The Master

This is what the master bedroom looked like when we bought the house.....

Then, we had it painted gray.   Don't get me wrong, I love a pop of color, but not lime green!  We bought a new king size bed as our Christmas present and laughed and laughed at how big it looked in the room!  See our old nightstands?  They look like miniature night stands next to that massive bed! :)

And here it is finished!  The curtains are from West Elm and they were my inspiration/starting point for the whole room.  They are ivory with gray swirls on them and that is how I decided to use ivory, cream, grey, and metallics as an accent.  

I already had the Pottery Barn gallery shelves from our previous house and they just seemed to work well with our wedding pictures on that large wall.  

The bedding is a silk quilt from Pottery Barn in ivory.  The grey throw blanket is also from Pottery Barn and it is so soft and cuddly!  I still need to buy the shams that go with the quilt.  I didn't think we needed them and was going to save another $120, but then I got home and realized we probably do need them.  I'm waiting for them to go on sale because $120 just seems a little bit ridiculous to spend on two pillow covers.  Although I've already spent so much it shouldn't matter at this point, but it does.  The pillows are all from Target!  Nate Burkus has a new line of linens at Target and I love it.  

We totally scored with the nightstands.  I found a guy that custom built them for us on Craigslist.  He only charged $175 for both!  They are tall (31 inches!) and fit our ridiculous bed.  They have a gray wash/stain on the bottom part and a dark espresso stain on the top to match our bed perfectly.  I hate a matchy/matchy room where you buy the bed, the dresser, the night stands, the mirror, etc.  This was a solution.  They look great with the bed but are quite different.  I bought the mercury glass knobs at Anthropolgie and added them to the drawer.  

And this is Vivi helping Frank put up the curtains.  She's pretending to be asleep. ;)  Gotta love 2 year olds!

Vivi's Room

Vivi's room was the first finished room in the house and somehow I'm just now blogging about it.  Frank's laptop died and he's been using mine for work....hence the few and far between blog posts.  I decided to take a few pics of her room and she decided to be the model.  We used a more mellow kind of aqua for her new room than the other house.  It's called Stratton Blue by Benjamin Moore and I absolutely love it.  I think it will be a color she can grow into.

Vivi has a large wall next to the window that I wasn't sure what to do with.   We have a lot of little art/wall pieces and it just wouldn't work on that big wall so I decided to do a sort of gallery wall with her stuff.  I think it kind of goes with the eclectic style in her room.

Here are her shelves filled with little girl chotsky's (is that how you spell it?).

Her crib is in the opposite corner.  We had a hard time placing the furniture in this room and put it every possible way before deciding on this.  I picked this room for Vivi because it has a huge double door closet, but in turn that double door closet made the furniture placement tricky.

Her little coat hanger.  I found this at Anthropologie years ago and used it in my house for years before Vivi was even in the picture.  It somehow is perfect in her room.

Here's Vivi sitting on her poof that I found at a garage sale for $7.  Serena and Lily has similar poofs for WAY more than $7.  I love a good design bargain!

Best. Dinner. Ever.

I highly recommend you make this dinner.  Every single part of it.  Start to finish.  The flavors of each individual dish were perfectly matched with each other.  This was our New Year's Eve dinner.  What a way to end 2012.  So, on our menu was filet mignon, creamy onion blue cheese steak sauce, mashed potatoes, Caesar salad, and homemade bread.

Let's start with the steaks.  This was a Barefoot Contessa recipe using a cast iron skillet.  There were 17 reviews for this recipe.  I read them all.  So many of these reviewers said they'll never grill a steak again.   Searing it in the skillet to form a crust, then putting in the oven for just a few minutes was amazing.  Make a filet like this sometime.  I beg you!  Here's the recipe:

Barefoot Contessa's Steakhouse Steaks

Now the sauce.  I watched the Pioneer Woman make this steak sauce once on her show and I haven't truly forgotten it since.  I'm not even a huge blue cheese fan, but you HAVE to make this sauce sometime.  It was so delicious and a perfect addition to the steak or the potatoes.  Here's the recipe:

Pioneer Woman's Onion Blue Cheese Sauce

Mashed potatoes.  A favorite of mine.  These weren't just any potatoes.  This was also curtesy of the Pioneer Woman.  Only she can add butter and cream cheese in her mashed potatoes.  They were amazing.  I actually only used one stick of butter instead of 1 1/2 to 2, as the recipe suggests.  Believe me, these were decadent.  Here's the recipe:

Pioneer Woman's Creamy Mashed Potatoes

The bread has quickly become a favorite recipe of mine since the development of Pinterest.  I have probably made this bread 10 times so far.  It is SOOOOOO easy.  I can't stress that enough.  And...I bet you probably have the ingredients already in your pantry.  The only catch is that you have to have a Le Crueset cast iron dutch oven.  Well, I suppose it doesn't have to be Le Crueset.  It does have to be cast iron though.  When you take the cover off your pot 30 minutes into the process, you will not believe your eyes.  Can bread be beautiful?  I think so!  Here's the recipe:

Crusty Bread

And finally the Caesar Salad.  This was my brother's recipe.  I always call it "Bryan's Caesar Salad recipe.  You know, the one with the hard boiled egg in it?"  Turns out, he says, it's really Fannie Farmer's recipe.  I can't find the recipe anywhere online.  So here it is:

1 hard boiled egg
2-3 cloves of garlic
1/4 c. olive oil
juice from a lemon
couple squirts of Worcestershire sauce
salt/pepper

Put all ingredients in a blender and viola!  Just add romaine, croutons, and shaved parmesan.


Okay.  This post was dedicated to all the other foodies out there.  If you're not one, I apologize.  You probably didn't read past the first sentence.   No hard feelings.

New Year's Eve Cookies? Ok!

I've never been a huge fan of New Year's Eve.  Sure...we had some fun ones, especially when Frank was gigging it up somewhere.  But, in general, I'd much rather have a night at home with friends or family.  That's what we're doing this year.  My parents, brother, and nephews will be coming over for a steakhouse dinner and game night.  I'm sure Frank would rather be on a stage somewhere, but I'm pretty content just staying home.  We decided to have a fantastic dinner that would normally cost a fortune at a steakhouse and wouldn't taste nearly as good.  We're making Ina Garten's Steakhouse Steaks, Pioneer Woman's mashed potatoes and creamy onion blue cheese steak sauce, homemade Caesar salad, homemade bread, and NYE cookies.  The last part I made up. :)  I bought all the ingredients to make these fabulous Christmas cookies I got last year as a gift.  It turned out that we had so many goodies around the house that I didn't need to make them.  So....I turned them into NYE cookies.  Instead of dying the swirl red or green, I chose yellow.  And instead of red and green sprinkles, I chose multicolored!  Ta-da....that is how you make a NYE cookie!  I will slice and cook them tomorrow then blog about our dinner again soon.

If you want the recipe for these delicious NYE cookies.....click below!

colorful swirl cookie recipe

P.S. - I love that there is subway tile in the background of my food pics now! :)

Merry Christmas!

I've been a horrible blogger lately.  This house "project" has consumed me.  I'm loving it though!  I'm currently working on our master bedroom.  We bought the bed last week, got the bedding yesterday, ordered the curtains from West Elm today, and meeting a guy that is making our nightstands tomorrow!  Merry Christmas to me!  Seriously!!  As soon as it's all put together I will definitely blog about it! 

So....here are a few pictures from our Christmas this year.  It was a great first Christmas in this house.  It has proven to be cozy.  This is a pic of Vivi standing in front of the tree right before we left for mass at Christ the King.  Her Nana got her that dress for her birthday.  So pretty!

Here we are...the Arnolds!  This was after mass and right before we ate dinner.  I got busy in the kitchen as soon as we got home.  I made Giada's fettucini alfredo.  If you're an alfredo fan, like myself, you've got to try this recipe.  You can find it by searching on foodnetwork.com.   I only make it on special occasions because it is filled with heavy whipping cream and butter...but so delicious!

And here is what my kitchen looked like after I cooked.  It was such a mess that I thought it deserved a picture.  It took us two days to clean it all up!  Instead of cleaning Christmas Eve, we decided to have White Russians by the fire instead. ;)

Christmas morning!  Vivi checking out her presents!  Blankie and messy hair in tow!

This picture captures it all.  Check out the onsie from Grandma.  So cute and cozy!  And that hair!  She's had a huge tangle in her hair after every nap and every morning!  It's becoming quite a chore.  Almost all of Vivi's presents this year had to do with food.  She got a shopping cart, a little kitchen, pretend food, pots and pans, dishes....you name it, she got it!  She's one lucky little girl.

This was in the car on the way to Grandma's house.  Is she a happy girl or what?!?

Merry Christmas!!!!

So Glad I Went With My Gut....

The subway tile is in and I LOVE it!!!  I'm so glad I went with my gut, because it was right this time.  Frank even admits it too.  (I told you so!) ;)  I wish I had some pictures of the kitchen when we first moved in.  The previous owner had under-cabinet lighting, but had a white plug coming down in four different spots from the light to the plug.  It looked really tacky.  Not sure why anyone would do that?!?      Anyway, we spent about $250 for an electrician to properly install the lighting and attach it to one switch.  These are the before tile and after electrician pictures.

They purposely didn't repair the walls too much when they cut into them because they knew that we were going to put tile on it.  I stared at a cut sheetrock wall for about two weeks waiting on a tile guy to call me back.  When he didn't call back the second time I called, I called elsewhere.  The guys I found were able to do it the next day!  Now, that's what I'm talking about!

This was after the tile guys tiled.  They had to grout the next day.  I started second guessing my grout decision too.  I liked how you could see the dark between the tile and wasn't sure the white grout I picked would look good.  But...I went with my gut again, and the help my hubs and BFF, and stuck with the white.  

And here it is!  Have I mentioned that I LOVE it?!!?

Here's an up-close-and-personal pic.  I can't stop staring at it!

We still have a couple of minor things to do left.  We have to repair the wall to the left of the toaster where we pulled out the piece of granite.  Then we'll paint it the wall color.  I also want to take down the white blinds on the kitchen window.  I know that they are just fine and fit perfectly and probably weren't cheap.  However, I want to put a half-window curtain there like I had in my old house.  I like that in a kitchen.  I just need to find a good fabric.  I also think we're going to install some pendant lights above the island instead of canned lights and get a  globe chandelier for the dining room attached to the kitchen.  Still a work in progress, but SOOOOO nice already.  We spent about $150 on tile and grout (from Lowes, believe it or not!) and $350 on labor.  So, for roughly $750 we changed the entire look of our kitchen.  I can't wait to make some Christmas cookies!

Bring on the subway tile...

It's happening.  Subway tile is going up in my kitchen tomorrow afternoon.  I cannot wait!  I hope it looks as good as I imagine it in my head.  My husband's been making me second guess my decision about the tile, because that is what he usually does with decisions, and now I'm a little bit nervous!  But I've got to go with my gut here.  I will post some before and after pics as soon as it's finished!