Decorating Our New Home: Kitchen Edition

Hi. I hope you are enjoying my inspiration board posts. Today I am going to be showing you my plans for our new kitchen. I believe this will be the smallest kitchen we have had so far. It isn't super tiny we have just had large kitchens in comparison to the houses we have lived in. So I will need to do some creative organizing to make it all work. We have a ton of kitchen stuff. I love to cook and I love all of my fun cooking gadgets. So this post will mostly be about my organizing goals/plans. I also plan to paint the kitchen because it is currently purple. Not a terrible color...it just won't work for us. I am still debating on the color I want to paint. I really like white cabinets although I have never actually lived in a house with white kitchen cabinets. I am finding it really hard to find a color that I feel works with orangy oak cabinets. I am also debating using the eat in part of the kitchen as an extending cooking area by adding a diy kitchen island piece. This will all depend if our table will work in the living room as a dining/living area. Anyway on to the pictures.



Fantastic idea! Thanks martha.

Love.

Love this dresser turned kitchen island idea. I even really love the color. This beauty was made by the folks over at allylaughingatthedays.

I plan to make some magnetic frames for our fridge to house my dry erase weekly dinner menu and cleaning list. These are made by vintageglamorous.

I adore this kitchen. I love the neutral base with all of the red accents. I think I like this paint color too. I hope to achieve something close to as charming as this. This lovely kitchen was done by the couple at theletteredcottage.

I bought this kithen conversions print a while back from the etsy shop sweetfineday. I have it framed and ready to hang in the new kitchen.

And lastly I want to make some faux metal letters to go above the cabinets. I'm not sure yet if I want to spell EAT or YUM....What do you think? Project info at sugarandcharmblog.

I think thats everything? I also want to do some serious pantry organizing but those plans will have to wait until we get there and I get a better idea of what I am working with.

Thanks for stopping by. See you tomorrow!

Decorating Our New Home: Living Room edition

We are moving into our new house just one week from today! I am so excited. We will still be renting because who knows when my husband will be moved to a new property. He graduated in June of 2011 and we moved to Cincinnati from Columbus for his first job! A short 9 months later we are moving again to Athens, OH. It is a lot of moving but it is all very exciting because it means his career is off to a great start! Well, the purpose of this post is not to give you our life story as a couple. I just thought a little back story was necessary to those of you that do not personally know us. I am super excited to move and get our new house set up and looking fabulous. I do not have a job lined up yet so any decorating will be done on a pretty tight budget. Like a spending little to no money budget. To get all of you as excited as I am I will be posting all of the projects I hope to complete in the new house. Keep in mind this is a rental so we can't do any major changes.

Living Room

Our new living room is quite large. So this room will likely also include some new furniture as our budget allows for it. And may also serve as a multifunctional area. Possibly a small office area or maybe even divided into living room/ dining room areas.

 I finally broke down and bought some of these Martha Stewart stencils. I got mine at Michaels and used a 40% off coupon.  I have been dieing to stencil some curtains and large area rug. So those are on the to do list for the living room. I also have a trunk almost exactly like the one pictured above that I plan to paint white. And I want to paint the whole gigantic room a nice medium greige probably like the rockport grey pictured below.

 I would also love to DIY a console table (see above) or some kind of bookshelf (see below) to place behind our couch for added storage and organization. 

 (ana-white)

 Love the paint color and grey couch. Our couch is very close to that color.

(thedecorista)

I love this look. So much storage. We would do white bookcases though.

Definitely want to do a knock off version of this west elm ottoman. 

I will be looking for a inexpensive thrift or garage sale coffee table to make it out off. We would put a tray on it and use it as a coffee table/ottoman.

I would also like to build some nesting tables from these ana-white plans. Or better yet find a used set that I can paint.

And last but not least I plan to add some more style and color by adding some large scale DIY art. And of course some fun throw pillows. I'm not sure what accent color I want to use yet. I am leaning toward yellow but we really don't own anything yellow right now so this would involve spending money on paint or fabric at the very least so we will see.

My main goal with all of this decorating and settling in to the new house is to use what we have. Or make things from supplies I already have. And when necessary buying things like furniture or supplies. I plan to be smart about all of this and keep everything on a super tight budget. So hopefully you will stop back by to see my progress. It should be interesting to see what I get done and how much everything will cost.

Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

As we are nearing moving day I am trying to use up any food items remaining in our freezer. So today I made these yummy cookies I saw last night on "Kelsey's Essentials" a cooking show on the cooking channel. They sounded so good and I knew I had all of the ingredients already including the bananas I had frozen a while back. Bananas freeze really well if you have never tried it you definitely should. I wouldn't these are my favorite but they are good. They are cakier than a normal cookie. And I could probably do without the cinnamon and nutmeg. I think next time I will try it without the spices. I also think I will try making them with pumpkin.

Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

adapted from Kelsey's Essentials

Ingredients

• 1 cup granulated sugar 
• 3/4 cup shortening
• 2 overripe bananas, mashed
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cups rolled oats 
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 cup milk chocolate chips (about half a 12-ounce bag)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl or stand mixer, cream together the sugar and shortening until light and fluffy. Mix in the bananas and egg and mix well, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Mix in the vanilla.

In a separate large mixing bowl, combine the rolled oats, flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg. Mix until thoroughly combined.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix just until combined. It will be a wet cookie dough. Stir in the chocolate chips.

 Portion cookies out using overflowing tablespoonfuls on 2 greased cookie sheets, 12 cookies per sheet. Bake just until golden brown, 20 minutes. I recommend baking these one sheet at a time. Cool on a wire rack.

Print this recipe!

Thanks for stopping by!

Stephanie: March Pinterest Challenge

Hello. Happy Weekend! This is my March pinterest challenge and I feel like it is a total cop out but I am busy and we are moving so I think I am entitled to a weak challenge.

I purchased this print a while ago from sweetfineday on etsy. I love it I just think it is so simple and sweet and not to mention useful. Last weekend I bought a frame for it at Michaels and used a 40% off coupon...Bonus!

Total Cost = $39

 $28 for the print

$11 for the frame

This wasn't an especially thrifty purchase but I really loved this print and I don't mind paying a little more to support an artist on etsy as I too have a shop on etsy!

Sorry about the terrible picture. I just stepped out on our front porch to take it. Atleast there is good lighting! haha I know I told you this post was going to be weak. Hopefully they will be better in the coming months. Isn't this a cute print! I can't wait to hang it in the new kitchen.

This coming week I will be posting some inspiration for our new house. I have tons of decorating/project ideas I want to do. So be sure to stop in this week to check it out.

Thanks for stopping by!

TGIF: Week 2

TGIF! This week is especially exciting for me because today was my last day at my current job. It's not that I am especially excited about being unemployed I am just very excited to move into our new house! Its almost twice the size of our current house. I can't wait to get moved in and actually have enough space to organize! Okay onto my favorite things this week!

   I tried this about 2 weeks ago after coming across it on thekrazycouponlady.com. I may or may not be a closet coupon lady. ;-) Well it really works! My green onions look great!



 Seriously! How adorable is this!! This was posted yesterday over at centsationalgirl. LOVE. These would make fantastic gifts. I would love to have one in my sewing room or our new guest bathroom. =)

 Awesome gallery wall from theharpsterhome! And you gotta love that Ohio string art. Probably adding this to my project list too!

So looking forward to summer! And growing my own veggies and herbs so I can make a delicious salad like this one! I found this picture on pinterest original source via acertainsortof.tumblr.

 I am down for anything lemon poppyseed and glazed too! Sold. I am hoping to make some of these very soon! There is a recipe to go with this beautiful photo over at thibeaultstable.

 This dress is adorable. I am obsessed with anything striped right now. This dress is so different though I never thought to combine stripes this way and I think it is quite striking. I would love to make a knock off version of this! This dress is made by Liberty London.

Yum-O!! Definitely trying this one!! Thanks budgetsavvydiva. Now I am going back to check out the rest of your site!

  

I hope you are enjoying my friday posts! I tried to post this morning but I was having technical issues. As always thanks for stopping by!! Have a wonderful weekend!