Office Gallery Wall

Well I’m dusting off the ol’ blog here…

Happy springtime!  This is my favorite season of all.  I hope life is treating you well.  I’ve been busy working on my office (I’m a work-from-homie) so I thought I’d share my most recent project.  I love all the gallery walls I see on Pinterest, so I subscribed to that trend.

I sprayed a collection of frames I had on hand with Rustoleum’s white lacquer…

…and filled the frames with some favorite photos, post cards, scrapbook paper, and a frenchie silhouette from this shop on Etsy.

I used this trick to hang the frames – very handy! 

The color on the walls is Rainwater by Martha Stewart.

Next up, window treatments!  The sheer volume of fabric choices is completely overwhelming, but I’m hoping to tackle that project in the next few weeks.   Check out my office inspiration board here!

2011 Year in Cities

Hi kids!

Hope everyone had a great set of holidays.  Ours were quite lovely – low key and relaxing.  I have done this ‘Year In Cities’ post for a few years now- you can see 2010 here and 2007 here.  Not quite sure what happened to ‘08 or ‘09, but those were fun years too!  Hee. 

This was a pretty tough year for travel due to everything that happened with my accident in February.  We had to put a few things on hold, like our trip to Costa Rica in May.  Major bummer, but we still managed to squeeze quite a few trips in! 

So from top to bottom, here is where I trotted in 2011:

January:  Baton Rouge and New Orleans

February: Orlando, Florida and Steamboat, Colorado – home of the broken knee!

May: Chicago

July: Sarasota, FL

September: Dallas, Chicago

October: New York City

November: Nashville, New York City, St. Louis

December: Philadelphia, Atlanta

2012 has some very exciting things in store.  Parts of January and February will be spent in Mexico, Florida and California.  No complaints from me!  Happy 2012 all.

Succulents, Then and Now

Back in May, I purchased a pot of succulents from Kaw Valley Growers.  With a sign like this, I couldn’t possibly say no.

Here is how said succulent looked back in May.

Here is how said succulent looks now, in October, nearly 5 months later.

I have barely watered him.  Maybe three times throughout the whole season… plus rain.

I am hoping he’ll come inside and stay the winter with us.

What’s For Dinner?

Hello dear readers!  It’s been busy busy around these parts lately, with both husband and I traveling quite a bit for work.  That doesn’t leave much time for the ways of DIY, but we’re managing to keep up with basic maintenance and yardwork at this point.  What an accomplishment! ;-)  As for me, I am mostly back on two legs after my second surgery, which makes it easier for me to do things around the homestead.  I am beyond thankful for my recovery every day.  I am keeping up with my physical therapy to get my leg stronger so I can be 100% back to normal in the near future.

One thing that we’ve been pretty steadfast about around here is cooking.  Though this blog is not a cooking blog, cooking is one of my loves and I like to talk about it from time to time.  It’s pretty amazing how therapeutic the kitchen can be.  After as little as 30 minutes worth of work, you can have a masterpiece.  I’m a pretty big planner, so I like to devote some time to meal planning each week.  I get my inspiration from all over the internet, but my recipes mainly come from Pinterest, Relish (more on that later) and various websites.  I will add that I am not a recipe follower by any sense of the word.  I’ll read recipes until I find something that inspires me, and then I’ll usually modify or add ingredients based on what we have in the house.  I try to make 1 grocery trip every 10 days or so, and we usually hit Costco once a month for some other essentials, especially high quality proteins.

That said, I am going to start posting weekly menus on here as often as I remember :)  Without further ado, here is the first.  Oh and I’ll also add that we are eating lower carb here, so you won’t see a lot of pasta/potatoes/rice etc in the plans.

Week of 10/3/11:

Sunday: Grilled lamb sirloin chops with rosemary and thyme, blue cheese chopped salad, roasted mushrooms

Monday: Braised short ribs (Costco ready made, very good), sauteed spinach and red cabbage, sauteed mushrooms

Tuesday: Herb rubbed chicken thighs with julienned zucchini (adapted from Annie’s Eats)

Wednesday: Grilled fish with kalamata olive butter, some kind of grilled vegetable

Thursday: no cooking, social commitments – meaning snackies for me

Friday: Pork chops with creamy green chili sauce, sauteed vegetables

The Great Wall Of Karrer

Sewwwww, a few weeks ago at Costco, the Mister and I spied a deal on some pretty sweet wall stones.  Similar boxes of stones at Lowe’s were selling for $75-$100 per box, and Costco had their stones for only $24.97 per box!  We’d been wanting to zhuzh up a wall in our living room for awhile and the price was right for these stones.  Hence, a project was born.  Our friend Chris named it the Great Wall of Karrer!  (That’s our last name… pronounced Karr.) 

This project took about 15 hours, when all was said and done.  I have no one else to thank but Mason for knocking this project out… he was a rockstar.  I am still recovering from my surgery a few weeks ago, so I am not the best helper right now.  :-/ 

Here’s how it all went down, in picture form!

The Before:  (I think Denny took this pic, which explains the slight blurr…)

The After:

The During:

Step 1:  Cover unused areas with rosin paper.  Put up your moisture barrier.  We used MDF.  MDF is over 50% glue, so mold cannot grow on it.  Cut the boards to size for your wall.  Apply construction adhesive to the back and secure to the wall.  Drill in to the studs for extra security.  Make sure to measure and cut holes for any outlets.

Step 2: Apply a scratch coat of mortar to the wall.  This will ensure that your stone veneers have something to grab on to when you put it up on the wall.  Let the mortar dry overnight.

Closeup of mortar:

Step 3: Lay out all of your tiles or stones so that you know where everything will go.  Vary the sizes so you don’t have 2 seams that line up.

Step 4:  You’ll need to make some cuts to ensure everything fits on the wall.  Snap a chalk line so you know where to cut each tile.  Number each of your rows, and the last tile in the row.  That way when you make your cuts, you’ll know where that tile belongs.

Step 6: Make your cuts.

Step 7:  Mix up some mortar, and butter the back of each stone or tile.  I love that phrase, butter the tile.  Makes it sound so good.  Secure each stone to the wall, starting at the bottom.  Make sure that you’re applying your stones against a level surface, using a ledger board if needed.  Our floor is a bit sloped, so we had to use the board.

All done!