A new dining room table, Part One

Our current dining room table was a $25 Craigslist find. It came with four chairs and a leaf, but it's still seats only 6, and that's a tight fit. Since we like to have people over, we wanted a bigger one.

Enter Bert, our bestest neighbor and woodworking genius. I've been looking for each in magazines for awhile, so we showed him some pictures, and he started sketching. The table will be 8 feet long by 3 1/2 feet wide. Yes, it's rather large. But I like it that way- more people can fit! It's made of pine, so that it has the character-inducing knots. Each end had a plank running perpendicular to the main boards, with plugs to add detail. Bert's designing it so that the legs are removable, since it's so big. (How cool is that? That was one of my ideas, but he worked it out.) There will also be a support beam that runs across the bottom and hooks into a beam at the ends, which doubles as a place to rest your feet. To top it off, Bert's making us benches too!!!

Doesn't it sound amazing? Like I said, Bert's the best. Of course we are compensating him, but just the fact that he's design and work on it (I might be picky...) is so darn awesome!! God really blessed us with a good neighbor.

Here it is coming together:

Such a foodie...

It's probably pretty easy to tell that I'm a foodie. I love my food! So does Justin, so that's a bad combination for our waistlines... Even with that, I think we are supposed to enjoy our food, just in moderation.

Well, we hadn't been to Colonial's in Cedarville since college... about five years. I'm sorry that we waited so long. We ordered a ham, bacon, and sausage, and it was delicious! The bread sticks are as good as ever too. They remodeled the inside a little bit, and that all looks great too. Why hasn't this place been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives?

Then on Thursday, I made what I'm dubbing The Reese's Cake. I made a chocolate cake mix and added evaporated milk, a pudding mix, and the regular requirements for everything else. After baking it, I whipped up some peanut butter icing. It was great because it wasn't too peanut-buttery. I got it from a recipe book my grandma H. gave me called "Cake Mix Magic." The icing was just right- not too peanut-buttery but still enough. I finished it off with mini Reese's on top. YUM!

Before and After: Master Bedroom

Today I'm writing about the before and after for the master bedroom. The biggest difference in this room is the paint. We painted the trim in Creamy, the walls in Bittersweet Stem, and the floor in Cocoon, all from Sherwin-Williams' Rustic Refined Collection. With the placement of the windows, it was difficult to decide where to put the bed, but in the end I decided the set it up in front of the back window. I got curtains that basically match the walls, so it doesn't seem like too much of an eyesore. Our bedroom set we got in California, and the comforter and shams were a bargain from TJ Maxx.

Among other things, I like that the bedroom is at the back of the house, because it eliminates any car noise or lights from the street. Not that it's very loud, but we had to sleep in the front bedroom before we finished the master bedroom, and I definitely heard a few cars and kept up by a few headlights. Also, it has three closets! Now, one of them will be eliminated when we make the 1/2 bath into a full bath, but that still leaves a nice-sized one for me, and a smaller one for Justin. The smaller was was a built-in cupboard, but we took off the front because it was very dated and dirty. We patched up inside and painted, and now it's functional. In the pictures, this one is right under the arch, and backs up to my closet.

Now, the half bath originally opened up into the kitchen, and we had to cut a new door and seal over the old one. Right now, it has a curtain in front of it too, because the door frame is a raw edge where you can see three layers of plaster.... not so pretty. Hence, the curtain. That's hopefully a late summer project, but we have to get the roof replaced first, clear out the back hedge, and put down new flooring in the whole house. I'll be sure to blog when it's done though! :)

Before:

After:

 

 

Spring updates!

Check it out! I transplanted some flowers, and they are giving me some color already! Aren't they pretty?

It's so nice that the weather warmed up the last few days, and is supposed to stay this way for a bit! Spring break just ended for me, and I feel like a got a lot accomplished. I already blogged about moving the flower beds back in the front, so that was a big objective for spring break. I also got to spend time with family over Easter, and my niece and nephew, who are 2 and 4 months. They are growing so fast. I was able to have some people over from church and get to know them as well, another big plus.

Then, drum roll please, I have a good draft of my book done! It's over 59,000 words! Now I am just sending it out for people to read and give me some critical feedback. I hope to get it back from them by the start of summer, then make revisions and do some serious editing over summer break. If that happens, perhaps I will be able to send it to a publisher at the end of the summer. That whole process takes some time, so that will be a big step in the sequence. Whew... but now I at least feel like I have something to work with!

With that triumph, I'm out!

Happy 21st Zach!

I love my little brother and that's a fact. No matter what.

So I got with one of his good friends to organize a surprise party. The problem is, Zach is so stubborn that he wouldn't "drop by" when I texted him, so it ended up being not so much of a surprise. But that doesn't matter, he still got here and it was fun to hang out with everyone. I love hosting too, so it was a treat for me too. We kept it simple: hot dogs and smoked sausage on the grill, baked beans, homemade mac n cheese, chips, pop, and cake. But oh, the cake!!

Zach likes red velvet cake, so that is what I made. I wanted to keep it simple, so I used a devil's food cake mix, and added a packet of pudding to make it moist, along with buttermilk substituted for the water. To make it red, I added one ounce of red food coloring. Perhaps I could get away with a little less than one ounce, but it does cook out some, and it needs enough to take over the chocolate color. I made two batches because I wanted to have enough for cupcakes and a cake.

The icing is simple too: 1/2 cup butter, 8 oz cream cheese, and 3 tsp of vanilla creamed, then add about 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar. I made a triple batch, and had to whip it for a while to get all the powdered sugar in. But it turned out great! It is just the right sweetness to complement the chocolate (and red dye). It also set up nice and wasn't too sticky.

I used my new icing set, a Christmas present from my mother-in-law, to frost the cupcakes. For the cake, I didn't ice the edges so that I could show off the red velvet cake. I finished all of them off with chocolate gratings. So delicious!