fridays. In the morning I will share about little tidbits of what's going on our casa unrelated to DIY & Home Decor. You can read more about my Friday plans here. The second post on Friday will be my favorite 'Pin of the Week.' I find Pinterest so inspiring, I'm loving all the glossy pictures, but I love the DIY Ideas so much more.


Pin of the Week: Kitchen Nook
I love kitchen nooks, with a passion. Our kitchen has a dead space, that in the future will be the perfect kitchen nook. Why I love this nook? It's a perfect mix of a unexpected work space and does double duty as cook book holder and spot for pretty dishes. 


What's you favorite Pin of the Week? Feel free to include the link
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On Fridays

I recently decided to add two new blog features on CLH, both will happen on Fridays, both will start today. As you know from time to time, I share little tidbits of whats going around on casa that's unrelated to DIY or Home Decor. Recently I've shared that we Cut The Cable Cord, and that I make Avery Homemade Baby Food. With that in mind, I've decided to share more of our everyday life on Fridays. Some Fridays it will be a quick week recap, so I don't forget the small special (and not so special) moments that happened during our week. One thing I love about blogging is you create this online journal, that helps you remember all those little details. Other Friday's I'll share ways we we save money, like cutting coupons and craft projects I'm working 
on .


The other Friday blog feature on CLH, will be may favorite 'Pin' of the week, like so many of you I'm hooked on Pinterest, I love seeing pretty inspirational images and fun DIY projects. Every Friday afternoon, starting today I'll share my 'Pin of the Week'. I hope you enjoy these two new blog features, I think this will help me blog more about what's going on :) Monday though Thursday will be all about DIY & Decor projects, so there will be more consistent posts for you to read about during the week. From now on I'll be pumping out more posts and keeping the content good, so its a good thing. 


Now for today's post. Early Tuesday morning, like crazy early since the time change just happened, I walked past our entryway into our kitchen, then I heard a large crash! I ran back in the room to see one of our frames shattered all over our floors. There was broken glass everywhere! Only one frame broke, the smaller frame was fine. The large frame was from Ikea so an very cheap to replace. Looks like I'll be heading to Ikea soon, to buy a frame (lol, I'm sure I'll buy more than one frame) This is how our entryway currently looks. Crazy enough this is the first frame we've lost since I built the shelves. 


Avery loves to look at books and loves being read to at night. I think his favorite book is Ten Little Lady Bugs. Have you read it? I love this book, it was also a favorite of Tabari's. Counting books are fun. Oh, our little guy is getting his two top front teeth this week! We are so shocked, because he didn't get tooth # 2 until right before he turned nine months old. Now at 9 1/2 months two teeth in one week. Craziness. 


Don't you love when packages arrive? I'm getting a head start on planning Avery's first birthday party, details to come very soon. I ordered his envelopes from Paper Source, I love their envelopes, and they had the perfect shade of chartreuse. The closest Paper Source to be is in Berkeley which is an way over an hour away and with gas prices starting at $ 4.22 a gallon, I'll gladly pay $6 bucks for shipping.  

I'm loving the newest issue ofr Country Living, thier teaching me how to garden. This year we will have a garden! Next weekend, we will make it happen. I'm still shocked I only paid $5 for a year subscription just a few months ago. 





If you follow me on Twitter, then you know I was super happy to come home to the yummy smell of slow cooker red beans. MY and my slow cooker have become BFFs the last few months, we are tight! lol, I slow cooker at least 3 times a week. It really makes my work week so much easier. As promised here's the link to the recipe I used from All Recipes.com. Click HERE I left out the Ham hock and jalapeno. I also DID NOT sock my beans overnight like the recipe recommends. Why not? Well slow cooker is on steroids, seriously she cookers everything faster then its supposed to. So even though I skipped soaking my beans, they still came out amazing. But I did sort my beans, and did not add any salt until after I got home from work. My mom watches Avery for us daily in our house, and added the sausage a few hours into my beans cooking, which is how I wanted it to be done. Thanks mom! 


My cornbread is was good. I use plain old Jiffy, and just add in graded cheese to keep the cornbread moist while its cooking in the oven. Personally I cannot stand dry crumbly cornbread, its just a pet peeve of mine. I wanna make cornbread from scratch, since I have all the ingredients. Maybe this weekend I will, but on weekdays I prefer the ease of the 'Blue Box.' Again please click here for the Recipe

I hope everyone had a good week.

Every had anything break around your house with no explanation? Is gas getting crazy expensive where you live? Are you a fan of slow cooker meals?


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Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Mid Week Treat: Key Lime Pie

A couple of weeks ago I participated in a Blogger Favorite Things, where I mailed Summer of my favorite baking books. I sent her the book, Cute Pies by Dani Cone. I blogged about the book when I first bought it, after seeing the author on Martha Stewart. Since then, I made a few of her cutie pies in half pint mason jars so cute! Anyways I suggested to Summer we pick a pie and bake it together. Since she lives in So Cal and I'm in Nor Cal we decided baking and talking on the phone is the next best thing until we meet up. We decided to make a full size Key Lime Pie from scratch!. I was a little nervous about making something so yummy from scratch, what if it didn't turn out? I'm happy to say the pie was amazing and very simple, using all simple ingredients. I will say, next time I make the pie I'll make it early in the morning so we can enjoy it that evening, since there are baking and cooling steps. 


Key Lime Pie
- The measurements below are supposed to make 2 - 9inch single crust pie, I found it only made one pie 


Ingredients


2 tablespoons of finely grated lime zest
4 eggs yolks
1/2 cup of fresh lime juice (I ended up using 4 limes)
plus additional 1/2 teaspoon for whipping cream
1 can 14 oz sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 cups of heavy whipping cream
3 tablespoons of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract


Loving my new egg crate Summer sent me


Crust Ingredients

15 Graham Crackers (crushed in crumbs)
2 Tablespoons of sugar
1 Stick of unsalted butter 

For the step my step instructions & great tips on making the crust click here, to visit Summer's blog 


To give the crust extra kick, I added some lime zest


Making the pie, oops I broke one yoke!

For the step my step instructions & great tips on making the key lime pie click here, to visit Summer's blog  








Isn't my pie pretty!! I left the yummy crust exposed :) Make sure you visit Summer's blog to see her pretty pie & read all of her great baking tips along with the step by step instructions. 

The pie was a delicious treat, that I'm looking forward to making again very soon. Hasani summed up the pie in  one word YUM! 

PS. The crust was amazing! Like tha bomb, I love thick crust and this was super thick and good. 


Have you tried any new pie recipes ? Are you a have of Key Lime Pie? What's your favorite pie to make or eat!?! 


Edit: Today is National Pi Day 2012! Click here for more information. Wow I'm so cool and trendy to sahre my Pie to day on Pi day, lol 


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Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Something New

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I've been slowly updating our living room with a few new additions { pillows, a rug, new pictures, lamps and vintage secretary desk } I love all the changes I made so far, and am super happy with the newest addition. I went shopping with my boys on Saturday. Our first stop of the day was JC Penney's, because I saw a few dresses online and I wanted to check them out in person. Well, I'm so glad we went in there! I tried the dresses on, I'm still 50/50 on the dress { I'm still a bit self conscious after having my baby nine months ago } so maybe in a few weeks I'll buy one. I'm planning on doing daily walks around my 'hood in the evening, in addition to the 14 blocks I walk daily to and from work. OK, back to my Something New. Have you been in JCP lately?  The store looks fresher, selections cuter, the prices better the cloths priced more along the lines of Targets or even less. Which for this budget conscious girl is a good thing!  After trying on dresses, my boys and I headed up stairs to look at tween clothing and baby clothes. When I got off the elevator I spotted the prettiest mirror.


The mirror had a perfect wide frame with a Navy Ikat Chevron print! I've personally never seen anything like it and I loved it! I literary fell head over heals in love!


I didn't want the mirror to be an impulse buy. Two reasons, I didn't take the mirror home with my that day I need to make sure the spot I had in mind would look good & make sure Hasani didn't hate it. Our rule is, we don't have to always love what each others loves, but we we can't hate it. So I snapped a pic, and then headed over to the baby section and brought Avery adorable pjs on clearance. The next day Hasani and I { along with the kiddos } headed back to JC Penney's and I got the mirror! 


I decided the perfect spot for the mirror would be above our Secretary desk. Even though, we recently hung Tabari's artwork in the same spot I knew our living room needed a mirror. I love that mirrors help bounce light around rooms, and knew placing one almost across from our front door would be perfect. Since we have frosted glass panel insert in our door, it will 'catch' the light and bounce it around. Before I shore our new mirror, here's a reminder of how this spot looked. 


The same spot, now with the artwork moved and our new Ikat Chevron Mirror. I just love how well the Ikat Chevron  mirror plays off our Ikat pillows, swoon. 


Loving this reflection, ahh. 


In this picture you can see where the subtle Ikat print is in the chevron. Please excuse my dusty vases and candle :) And please don't hold it against me. 




I still love our yellow tray, one of my favorite makeovers to date. 


While I was taking pictures of our new mirror, I did a 2 minute cleanup of our living room and snapped some updated pictures of how everything looks right now. Can you tell I only cleaned up for 2 minutes? Yep, if you look closely, you'll see toys under the chairs and coffee table, lol. Keeping it real, I said oh well. I was able to get a prettier pictures of my lovely yellow lamps! Boy do they make me happy :) 



Here's a good full room view shot, if your standing in the kitchen door way this is how our living room looks. Whenever I stand there, I picture our built-in bookcases that we'll be working on very soon. In this picture our rug looks much smaller that it does in person, must be the angle I choose.


This is the view from our front door. Do you see the 'ghost' in the hallway? That's Hasani playing with the baby while I snapped pictures :) 



Well Avery is getting restless and whats to play outdoors, I'll take more pictures soon. 



What do you think of our Navy Ikat Chevron mirror, do you love it!?! Who knew JC Penney's had such cute stuff :)  Oh I almost forgot to mention, this is my 1st piece of chevron in my house! 


Do you have chevron in your house? Or are you over it? I think I re-fell in love with, after seeing this mirror. 

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