a bedroom finally comes together

Thank you all for your good wishes on my blogiversary. And also for your good thoughts about the loss of my friend Babe. I can't believe that I will never sit and chat with her again - but I feel so fortunate to have known her for so many years. She was a sweetheart.

I wanted to show you another project I've been working on this winter. Last summer I found this picture at a garage sale (the weird lines in it are from the reflection from the blinds). The orange-tone colors weren't exactly what I have my house filled with - but the background and over-all feel of the picture was something I thought would fit in our bedroom very well. We put up new wallpaper a couple years ago and I have been trying since then to find bedding I was happy with. I can't begin to tell you all of the trips I've made - buying complete sets, returning them because the color was just wrong, repeat, do over. I had almost given up on ever finding what I thought I wanted!

These photos are of the wallpaper - hard to get a picture that shows the exact color - plus it changes with the light - but you get the idea. The paper is smooth - but it gives the impression of great texture and subtle variations in color. After I had chosen the paper, I looked in the back of the wallpaper book and found that this particular faux finish was called "concrete" - of course I would choose wallpaper that looks like concrete!! I love it anyway. :)

This winter I found this brick red duvet and matching sheets etc (below) - and it worked really well with the burnt orange in the picture and with the walls. There is a very subtle print on one side of the duvet. I love it. The dark color shows all of the little bits and pieces that float around from the down pillows and comforter, but other than that I think it's perfect. I also bought a bedding set in a greyed or blued green - hard to describe - for summer sheets. It's very pretty and after I make the duvet, I'll show it to you. I couldn't find a duvet I liked with those sheets so bought extra sheets to make one.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with it. We're not big on lots of frills and pillows - I like getting up and shaking out the duvet and not thinking about it again - Mark likes just jumping into bed at night without clearing it first. Still have more wall space to figure out, but it's finally coming together. The stained glass in the small window is one of a set that our son and daughter-in-law made for us one year for Christmas. They are absolutely beautiful - I'll have to show them in a post sometime too. The light patterns on the duvet are from the windows - that entire wall is windows facing the lake - it's a gorgeous room to wake up in every morning!

Winter hibernation

A couple weeks ago I posted a photo of some baked ziti I had made for dinner that night. Lynne asked me if I would share the recipe. Of course!! It's from The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook - one of my favorite cookbooks.

Baked Ziti with Tomatoes and Mozzarella

1 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for oiling the dish
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes
1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes
2 tbsp minced fresh basil
1/4 tsp sugar
Salt
1 pound ziti (or any short tubular pasta like rigatoni or penne)
8 oz mozzarella, shredded (2 cups)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees - rack in middle position.
2. Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil for the ziti.
3. Cook 1 tbsp oil and the garlic in a skillet over medium heat, stirring often, until the garlic is fragrant but not browned - about 2 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes with their juice. Bring to a simmer and cook until thickened slightly, about 15 minutes. Stir in the basil, sugar and 1/2 tsp salt.
4. When the water is boiling, stir in 1 tbsp salt and the ziti. Cook, stirring often, until the ziti is almost tender but still a little firm to the bite.
5. Reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking water, then drain the ziti and return it to the pot. Stir in the tomato sauce and toss to coat. Add the reserved pasta cooking water as needed to loosen the sauce.
6. Spread half of the ziti in an oiled 9x13-inch baking dish. Sprinkle with half of the mozzarella and half of the Parmesan cheese. Spread the remaining ziti in the dish and sprinkle with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan.
7. Bake until the cheeses turn golden brown, about 20 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving.

Note: you can add 1 lb cooked hot or sweet Italian sausage and 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes to the skillet with the tomatoes if desired. I use frozen tomatoes in place of the 2 cans of tomatoes called for. And I use more cheese than they call for. :)

Serves 6

I usually make a half recipe and Mark and I easily get 2 generous meals out of it. I've done both the vegetarian and the Italian sausage - both were very, very good. Lynne, if you try it, let me know what you think!

So, I've been very bad at blogging lately! I guess nothing too interesting has been happening here - it seems to be all about the weather - either unseasonably nice days or deep-freeze cold. Hopefully, we've seen the last of the frigid cold for awhile.

I've been trying to organize my storage areas. I don't really understand why I have to do this EVERY year - obviously I haven't quite hit on the right place for everything yet!! One thing I did that I am very pleased with is moving the barrister into the dining room. It makes a great china cabinet! And it takes up less space than the ice box. The ice box moved into the living room - but, of course, not where I had the barrister. Mark was shaking his head, but it was necessary to move 3 large cabinets to make this all work. :)

Right now, I have crystal in the barrister. But, truth be told, I rarely use my beautiful crystal pieces - even when they're staring me in the face. So I'm thinking about packing the crystal away for awhile and filling the barrister with everyday stuff - kind of leaning toward putting pottery in it. I'm sure you'll see photos if I actually do that!!

The other big move I made was to take all of the photos out of this cabinet. You know the ones - the boxes and bags of photos that should be in albums, but, sadly, are not. I decided I needed more space for table linens - and also a place for beach towels. This cabinet worked perfectly. I kept the placemats in the dining room hutch because we use them more often when it's just Mark and me here. I'm excited about having beach towels handy - we can just grab them as we head out the door to the boat or lake. Kind of a strange combination, but it will work great for us.

My biggest organizing project has been in the basement. But I'm not showing photos of that - lol. You'll just have to take my work for it that right now everything seems to have a place on the storage shelves. I'm quite pleased!!

summer projects

Remember yesterday - I said I was heading outside to do some planting? Well, before I even signed off from the blog, Mark asked me if I could help him with something. The something took the next three hours and was a ton of work - so no planting for me.

Last year we started "refreshing" the 100 year old stucco on our house - it has been done once before - about 50 years ago - give or take a couple. So it's a project whose time has defintely come! We also need to tuckpoint the chimney, so good opportunity to do that at the same time. We did the street side last year - there's a small flat roof on the second story on that side of the house, so fairly easy to get up to the peak with a ladder on the flat roof. No scaffolding required. But we knew the east and west sides of the house would need scaffolding - and we lucked out last fall when Mark found some good stuff on a going-out-of business auction. We got everything we need for a good price - and will be able to re-sell it when we're done for about the same amount most likely. (and yes, it will be heading down the road once this project is done - we do not have room to store scaffolding "just in case...")

So yesterday we took all the pieces off the trailer where they had been stored over the winter, and set it all up. We put it up on both sides of the house - Mark has to do the work when the sun isn't shining on it - so figured this way he could pretty much work whenever the mood hits - on one side or the other.

I hate heights - so it doesn't look like much fun to me - he'll still have to use a ladder to get up to the peaks on both sides. The first level is 6-7 feet off the ground. But he seems to be okay with it - the scaffolding does appear to be very steady and sturdy, so... Maybe the good news is when he's working off the top level, he can actually climb out the bedroom window on one side of the house, or the bathroom window on the other, to get on the scaffolding - better than climbing up the side of the scaffolding, for sure!

This photo with the sun shining really shows why we're doing this. The section under the small window on the left is an area Mark patched last summer - that's the color the house is supposed to be! It's very sun faded - from white to beige - and has a lot of concrete showing through where the color has worn off - and some stains. So I'm thinking it will look much nicer for us and for all our neighbors!!

Next decision is what to do with all the window and door trim - right now it's all white - which is fairly boring - LOL. I'd like to do a dark color I think - but can't decide what color. There are several older neighborhoods in Minneapolis that have this style and age house - so we'll have to do a few tours this summer and see what strikes our fancy.

colorful beadboard

This is a picture of the beadboard going down the basement steps - before we painted it. Way colorful! I'm not really sure how they got the turquoise and yellow to work like this, but...

I couldn't believe it when we pulled off some cheap paneling and found beadboard underneath! When we put the new cabinet in, we discovered that there is beadboard in the kitchen under wallboard too - I could just cry! Don't think we'll be opening that up - drat. However, the stairway to 2nd floor and one bedroom still have paneling - so I have hope that more beadboard may be lurking there.

the guest room

Today's photos are very exciting!!!! Or not!
This is our guest room (which I was going to get totally decorated - done - finished this winter). About a year ago we hung new wallpaper. It has a pretty cool pattern to it - called "concrete" or "cement" or something exciting like that - still, kind of cool. It's a light sand color with grey in it primarily. The woodwork is all painted white - doors, windows, closet doors, etc (altho in these photos I can see that the closet doors need to be repainted - looking kind of off-white after Mark painted the woodwork ((before the paper went up)) ), and the carpet in the room is kind of a dark sand color.

We found some wood shutters at a garage sale and used 4 of them to make a headboard. The color contrast is maybe a little stronger than shows in the photo, but not much. Used a very dark royal blue for bedspread, light denim blue for sheets, and one sham pretty much matches the paper. My idea was sea and sand - a fun "cottage at the lake" look.

I was going to use the sand color for the sheets, but decided way too much beige!

I think I'm going to print some black and white photos and use simple black frames and set them on top of the "headboard" - maybe one of my gardens in bloom, one of the lake, one of the house??

Have a lovely photo of the beach in LA hanging on one wall - the photo is totally blue and sand colored. And another larger picture that I need to re-mat, frame etc for another wall. And then the 4th wall has an antique dresser with a cool mirror on it.

So basically all I have done is the headboard and bedding, but still... You would not believe how long it took me to find the bedding!!!!! I also want to find some cute ideas for night tables. We put a queen-size bed in there, so no room for tables sitting on the floor. I'm thinking maybe I can find some great shelf supports to make something??

One great thing I did is get a bedspread for the bed and a matching coverlet that I have on over the bedspread all the time unless we have company. The dogs can jump on the bed without me having to wash the bedspread everytime someone is going to be here. Smart, huh? Of course, the dogs (who lived on that bed BEFORE I had this brainstorm) don't really like that room anymore. Now they're lounging and sleeping at night in my office that has the cool iron bed in it. (Maybe I'll post some photos of it sometime - it is very cool.) They are probably trying to drive me crazy - and seriously, I don't have all that far to go, so they should maybe just stop.