A Horvath's Life Update

It has been 30 days since I last posted on the blog. :( It has been 18 days since I last vacuumed my house, and it has never been cleaner. :)  That's because for my birthday this year (the big 3-2) I got a Roomba 870! A. Robot. Vacuum. Cleaner.  So awesome!  I just love telling Roomba where to go and what room to clean next and listening to his little beep beep boop when he's off on his "missions." We bought it used (like new) from Amazon warehouse deals for a great price. My only complaint is that he cannot go up and down stairs. :) and he sometimes gets stuck on the glider in Georgia's room or wedges himself under Michael dresser.  But aside from rescuing him occasionally and charging him and emptying his dust bin daily, he is mostly maintenance-free.  He even knows not to fall down the stairs!  I hear they sell a remote control so I can turn him on and off while I'm sitting on the couch and steer him around obstacles (like a baby on the floor!?) so I'm hoping to get that little gadget for Christmas! :)  Hooray technology... what will they think of next?

My other birthday presents this year included a new Delta faucet for the kitchen sink and a handmade potting bench for the patio.  I am one lucky girl. (I also got a few other beautiful items for my wardrobe, thanks friends, but I won't detail those as they are not house-related!)

The faucet is the Delta Lakeview faucet with pull-down sprayer.  I love it so far.  The sprayer is awesome, and the faucet is very stylish and matches our sink nicely.  Our old faucet was so short, this one is much easier to use!  We feel real fancy now.  :)

 I have been wanting a new potting bench for a while.  Since I gave my shutter potting bench to my mother, we never had anywhere to work on plants or to put things while we are grilling, so this table will do double duty as potting station and grilling station!  We put it right by the back door on the patio.  I haven't used it for planting yet, but I'm sure I will come Spring.  The design is something I saw on Pinterest.  I sent my dad a picture and he built it for my birthday present.  My mom stained it for me.  We're planning to stain the deck the same shade next year.  Thanks Papa and Mama for my handsome new bench!  I can't wait til Spring rolls around so I can accessorize it more with cute garden-y things!

We also have an update in the garden.  Fall has come and we've decided to do away with our big garden plot in favor of planting our vegetables along with our flowers in the existing full sun beds.  The tilling/weeding/planting and harvesting was just too much work and it all seemed to fall to my mother (tireless though she may be).  So we decided to plant the garden area with grass and just enjoy the space as a yard.  We will have a bigger place to play frisbee and for Riley to run without getting muddy!  I am still considering the idea of raised beds for some vegetable plants.  We might decide to add those later on when we have more free time and Georgia is a little older.  She can help pull weeds! :)  Or she can play on her swingset nearby while I pull weeds.  Haha!  And we're still chipping away at the planting of the creekbank.  I haven't been much help, what with constantly tending to a new baby, but perhaps next year we will start to make a bigger dent on that project.

Since I've turned 32, Georgia has turned 4 months old. She's really growing fast! She is drooling all the time and puts everything in her mouth. She loves her toys and tries to grab them from the hanging mobile and chew on them. She "talks" all the time and squeals and smiles at everyone.  She just laughed for the first time today! She's getting more mobile, pushing herself along with her feet, flopping around and trying to turn over.  She loves toys with blinking lights and she is captivated by the television!  She's a joy and a delight, and a huge distraction to all my former hobbies!  That's why you've seen so little of me lately. :)  It's a small price to pay for the reward of watching this cutie transform from a tiny newborn into a chubby, adorable, interactive baby!

And last but certainly not least, it's October, which means Halloween!  Of course I have been hard at work decorating my parents' house for the big costume party next weekend.  And I will be back with a spooktacular party post with all the details.  Georgia and I have been visiting once a week to work on decorations and party projects.  We have fun and Mimi and Papa get to spend time with our little girl.  Plus, I get to do what I love while someone else babysits!  This year is our 20th annual party so I'm trying to make things extra special.  Here are a few sneak peeks...

Hope you are enjoying this wonderful arrival of fall!  Hope to see you back here soon!

Spring Kitchen Updates

Hi friends!  Spring has sprung!  It is beautiful outside today and now that the sun is shining I had the opportunity to shoot some pictures of my Spring-ified kitchen! Yay!

Michael recently had a birthday and he got this cool magnetic knife rack as a gift.  (Thanks Brandon!)  We installed it on the wall under the cabinet and were able to fit all our necessary knives on it.  The big Santoku in the middle is the one we use most of the time.  Those others are just for emergencies… and bread…. or the zombie apocalypse. :)

The new knife rack cleared up the whole corner where the knife block used to live.  I moved the cookbooks over by the microwave.  Now there is so much room on the counter!

Since Spring is finally here I decided to herald its arrival with a few new plants.  The planters and the little variegated plant came from Ikea.  I love how the planters match my white stripe canisters!

My friend and I made a trip to Ikea a couple weeks ago and we had a great time looking at all the showrooms and then browsing the décor items.  I bought this beautiful white tray that I had filled with magazines for a while.  But I thought it deserved a more special presentation, so I put it on the kitchen table with a few Springtime accessories. :)

Everything looks fresh and clean in here and I’m loving it! :)  Welcome Spring!  I’ll be back soon with a post on my Spring blooms in the yard!  Hope you’re enjoying this lovely weather!

P.S.  For more updated content, check out my updated House Tour page!

A New Old Kitchen Table

In my 2014 To-Do List, I told you I was going to refinish a secondhand table for the kitchen.  I actually completed the refinishing back in January.  And I had a couple chairs that we had previously picked up to go with it.  But, it just didn’t feel finished… so I put off blogging about it.  Well, clearly I am not motivated to sort out the chair situation (since there are only two of us and we really don’t sit in the kitchen that often) so I have decided to go ahead and show you the new table!

I had been looking for a pedestal table for the kitchen for some time, when I spied this one hanging out in my sister’s in-law’s shed.  Not good for table.  So I offered to take it off their hands... how nice am I? It was formerly painted yellow with a walnut stained top.   It’s a round table that extends to a large oval with a leaf added.  We brought it home and took it all apart so I could clean it and paint it.

This was my vision—two tone with white base and trim and a cherry top.  Like this one:

After sanding and cleaning all the parts, I primed and painted the yellow parts with semi-gloss white.  Then I darkened the stain on top with a couple coats of my favorite Bombay Mahogany polyshade.  Then I put two layers of polyurethane on the table top to finish it off.  After everything was nice and dry, we carried it upstairs and reassembled all the parts.

I pulled up my two cute chairs that I got at a discontinued chair store and that was that! 

I had some strawberries and this cute berry basket, so of course I had to set the table for a little snack. :)

I am still looking for two more chairs in a similar style so we can have a full set around the table.  But I don’t know if I want them all to have rush seats or not… they are very comfy, but I worry that 1) they don’t match the top, 2) they will get stained, or 3) the cat will destroy them.  I’ll keep you posted…

So, that’s the new old table for the kitchen… I love it!  The old one was just ugly and we bought it from a consignment store when we moved into our first apartment.  It was time for an upgrade!  The old one went to live with my brother who had a perfect spot for it in his kitchen.

Here’s your side by side before and after comparison:

   

Ah, so much nicer!  :)  What do you think?  Okay, I’m off to eat some of those berries!

Favorite Things: Kitchen Edition

If you’re anything like me, you spend plenty of time in front of the stove cooking meals for your family or whipping up a delicious baked treat!  Today I want to recommend some of my favorite kitchen gadgets that make cooking or baking just a bit easier.

1.  Aluminum Half Sheet Pan

I used to have multiple packs of baking sheets from Wilton, Walmart, etc to make cookies, biscuits or bake chicken, etc.  They were always covered in baked on grease, they were black and grungy looking a month after I got them.  They warped so badly in the oven you could hear them popping out of shape from the other room.  Then I discovered this:

The Nordic Ware Aluminum Half Sheet Pan is heavy-duty and won’t warp.  It’s huge which means I can make more cookies at once and it doesn’t fit in the dishwasher so I’m forced to handwash it (which you should anyway to make it last longer!)  The only problem is that it’s not nonstick, so that’s where item number two comes in…

2.  Non-Stick Silicone Baking Mat

Ahhh, silpat, where have you been all my life!!!!  I seriously love this thing!  You can find these in many different colors and brands, but I just got the original Silpat brand. 

It fits my sheet pan perfectly, of course, and it’s totally heat proof.  It also rolls up for easy storage, I just put it with the aluminum foil in the drawer.  Plus, nothing sticks to it.  It makes perfectly browned cookies and biscuits, and it’s easy to wipe clean after use.  (If I’m making something other than baked goods, I just line my baking sheet with foil for easy clean up.)  And if you are a chicken wing-lover like we are, you will need this:

3. Half Sheet Pan Wire Rack

This also fits my pan perfectly so we can oven roast a bunch of chicken wings quickly and easily.  You can also use it for a multitude of other things: draining fried foods, cooling cakes and cookies, etc.  It’s great!

And since you are doing all this baking, you are going to need a reliable oven mitt to get your pan out of the oven, like this one:

4. Silicone Oven Mitt

I wouldn’t settle for any regular old silicone mitt, though, I found this one from Mastrad with the thumb on the bottom for great flexibility (I find those with the thumb on the side hard to use). Not only is it heat proof, it’s waterproof so you can stick your hand in boiling water to fish out an ear of corn if you want.  The main reason I got this is because it’s easy to clean; I was getting tired of ruining my oven mitts with grease stains and having to wash them all the time.  This one you just run under water and voila, all clean!  It has a cotton liner to keep the heat from burning your hand, and its soft. :)  Plus, it comes in lots of colors to match your kitchen!  We got green.

5.  A nonstick plastic spatula that acts like a metal one

Complicated, right?  Michael had been searching for a spatula for turning eggs that was super thin (like a metal one) but nonstick plastic so it wouldn’t scratch our egg pan.  He discovered the Matfer 12” Slotted Pelton Spatula.  It’s the ultimate for fried eggs, cookies and more! 

6.  Stainless steel juicer

My husband also has a love for whiskey sours.  And every now and then we buy citrus fruit for a recipe.  So all that lemon squeezing called for a citrus press.  I had one of those plastic ones with the screw on glass basin to catch the juice.  It was tough work and the plastic drain was always clogged with pulp and seeds.  So Michael found an alternative:  the citrus press, a handheld metal juicer made by Norpro.  We got it last week and it works flawlessly.  It’s nice and heavy so you can squeeze it without too much effort and still get all the juice out.  Best part?  No pulp! :)

 

7.  Kitchenaid Mixer

Gosh, if you don’t have one of these, you probably need one.  We received our mixer as a wedding gift, and it’s pink.  :)  Woot!  It’s a workhorse, perfect for mixing up cakes, cookies, frosting, etc.  We even use it to “knead” pizza dough for 10 minutes at a time.  Apparently it can do a ton of other things, too, but I mostly use it for baking. 

 

So, that’s just a few of my favorite kitchen gadgets.  I would add a food processor to the list, but I don’t actually have a “favorite” one of those.  We have a basic one that’s too small for making our salsa recipe all at once.  So a bigger one is definitely on the wish list! :)

Do you have any favorite kitchen items I need to know about?

Bakery Sign & a Pink Fall Tablescape

I’ve been waiting to share a new addition to our kitchen.  Last week was my birthday and my best friend gave me a pink glass cake stand.  It was the perfect complement to my new “bakery” sign, so I figured the time was right to blog about them both! 

To match the rustic sign and the fall season, I set the table in a rustic pink, green, and brown fall theme.

The cake stand was the centerpiece topped with dried green and brown hydrangeas.  I nestled my favorite pink candle in the middle.  Then I set the table with a burlap runner and my pink willow plates and pink glassware.  I finished off the setting with a cream napkin and a couple of bronze dragonfly napkin rings.  I think its says “rustic romance with touches of autumn.”  :)  That sounds like a perfume or something! haha! It was fun to pull out all my pink dining accessories that never see the light of day.  Michael has been bugging me to get rid of the glasses, but they were a wedding present and they are beautiful!

My vision was to have the cake stand filled with pretty pink cupcakes, since that definitely goes with the bakery sign!  But I still have birthday cake leftovers and definitely don’t need cupcakes, so maybe next time I’ll feature those! :)

This cake stand is so gorgeous, I plan to use it for more tablescapes in the Spring, and for some cake at some point, too!!  Thanks, Andi and Nick!

The bakery sign was a compromise I made with Michael.  I wanted to do a sign like this from The Old Painted Cottage.  Considering it was going to cost over $50 to have the wooden letters cut and Michael thought it was ostentatious, I decided to make this small version instead.  (Although, I still love the big lettering best!)

So, last month while I was visiting my parents I asked Papa to make me a “cool, old sign” that I could paint.  As we were rummaging around looking for old wood to use we came across a great pile of fence slats that were from our old fence when we tore it down.  So I gathered up a few of these and we set to cutting out a sign.

My sign is the maximum length of the fence slats with the tops cut off and three fence slats wide. 

Papa thought it would be neat to add little edger pieces to make a frame.  We cut them from the same wood but slightly wider than the sign depth so they would stick up from the edge like a real frame. 

Papa nailed and glued it all together.  But it was really hard to glue the old wood since it was warped and stuff, so just ignore that part. :)

Ta-da!  All done.

I brought it home with me and printed a template for the wording.  The font is Chalk Hand Lettering Shaded.

I transferred it to the sign with chalk and then filled it in with white paint and a small brush.

Then I added a little border outside the lettering.  See how cute?  (Forgive the fuzzy phone pics—that is the only way I ever take progress photos.)

Now, if I were a normal person I would have stopped right there with my lovely rustic sign (maybe I would have distressed it a bit).  But I am not normal, so I went right along with my harebrained plan to stain over the paint.  I used Bombay Mahogany which has purple/red undertones.  So naturally the white paint turned pink.  Yay.  Not.

So, the next day I repainted the letters with oil paint over the stain so it wouldn’t bleed through.  So far this is working, none of the pink stain has bled through again.  Next time I will just stain it first. :)

After my second painting dried, I went back with a hammer and a scraper and beat the crap out of my sign… gouging it and whacking it and making it look “cool and old” with some of the original wood showing through.  I think it turned out awesome!  I love my new bakery sign.

What do you think?