Pimp My Pantry: Day 2

Big announcement! This is the last post on Blogger (aka blogspot.com)! We're moving on and moving up to theteardos.com! We hope you will stop by when we go live on Monday morning. Until then, please be patient as we work out kinks and try to make it extra purdy :-) Please note that current subscriptions will not be transfered. We are more than happy to subscribe you ourselves this weekend if that is easiest or you can resubscribe on Monday through the new (more reliable) service. Just let us know in the comments. We're sorry for any inconvenience!

Now onto the post:

Let's remember that this was supposed to be Operation Pantry P-R-I-M-P. Somehow, in the process of designing the overwrought action plan for yesterday's post, I channeled my inner gangster and turned it into P-I-M-P. Whoops! Apparently my pantry will now have a whole lot of 'tude. I'm cool wit dat.

[shudder]

Okay, sorry. Back to normal over here. This w.a.s.p. can't pull that off for more than two sentences.

So, to start, we have a thrilling picture:

 

 

Okay. Sorry, yes, that's another white wall. But that's the last one, I promise! And doesn't it look great?! This was the first thing I had to accomplish today. A nice coat (two, actually) of flat white. (I just used paint that the previous owners left so it was even the same white! Hurray for free.) Since the pantry was so banged up and stained, this made a huge difference in person.

But that's not where I left it for the day! Oh no, ideeeeed.

You know how when you start a project and then things just keep getting added to the process? Yeah, that happened here. I kept staring at the white walls and then looking down at the horrible trim:

 

This is the color of the trim over the entire house. Doors, baseboards, crown moulding, everywhere. We had already decided that we're going to give it all a nice coat of white. However, due to having the paint from the previous owners, we learned that the trim was painted in oil-based paint. Ugh.

After some googling and being completely traumatized by the potential hazards of putting latex paint directly over oil (we're going to be using only low odor & no voc latex paint throughout the house), I decided to just call the guys at Lowe's. They calmed me down from my oil/latex tizzy and suggested we use this product:

 

 

And let me just say: it rocks. It goes on like Elmer's glue. So, with this knowledge (and huge gallon of happy, low voc primer) we decided that going ahead and painting the trim would be best while the pantry was empty and everything was taped, etc. This also gave me more practice at cutting in with my favorite 2" angled brush (see above). So after a bit of painting and priming, the pantry had nice fresh, white trim. (I'll spare you another all-white photo.)

Now it was time to add some pattern! I downloaded this great stencil from Jones Design Company (find it here) and printed it out:

 

 

Then, I traced it onto cardboard and cardstock. (the reason for my genius with be forthcoming). ;-) I then taped a level to my cardboard stencil so I could keep the world straight as I traced:

 

 

So then, it was only a matter of finding center and then trace and trace and trace and trace...

 

 

(see the pretty white trim? I'll spare you the mental image of me trying to do a happy dance in a 3 foot square.)

You'll see that I ended up needing to do some partial shapes and the edge. This is where my cardstock came in. It could easily fold where I needed it to, so I wouldn't have to cut or maim my cardboard stencil. *muahahaha*

After I unfurled my claw-shaped-hand from around the pencil, I took one of the rejects from our living room test swatching. (Another post for another day) It is Behr "French Silver". I then painted on the inside of the lines like so, omitting every other shape:

 

At this point, I will freely admit that I was tempted to just go ahead and paint the whole thing grey. But, our inspiration for the color scheme came from the runner rug we have directly outside the pantry:

 

(Its from West Elm) See those edges? Such a fun punch of color. And I figured, where else could I so easily include a pop of cheeriness? A pantry is the perfect place for that. So I got the Behr color "Pear" in a sample. And here she is in action on the wall:

 

A finished shot with the white trim, you say? I don't mind if I do:

 

 

Even with the newspaper still down (I'm going to do a second coat of white on the trim as recommended on the can) it is HAPPY!

 

So what do with think? A pantry with attitude? It's on it's way, methinks. Is it wrong that I'm almost sad to be putting up shelves in front it? There will be no small amount of pouting if we can't see the wall through the groceries... Just keepin' it real.

See you guys on the flip side Monday morning!

 

A girl with a plan:

Okay, so here's the plan: take four days and completely makeover the pantry.

That's is the plan, at least. You know that, "you plan, God laughs" idiom? Yeah, that's my life. So, we're through Day One and already behind. Here's where we started:

 

 

Ouch. I tried, really I did. I sorted, I put things in bins, I labeled:

 

 

The whole system broke down, soooo more effort is required. Hence, Operation "Pantry Primping"!

 

 

So, all the food got moved into the dining room. The shelves were removed and we were left with a million brackets:

 

 

A screwdriver and a pair of pliers later:

 

A bunch of holes. Oh goody.

It's like an archeological dig! I'm just glad I didn't find wallpaper...

Some spackle later:

 

And then some primer:

 

 

Okay, so I just showed you a bunch of pictures of white walls, I realize. Sorry about that... But what we have now is a beautiful blank slate. Well, a dirty blank slate. You can't see on the photos, but these walls are groooooossssss. Splatters and stains. So we're going to give everything a nice fresh coat of cream.

So that's where we are! So glad to be getting started on the epic to-do list! We'll update you soon on the progress...

Wedding Wednesday: Put on your dancing shoes!

Today is the last post in our Wedding Wednesday series! A huge thank you for stopping by and your kind comments. If you're one of the three people left on this planet that isn't completely saturated in our wedding, fret not! Our new website will feature a wedding page. Hurray! There will be new content and more pictures. :-)

Without further ado, our last Wedding Wednesday! After we got hitched, wined and dined, it was time to get down with our baaaaad selves. Okay, not really. The music was all big band standards, rat pack, and vintage jazz. So we... boogied?

Our first dance was to Joshua Radin's "Today". We've loved this song for a long time and the lyrics mention traveling on the train, which is how we commuted between each other's apartments for years.

 

I wanted to combine the traditional father/daughter & mother/son dance (thus taking a bit of the "they're all staring at me dance" pressure off). We danced to Louis Armstrong singing "What a Wonderful World."

 

 

Then everyone boogied:

 

 

One final huge thank you to Zlatko Batistich for the beautiful photos!

 

Plant Watch 2013

I am just going to come out and say it: I can't keep plants alive. Not by malice or ill treatment or lack of caring or anything! I'm just no good at it. I've killed cacti. (Note the use of plural there. Yup. Multiple ones. This is a serious problem.)

 

So, Operation Leslie Growing Instead of Killing Plants has begun. Or, as I will call it: Plant Watch 2013. tee hee. I figure if we Southerners can have "Winter Watch", then a plant watch is certainly in order! Yes? Maybe? Please say yes :-)

 

I figured the best way to go this year was to start with herbs and then maybe mix in some vegetables. Because we don't have a lot of backyard space, I am going to do my outdoor gardening in containers. Better Homes & Gardens published this great book on container gardening. They make some great suggestions on what vegetables to plant: mainly above ground ones like lettuce and tomatoes and small special varieties of below ground vegetables like beets and carrots.

 

So, here's what I've got so far:

I purchased a spearmint and lavender plant and started basil, scallion and beet seeds.

 

The spearmint plant has almost doubled in height:

 

 

The lavender hasn't grown much but it seems to be doing okay. I've heard that keeping a lavender plant in a container is really difficult. It's on the list of plants I'll move outside in a few days.

 

 

While unpacking the house, I found a packet of basil that must be from college. I knew I wanted to plant basil so figured, what the heck, I'll give these guys a chance. And shock of shocks, they've sprouted! It's the little basil-that-could! It should be noted that they are growing super slowly. It's taken them three week to just get this far:

 

The scallions are trying their best. The packet said they would sprout from 7-14 days. I've got a few:

 

 

But the real success story so far are the beet sprouts. They are kicking hiney! I got some more planting pots yesterday and will thin them out and give them room to grow soon.

 

(the weird green glow is because the seedling pots are sitting in a green plastic bin to keep water off the table)

 

So that's the current state of Plant Watch 2013! I would really love any advice more seasoned gardeners have to share.

This weekend is the Birmingham Botanical Garden's annual plant sale. I'm really hoping to score some tarragon and maybe even some strawberries. Yum!

 

Monthly Muse

It is so easy to become overloaded, over-committed, and overwhelmed in this crazy world of ours. So, at the last post of each calendar month, we will be looking back at all the things we've been up to. It's nice to look back and reflect on the things we learned and accomplished- not to mention motivating! So here we go:

1. Raspberry Gelée 
2. Lavender & Honey Marshmallows
3. Making Espresso 

1. iPhone HDR
2. St. Patrick's Day Wreath 
3. Making a Bowtie
4. Cuff links
5. Easter egg decorating

 

1. Gratuitous Cat Pictures
2. Fred's Birthday
3. Awkward Cats 
4. Leslie's Birthday

1. Sofa Sneak Peek
2. Changing the Air Filter

1. DIY Details
2. The Food
3. Dessert

WOW! I feel so much better now. We've really been going through the full range of human experience, right? I mean: cats, wedding, air filters, sofas.... what more do you need?!

Next week will be the final week for Wedding Wednesday as we begin the process of changing web hosts and other boring technical stuff. It does, however, mean that in just 10 short days, there will be a whole new look for "theteardos"

I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter! Hoppity hoppity.

A good egg (or four)

Or, how to decorate eggs stylishly for $3.50.

I love embracing my inner child. Like, giving her a big hug and swinging her around while singing a little Rick Astley. I've got it stuck in your head now, don't I? Yeah, me too. Let's sing it together!!

 

Never gonna give you up

Never gonna let you down

Never gonna run around and desert you

Never gonna make you cry

Never gonna say goodbye

Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

Nice moves everybody! At the very least, we're primed for next weeks "Wedding Wednesday" which is gonna showcase some of the smooth moves on the dance floor. Oh yeeeeeeaaahhhhhhhh. (Now I've got that "bow bow" theme from Ferris Bueller's Day Off stuck in my head. I'm having quite the 80s day!

Anywhoooooo, back to the post. I don't know how many years it's been since I've decorated an Easter egg. But I do know, it's been much too long! So earlier this week I asked ft to grab some eggs at the supermarket and I got some supplies at Target. I wanted to do something beyond the normal dyeing process but not anything too complicated (read: expensive). So, as luck would have it, Target came through with these:

 

They were in the dollar section (woot!) so I picked up a couple of them (one with letters and one with swirls) and a $1.50 dyeing kit from over in the Easter section. *I would like to quickly note (and receive subsequent points) for the amount of self control it took to go through the Easter candy section and not buy any :-)

 

So after we hard boiled the eggs, we broke out some plastic cups we had lying around. (Which we will be reusing for painting, btw) and started the process. I first used the water-only method because I wanted pastel eggs. Well, it overachieved a bit, as in, barely any discernible color. So, we switched to the vinegar method (see the back of the box) and that worked a lot better.

 

 

 

So then, it was only the matter of cutting out the shapes we wanted to use and then rubbing them onto the eggs. Because of the letters (and I had four eggs) I decided to do one for each of the members of our little family:

Me

 

Freddy-T

 

Pandora

 

Maggie

Ta da! (Have I been saying that at the bottom of every crafty post?)

Happy crafting! And a big Rick Astley-style hug to all musicians as the Holy Week crazy amps up today.

 

Wedding Wednesday: Dessert

Yum. Yummy McYumminess. Droooool....

Now that I've gotten that out of my system...

 

 

 

 

See? Yum.

 

Since today's post is a little late, I'll be back in a few hours with a bonus post.

See you on the flip side!