The Treehouse Playroom Project

I love looking at what is taking shape in this playroom.  It all started about a month ago.  Dustan and I were over at the Knapps hanging out one Saturday.  Brian had caught a throw-up virus that week and had been puking his guts out, and was recovering from being sick.  That stands out in my mind because the whole time we brainstormed, he was enthusiastic in his Brian kind of way, but he was also pretty grey.  Anyway, while he'd been out of commission and the two boys ran, and the toddler toddled, and the baby rolled, Linds made use of all her spare time by drawing up sketches (that she also colored) of her Woodland Whimsy Playroom Design.  She presented her plans to us like a contractor in Home Depot.  She wanted a stage over here, with opening compartments that the kids can just lift up (see, like this?) and throw all their props under, and a table here for art and Legos and over here - here is where the treehouse will be.  Here's the ladder, and then the railing is here..and then maybe a swing underneath?  Oh, and behind the stage, this wall will be covered in chalkboard paint so they can draw scenes and stuff.

Brian was pretty pale.  Dustan's gears were turning.  In my mind I'm thinking This is never gonna happen. 

Buuuut, it so did.

Here is the first batch of proof that four people with skillz and heart can do anything in six days.

I wish I had a picture of the opening stage compartments.  Instead, there's Jack and Em getting ready to board a rocketship.  And here's Emerson climbing the ladder of the treehouse.

Already more things have taken shape.   Because...this is kinda sketchy if you look long enough.  Just one accidental play-shove from behind and Em's nose would be the color of his shirt... There's a door there now.

But Em - how do you really feel about having a treehouse in your playroom now?

Along with the trees and starry night up inside the treehouse, Linds also painted this huge tree and then sewed a swirl of leaves onto the curtains as well.  And she did these adorable little mommy and baby owls below.  Hey - but that Yam and Graham Cracker Crust trim job on the windows and baseboards?  THAT WAS ALL ME.

Ok, well, that's the first installment.  I know there will be more pictures because there are more plans.  The treehouse and stage gave this room so much momentum.  Can't wait to see the next things take shape: cozy carpets, a table/art station, small benches for the table and for the "audience," more woodland creatures on the walls, and who knows what else!  This project has definitely unlocked an eagerness in us to do more of this kind of stuff.

We've been looking at a certain website specializing in the deliciousifying of children's spaces for a while now.  You know how when you were a kid you had a friend who had a ________ (trampoline, horse, go-cart, four-wheeler, laundry chute, swimming pool) and your one goal in life was to get to that friend's house?  And when you got there they just kinda shrugged off the fact that there was a magic fairy mushroom in their bedroom?  You know the one?  Well, the possibilities for making your kid that kid, are endless.

You know how sometimes you get something in your head that you really want to make, but you can't find a recipe anywhere for it?  You search by ingredients on all the right online cooking sources and still - nothing.  This is how I was with an ice cream pie I wanted to make.  I didn't want nuts or fruit or even chocolate getting in the way of the ice cream, and I definitely wanted the ingredients to include vanilla ice cream, sour cream, cream cheese and whipped cream.  So that's what I started with and just kind of felt my way through.

I put it all in an Oreo crust and ended up tossing some chocolate on top (it was actually leftover fondue from Valentine's Day, made from semi-sweet chocolate, heavy whipping cream and brandy).

Best served after sitting out for a few minutes so it's not frozen completely solid.

Ok, I'd find a way to incorporate my ice cream pie into some deeper, more meaningful subject and write a bit longer but I have to go cut Dusty's hair.

The Kitchen Overhaul

Ok, here goes.  Here goes the before and afters of my dear little kitchen.  I know I'm behind on this blog, and today's my Trailisms day, which I was really, really excited about.  But it will have to wait because these pictures are starting to mildew on my hard drive.  They're starting to suffocate, because I have promised them exposure.  My kitchen was the second room in our apartment to get an overhaul.

This is a shot Dustan actually took when he was living in the apartment with nothing but a sleeping bag and an alarm clock on the floor.  He came a few months early and scoured the place, did tons of caulking and sanding and puttying, and saved us so much work in the long run.  It was such a lifesaver.

When I came, our belongings came, and exploded into every cranny.  I think I was seriously in this box-schlepping position for a solid month.  All we did was move (the same) boxes from one corner to the next.  I look now and see dirty blinds and a frying pan that was on loan to us from some of the first people we met here (the Whipples).  The best looking thing in this picture is that in-season tomato.

To keep the energy up in the middle of all the boxes, I threw some green on the wall.  The green paint was a bargain, and bargains don't find me easily.  We found this color in the "mistint" category at Lowe's and grabbed it up for five bucks.  Our last kitchen was this color too, and we weren't done with it.  Looking at this picture now I realize it would be a very long time from this point before these blinds would come down and the boxes would go away, because we threw ourselves into the cabinets next.

Here's a word or two on painting cabinets.  Do it.  Cabinets aren't to be revered.  If the wood is sooo nice and sooo expensive and sooo old, but you hate them?  Just go for it.  Well, maybe if the wood is really nice, you should sand them good and stain them a better color.  It's just that cabinets take up all the real estate in the kitchen, and totally define the room.  So much so that if you don't like them, and you can't afford new ones, it's time to paint.  This apartment is a rental, so rather than feeling like I could do a halfway job of it, I felt like the pressure was really on.  I don't think our landlords really care, but I was determined to leave the cabinets looking way better than the boring pre-fab brown that they were.

Fortunately there was no crappy hardware to remove (and if there had been hardware, it would've been crappy), so we just sanded everything.  We didn't go nuts, because we weren't trying to do anything but scuff everything up really good.  If your cabinets have a solid veneer finish, you can't skimp on this step.  It will make your paint job so much better if you take the finish way down.  Next we took off all the doors and primed everything.  I honestly still don't even know if this was necessary, because I still ended up doing two solid coats of black.  But I'd never undertaken something like cabinets, and because I knew my paint job would be so...permanent...I decided to take the meticulously time-consuming step of priming.  

After the cabinets were totally primed, the green happened.

And then, the black happened.  I know I already talked about types of paint finish on my bedroom post, but I'll say it again.  When painting something like a bed or a night stand or a picture frame, I always always always use eggshell or flat finish.  Flat black looks blacker and more expensive.  However, in a high traffic area like cabinets, drawers, baseboard, etc. I always use a semi-gloss.  I definitely don't prefer my paint jobs to be SHINY! like these cabinets are.  But the clean-up is a breeze, and again, I'm sure we won't be the last people to use them.  (Oh yeah, Dust spray painted the hood over the stove white).

After my walls and cabinets were done, I revamped this baby.  Spring gave me this and it's been an incredible space-saver in every kitchen I've ever had (this one is my third).  For so long I've meant to poly it, but now I'm sooo glad I never did!  It was totally unfinished, so it soaked up the primer, two coats of bicycle blue and three coats of poly like a pro.  (I removed the hooks because they just weren't functional, but you'll see them show up later in another project).

Whew!  Starting to take shape.  This is making me tired just posting about it.  Next I conquered a piece of furniture that Mom gave me. 

It was originally white, and she bought it for my sister's nursery.  It's been every color under the sun since, and in so many different rooms, but the sentimentality is preserved in that the drawers have the original yellow gingham lining they did back when it was a piece of children's furniture.

Incorporating this piece of bedroom furniture into the kitchen was one of the best decisions I made in this whole process.  It holds all of my towels and kitchen linens, baggies, foil, wax paper, pot holders, birthday decorations, expired coupons and Trail's doggy treats.  I didn't think it would work at first, but after painting it the same semi-gloss black and adding the same hardware as the cabinets, it totally fit in.  I'm beginning to see that these pictures have no scale so you feel like you ate an Eat Me wafer, right Jess?  Ok, here:

Yeah?  Unless I told you that metal breadbox was Barbie-sized.  Ha! (I did the poem painting one day when I was totally sick of painting furniture.  It was not my idea.  I am not that creative.  Here's the inspiration and the how-to).

Up next, the dirty window.  But first - do you see that alley between the buildings where the trash dumpster sits?  That's where Dustan hides Mike the Bike.  He just rolled him out tonight as I type, washed up him (on the sidewalk) and charged the battery.  This old Suzuki just sat through a Wisconsin winter without a tarp and fired right up.  Ok, so the window.  If you look at the first pictures on this post, you can see that there was a piece of ugly exposed wood on the other side of the glass that we couldn't do anything about.  So Dust built me a shelf right in that spot.  I painted it white to blend in with the window and hung some cafe curtains.

I love this window morning:

noon:

and nearing-night:

I think that covers it!  Aside from a few finishing touches...

A vintange tea towel my Mamaw Meade bought in England.

And some illuminated bananas.  Done!

Oh yeah - turns out I forgot something.  There was a lot of wasted space on either side of the fridge when we got here, so we pushed the fridge as close to the wall as possible and Dustan built in that little shelf thing for me. I painted it with the cabinet paint and it gives me another little spot for kitchen stuff to keep my counters from getting cluttered.  


The final kitchen before and afters!

There's the kitchen post that has been waiting to get out for so long.  And you know what I just realized?  I didn't even post pictures of the before and after of my sweet pantry.  Dustan built custom shelves in there and we painted them the same black as the cabinets.  But pretty much the thought of making this post any longer makes me feel the same way I felt after finishing this kitchen.  Like:

If You Could Have a Tattoo of ANYTHING...

Here's a picture that I've always loved.  I think because I've watched Reese since Man in the Moon, since A Far Off Place, about which you already know I have strong opinions.  She's an all-time favorite.  I remember watching her make the circuit to promote Legally Blonde way back in the day.  It was like a crock pot recipe exchange mixed with how sweet she makes her iced tea.  What I don't endorse is the absence of Mr. Witherspoon.  I thought they were a great pair.

And, not gonna lie, this picture makes me want to take a fine-point Sharpie to myself.

Maple Vinaigrette Part II and Strawberry Chocolate Trifle

 

Well hello!  This weekend was a blur.  Why?  Because now there's a playroom 8 blocks down that has big red walls, covered in trees and owls - and blue walls too, starry and whimsical.  There's a treehouse.  A real one, with a big tall ladder to climb, and little windows with shutters that open and close.  There's a rope swing underneath and a great place to create Lego masterpieces.  Across the room there's a stage for all the Indiana Jones-Lego Batman-Kung Fu Panda moves a kid could ever wish for, and the wall behind it is covered in chalkboard paint.  And underneath everything is about 23 coats of paint in about 18 different colors.  I'll be posting pics soon enough.  I'll have to bum the befores off Linds.  This leaves me in a very groggy state when it comes to getting my weekly posts written and saved to drafts before Monday hits.  Bear with.

I'll keep things as consistent as I can though, and will be doing my best to keep up posting.  Here's Part II on my Maple Vinaigrette.  I wanted to revisit this because I figured something out.  If you just keep the bottle your extra virgin olive oil comes in, you can mix the red wine vinegar and oil and then store it in that bottle.  Then when you want to put the Maple Vinaigrette spin on the regular oil n' vinegar, you just pour out some into a mixing cup and add the dijon mustard and maple syrup, salt and pepper.  The thing I love about homemade dressings more than anything else is that they are wonderful for their subtlety.  You don't need to smother anything - you can actually taste the vegetables!

 

Here's another something that I can tell will be a summer hit in my kitchen (even though I don't have a very strong sense of the season in any of my meal plans, unless it's the obvious chowder in the fall, popsicles in August). This is a Chocolate Strawberry Trifle.  My sis makes an amazing one from scratch that includes pound cake and lemon custard and lots and lots of expensive, organic, locally grown, free range, free trade berries.  Or you can do it my way which includes a box of Jell-O.  (closed-mouth grin)

Here's what I did, and I should say straight off the bat that if you don't have a trifle dish like this, you're disadvantaged, because it's all about the presentation.  And if your dish doesn't have doves, hearts and tulips on it like mine does, why even bother.  The doves make it.

I (accidentally) bought chocolate cook n' serve Jell-O.  Prepared as directed and added sour cream, and lots of vanilla and cinnamon, to taste.  This made my chocolate custard mixture taste more homemade.

Next I made some whipped cream.  Put a stainless bowl in the freezer and let it get good and cold.  Pour in some heavy whipping cream and beat it until it forms the consistency you want.  Throw in some white sugar and vanilla to, to taste.  This is the ONLY way to eat whipped cream.  I never ever buy Cool Whip because the taste of the real thing ruined me.  I put it into a small Ziploc baggie (S.C. Johnson Wax is in Racine; this baggy was manufactured in our town.  Don't believe me, check the zipcode on the box: 53403) and then I pipe it onto whatever pastry, cake, pie is in front of me.  

Last thing I did was bake a box of brownies.  Ok, that was probably the first thing I did.  I put two brownie mixes into one baking dish so they'd be extra fudgy.  Then you just assemble the whole thing.  Brownie layer, chocolate layer, whipped cream layer, strawberry layer, repeat.

Make a day ahead so that the trifle tastes like it actually has its head on straight and has been resting in the fridge, as opposed to rushing around the kitchen throwing ingredients at the counter, tripping over dog food bowls, and unearthing cell phones from underneath a stack of mail with chocolate-covered fingers.

In a Strange Place

So I'm totally faltering here, leaving my blog un-updated for days.  I've been in a weird place.  Friday I found out one of my friends died.  A friend my age, and freaking STRAP of a man, who had a wild heart and a dancing wife and a life poured out before God.  With leukemia somewhere in the mix.  It pushed everything interesting and witty and energetic right off the table and left me with a big wide space.  I sat down to my computer and got back up again and walked away several times.  Dull.  Eyes brimming.

Now the week is rolling on, but today I was swept up into a project so big, so vast that not only are multiple cans of paint involved, so is Dust - with his power tools.  It's a playroom overhaul at Lindsay's house for Jack, Em, Ry (a.k.a. Boy) and Eve (a.k.a. Girl). 

My brussel sprouts post will have to wait.  Along with my i Love Looking Tuesday, because I don't want to rush either of them.  I'm working all week and painting in the gaps in between.  Colors like Nutmeg, Clove, Pencil, Graham Cracker Crust, Yam...and some owls. 

"I'll be back later to check on your work."

If you can name that movie, massive props to you.

Unbelievable

 

Ok, y'all.  I am so excited about this feature.  (I love how I refer to features within my blog like it's the New York Times).  Anyway, I just sat and went through all of our hundreds and hundreds of pictures of our thru-hike on the Appalachian Trail and... it was amazing.  I mean really.  Suddenly I'm having one of those moments where it's hard to believe something is real.  Dustan and I have these moments sometimes, we'll be sitting around talking and one of us is yakking our head off and the other one is like "Stop, I'm having an I-Can't-Believe-You're-You moment."  And we'll both get quiet and just kinda nod at each other, remembering what it was to be painfully (almost angrily) in love with each other - in silence - before the other one knew, each of us being too prideful to let on.  Waiting on God for green lights, for hope, for a word in due season.  All of it came, of course, in much glory, but I remember so clearly the letters and the late-night calls of "Will we ever sleep in the same bed, really?"  

So anyway.  Yeah - I'm looking at these trail pictures in a bit of disbelief.  You have to know how quaint Harpers Ferry was, and how beautiful Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania is and how incredibly other-worldly the Whites and most of Maine are.  I am so *so* excited to pull out pictures that never got published on the first blog, and to tell stories of things I forgot to remember along the way.  I could do a whole series on Food on the Trail, Wounds on the Trail, Animals and Insects on the Trail, Friends of the Trail, Hiker Trash on the Trail - it's gonna be so much fun.  If you're not the hikery, outdoorsy type, that's okay.  Take heart.  While I was out there, I wasn't really either.  I was just putting one foot in front of the other, bidding bathtubs and mattresses goodbye, getting into fights with that dreamy man of mine, (not caring that we shared the same tent if you know what I mean) and learning how to pick out hiking pants that wouldn't chafe too bad.  

As you would suspect, most all of the scenery and views were straight up epic, all the way from Georgia to Maine.  Looking at our pictures again tonight, I remember it afresh.  From the mountains of Tennessee covered in snow - not a leaf in sight - to the scraggly, stubborn pines hanging out on top of a balding summit in New Hampshire.  (Pointing)  Epic, epic.  The "ponds," they called them in Maine, even though they were vast enough to be tidal, the babbling crystal pools underneath ancient root systems in North Carolina, our first bear sighting, mornings in springtime - epic, epic, epic, epic.  You know nature in its most primitive and varied state is all gorgeous, mind-blowing serenity.  But I think it would be superficial of me (and a little boring) to only focus on the grandeur.  Because one, it's pretty much a given that it's ....yup, epic.  And two, there are also really gross, funny, entertaining, honest, ugly things about the AT.  

Like - did you know snails poop?

No Time

Sorry I don't have time to do a real post today, but I thought I would share something with you.

If you eat a pretzel and wash it down with orange juice, it tastes just like a sausage biscuit.

I'm just sayin'.

The Filing Cabinet

This filing cabinet was one of those things that I didn't like but I didn't hate and we definitely needed to keep handy with important stuff that I'm notorious for losing (social security cards, marriage licenses, school records, passports...).  So I decided to spruce it up a bit.  

First I found an image for inspiration.  I don't remember where it come from, but I'm giving the credit back to you, Internet.

 

 

 

The how-to on this project is pretty simple.

I removed the hardware, sanded it lightly, wiped it off really good.  (Then probably had to stop and take Trail for a walk).  Next I painted it two coats of Venetian Gold (my new best friend) and then did my little design on the side.  For the little design I used a pencil, an eraser, some kind of acrylic out-of-the-craft-bottle kind of paint as well as some other kind of paint out of the can, and water and small brushes.  Then I polyed the whole thing because I knew it would be in a high traffic area.

Fleeting Childhood

There's something so strange about pictures.  I mean, I definitely don't understand how cameras work, so therein is enough Why is the Sky Blue mystery to keep my gears huffing and puffing.  But even beyond the technology of taking (and successfully getting) a picture is the idea that we want to grab a sight out of the air and make it last.  I did this, I saw her, he was there, we were all together. We take a picture of good stuff.  The couple who just got engaged, a pie with a nice, even, brown, crispy crust.  I take pictures of my house all the time (when it's clean).  But once upon a time, when pictures were not nearly so abundant and accessible and editable, they were a big deal, weren't they?  You didn't take a picture of the foam on a perfect latte.  Pictures were planned and taken on purpose.  One try.  You tried for the good stuff, of course, but at the end of the day, you got what was there.  

When we were kids, this is how it was.  You get one shot in front of the sign that says Smoky Mountain National Park and that's it.  Then Dad rewinds the camera and takes it to Revco "to get it developed," a phrase we'll have to explain to our kids one day.  It's so funny to look back and see that sometimes those pictures were very...forced.  You know, right after a major meltdown, when our faces are stained with snot and tear trails, and the corners of our mouths are propped up by the imaginary fingers of the one who wants a nice family photo (Mom).  Like - there you go.  You might be at the Smokies, Dad may have taken time off for this, we are all together, but the camera is still going to show you whatever you show it, and maybe a little more.  There is no Photoshop here. And that's my favorite thing about pictures.  You think you're seeing one thing, but when you look at the picture, at what was really there, it's something else entirely.  Not only that, you go back and see stuff you never saw before.  Like how incredibly young your Mom was then.  And how that's probably why they let you and your sister go to pool by yourself...for hours.

Every time I look at this picture of my nephew Ryland I am reminded of how fleeting childhood is, and how weird it is to be on this side of adulthood saying things to make him smile for the camera, when once I was the one who couldn't be bothered to stand in for one more blasted picture.  One day he'll look back and think Were my hands ever so small? but now - well, it's pretty much written all over his face that he's about to drop a four-letter word on me AND my camera.  

That, or he's wondering how they keep that thing so clean.