Dining Room Before and After

This first photo shows you how blue the gray paint was in the living and dining rooms. You can also kind of see the light fixture that was in the dining room. Same one as in the kitchen above the stove.

And here's my better half checking out the wax on the walls.

Annnnd here's our dining room after a fresh coat of Stonington Gray and a fancy chandelier that Michael and his dad wired and hung. I am getting new chairs from World Market for the two end chairs. They were on sale the other weekend and I dashed there to buy them, but they were on back order until November. They rain-checked them for me and I'll still get them at the sale price.

I bought some super fun Amy Butler fabric to make some new placemats. They'll be reversible so one side will look like this and the other side like this. I'm trying to decide how to make them (read: procrastinating).

These two etchings are on either side of the window in the dining room. We bought them in Venice. I had them framed at Hobby Lobby and I'm really happy with the job that they did.

 Ah, Italy. I think of you often.

Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate Hazelnut Butter Icing

For this post and possibly others in the future I'm going to add the label "Go to Your Grave" along with the usual "Cooking with the Perrys". That way you'll know that you should make it. That is, of course, if you have the time to go to your grave and come back again.

I had been wanting to recreate the banana cupcake with Nutella buttercream icing that I had for my birthday in Houston. I couldn't find Nutella at Whole Foods and since it's the only thing I needed, I decided to try Justin's Chocolate Hazelnut Butter. You will never want to settle for Nutella again, although you have to admit it takes way less time to type. It was a little pricey, but I used about a tablespoon or so in my steel cut oatmeal every morning for a few weeks, and it was so worth it. So, so worth it.

I decided that I would wait to make these cupcakes until my little brother got into LSU as a celebration of his awesomeness. Good thing he is awesome and got accepted into LSU because these cupcakes were perfection. The actual cake part was from Martha Stewart's Banana Cupcakes  and the icing was pretty much a basic buttercream with the Chocolate Hazelnut Butter mixed in to taste. I don't think you need to add any kind of flavoring like almond or vanilla extract. You can find actual recipes for Nutella Buttercream icings, but keep in mind that the recipe makes 12 cupcakes so you don't need a lot of icing.

September Book

I recently finished reading The Help, and let me tell you I could not put it down. I was a little nervous reading another book that everyone seems to like after reading Water for Elephants.

I actually laughed out loud and teared up a little at times. Excellent storytelling. It's one of those books that I really want to know what happens next for the characters, and I'm definitely going to go to the movies to see it.

July or August Book

I can't remember when I read Water for Elephants. I do remember getting to the end and thinking it was kind of dumb. I didn't even have the slightest interest in seeing the movie afterwards. This could also be because Robert Pattinson is in it and his acting is worse than Keanu Reeves'. Actually let's say Bill Paxton, because Bill Paxton plays normal people and not aliens and Neo like Keanu Reeves who is actually good at being strange. Bill Paxton makes me cringe. I watched Titanic the other day and he is just so painful to watch. Yes, pain best describes sitting through a movie with Robert Pattinson in it. Although I was told that he's not as bad in this movie as he was in Twilight, I just don't think I'll waste my time on it. Unless it's on TV. And I'm looking for something to watch while crafting. Which means I won't really be paying attention.

Back to the book, there was stuff in it that could've been left out. And well I just didn't like it. I wasn't that entertained by it. And I really don't like books that start with the part of the plot that the whole book is leading up to. I'm going to read the book anyway. Why give that part away?

A lot of people have liked the book. I just feel that there's way better stuff out there.

Kitchen Before and After

I bought a card reader! This means I can easily upload photos to the computer! This means blogging will be easier! YAY!

So I said I was going to make the curtain for our kitchen window this weekend. Michael's parents came over to spend the day with us on Saturday so Michael's mom helped me figure out how the curtain should be made and then she helped measure and cut the fabric. I did a whole lot of procrastinating because I was nervous. Cutting the fabric seems so final. Anyway, I finished the curtain on Monday.

I did not, however, start on the final project for the kitchen which is using the border fabric on the bottom of the curtain as "wallpaper" for the back of the glass cabinet in the kitchen. The cabinets are kind of cheap and I'm not sure exactly how to affix the fabric to the cabinet. I'm thinking about attaching the fabric to poster board and then using that foam tape in a few places to hold it in place. I bought the tape but forgot to buy posters. So hold your breath on that one.

Since I'm nice, I decided to show you the kitchen even though it's not completely finished. So here's what it looked like before:

Here's the super fun surprise we found when we moved the fridge. Yay! Mold and a hole in the floor!

I called our realtor because I wasn't sure what one does when they find this two days after buying a house. In her New Orleans accent she said "welcome to homeownership." (Not that she didn't care. She was awesome! Did I tell you that we looked at over 20 houses in 3 days?) No big deal though. Two men that work for my dad came over and fixed the wall and the floor in no time.

And after:

Somehow we ended up with less counter space that we had in Charlottesville. I'm definitely making it work. I'm enjoying having a gas stove but I wish we had four burners instead of two burners and a grill. Somehow I am also making two burners work.

For Heather

And anyone else that wanted to see this lovely duvet cover up close and personal.

I got it on super sale at Pottery barn several years ago. I will love it forever. Now you see the room color dilemma. I think a nice gold-brown would have been pretty. Like Benjamin Moore's Richmond Gold. But  the carpet is kind of beige and the curtains are brown so that would have been too much brown. Plus I like green. So there ya go.

Laundry Room and Pantry Before and After

I plan to make my kitchen curtains and finish decorating the kitchen this weekend. So hopefully you'll have a more exciting before and after than our laundry room and pantry. At least it's more exciting for me because I waited for months for the floral fabric to be back in stock, and it's really going to take the kitchen to the next level.

In other, completely unrelated to the laundry room and pantry, news, I think I've finally thought of a painting I'd like to make to hang above our bed. This makes me happy because as you'll eventually see, we have more wall space in our bedroom than we do in our living room and dining room combined. Also, I kind of started a painting a la Orla Kiely's stem print to hang above our sofa. So the living room won't be completely decorated until then.

So without further ado, I give you the laundry room and the pantry before I entered their sad white walled lives.

And after. I love purple! It was my favorite color when I was little. Pink couldn't be my favorite color because it was my sister's. Then I went through a phase in high school when I realized that I could love pink. But now I'm back to purple. In case you were wondering.

This space is kind of awkward since there's no place for outside shoes. I think I'll put some hooks on the wall behind the outside door for coats and Theo's leash.

I'm so glad I painted the pantry.

Look how much fun this contact paper is! Our food is happy for sure.

We don't have a whole lot of counter or cabinet space in the kitchen so the wine rack and wine glasses were relegated to the pantry. Which I guess isn't so bad since the pantry is so awesome. This is the only organizational bit of the pantry that I'm showing you because the food part kind of looks like a mess. The shelves are just so far apart. I need to get more of those wire add-a-shelf things.

From the Kitchen

Tortellini with Peas and Prosciutto. So yummy I made it again tonight. Couldn't find meat tortellini so we used cheese.

You have leftover tortellini because your mom gave you a large package of tortellini? I guess you need another tortellini recipe. Try this Cheese Tortellini Bake from Emeril. His Classic Bolognese sauce might take forever to make but it is really something. I think next time I might use a different cheese. Like maybe just sprinkle some parmesan on it once it's done baking. 

Guest Bedroom Before and After

Thanks for the comments. I'm glad to know you stuck around.

So here's the guest bedroom. It's a really nice size and the closet is huge. Closet space and decent room sizes were other things that were hard to come by. If it should happen that we have a kid or two while living here this room will become the guest room/ office/ craft room. So I'm not going to put any other furniture in here.

Have I ever told you that I hate the color yellow? Which is funny because I painted my room at my parents' house yellow, but that was just to match my Mickey Mouse sheet set.

And here we are after a nice coat of Sherwin William's Clary Sage. I had quite a difficult time picking a color for this room because I needed it to match the duvet cover that I love and I didn't want to paint the room pink or red or brown.  Are you noticing a trend here? Anyway, I am super happy with this sage color.

This was the last room that needed to be painted. My sister's impending birthday bonanza forced me to get this room finished. I'm glad for that because now it really feels like our home.

Guest Bathroom Before and After

Look at me, I'm a sad and dark little guest bathroom.

Yay! Now I'm a happy guest bathroom.

This is the original bathroom in the house. I'm sure it was the one and only bathroom before the house was renovated over 10 years ago. We saw a lot of houses with this built-in glass door cabinet and laundry hamper. The original doorways (I don't say doors because I don't think the doors themselves are original) have those vintage glass doorknobs! And the black and white tile on the floor made me love this bathroom at first sight. And that's saying a lot because I hate bathrooms. All this little bathroom needed was a fresh coat of happy paint. Oh and the grout in the shower needs to be redone because it's falling out. At least it looks happy, right?

I Miss You

I mean it. I miss you terribly. I used to sit in the living room with my laptop (you know, the one with the busted fan which I haven't turned on in months) and blog away. Michael would sit at his desk in the living room reading blogs and such on his computer. It was just something that we did. Kind of together.

So now I'm using Michael's mac and the thought of using it to blog makes me a little grumpy. Kind of like cooking in someone else's kitchen. That may or may not make sense.

I'm working more, but I certainly do have time to blog. I have been taking pictures of food! So I won't make this post about all the excuses I can think of for not staying in touch. I'm sure you want to see some before and after shots of our home.

Here's a picture of us in front of the house.

I finally uploaded all the pictures that have been on my camera since May. Looks like I do have quite a bit to tell you!