Sunday, November 27, 2011

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving weekend is drawing to a close, and as I type the only sound I hear is that of Max's rollers (bike training).  Gone are the Thanksgiving days of sweet squeals of laughter from my niece, the vibrant vibrato of Leslie and I's rendition of Climb Every Mountain, and the familiar voices of my family in our new house, like they've always been here.  I always have much to be thankful for, but having all of my family here at our new home for Thankgiving is truly the icing on a most delicious of cakes. 

Of course, you know that nobody could have stayed in this house without the help of my most wonderful friends and family, and I want to close this Thanksgiving weekend by thanking them personally.  So here goes (if I forgot you it doesn't mean I 'forgot' you, it just means I have too much on my mind.  Please forgive me if I do!):

Grandma - For calling me for our Sunday phone visits instead of waiting for me to call you.  I think she knew it may never happen if she didn't call. :) That extra bit of money didn't hurt either!

Jeffe Perkins - Thank you for your Xtreme staple removal! Jeff spent over three hours with me, removing staples from the guest bedroom floor.  Who knew removing staples could be such fun?

James - Thank you for your unending use of her car, island assembly (we got it to work, BTW), and delivery of Home Run Inn pizzas and vino.

Buck and Jen - Thank you for your extreme wallpaper removal in both our bathroom and kitchen. 

Jen (again!) - Thank you for coming over twice this week, to help get the house ship-shape for guests.  Jen and I were roommates in three different places together, so we are on the same wave-length when it comes to setting up a room!

Mike and Eva - Thanks for snacks and fun with Walteress on our first weekend here.  You had to know we were starving, because we were too busy to remember to eat.  Oh, and that gin is sooo good. 

Jean and Kevin - Thank you for turning what I thought was an almond refrigerator white and essentially being at our beck and call.  At one point Jean said something to this affect, "if you need something just text me the word, don't even bother saying you need it."  And let me tell you, she meant it!

Laura - Thank you for taking my teary calls and providing the support and understanding I needed.  That was rough week. 

Laura and Les - Thank you for planning an improptu 'let's help Erin' visit, taking days off work, painting kitchen, and working tirelessly for an entire weekend.  Our kitchen looks beautiful because of you two. 

Lisa and Patrick - Thank you for removing more wallpaper and keeping me company on a lonely Sunday afternoon.


Tony, Jill, Katie - Thank you for working with me through the difficult decision of which toilet to buy on a Saturday night in Chicago.  You might never have heard such deep conversation between four people in the toilet isle at Home Depot.  Together, we team-lifted that thing back home and into our non-existent bathroom. 

Garrison - Thank you for being generally awesome and helping us with just about everything: fixing walls, cabling a tree, Home Depot runs, just to name a few. 


Tony - Thank you for the use of your sander.  Without it, the money we would have spent on renting it would probably been equivalent to an actual sander.  Thank you also for all your advice,  encouragement, and introduction to The Magic Eraser.  You are the best!

Meagan - Thank you for that voice mail you left me when you explained to me that pretty soon house stuff was going to feel overwhelming and not fun, but that I shouldn't worry because it would eventually be all right.  I can't tell you how many times I listened to that over the past month and a half.  Also thank you for the lovely Lemon Verbana Mrs. Meyers cleaning products; they smell so good!

May - Thank you for tearing down that weird wall and putting a new one up the very next day!

Mary - Thank you for offering up your bathroom while my sisters were here.

Lisa (our new neighbor) - Thank you for letting us use your shower for two weeks.  I've never had a shower that felt so good, as that first one at your house.  Ahhh!

Eleanor - Thank you for making me lunch the week of the move,  you knew that otherwise I would be eating crappy chicken sandwiches from the school cafeteria.  Also, thank you for letting me dominate our lunchtime conversations with our successes and tribulations at the house. 

Mom and Dad - Thank you for coming to Thanksgiving in Chicago with work clothes and seemingly endless energy to do jobs around the house. 

Penny - Thank you for taking kindly to your new home, and reminding me that I need to sit down and take a rest so you can sit on my lap and take a cat nap.

Yeah, no kidding, pretty amazing friends, huh?  I have so much to be thankful for.  I love you all!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Spicing it Up...in the bedroom.

by Leslie

No.  It's not what you think.  Really.

As you might know, we live in an apartment, or, as I like to call it, the white cube.  By most standards, our apartment is great.  It is pretty spacious, it has some good sized rooms, and it has two bathrooms (hooray for guests!).  It does have a few problems, though.  After living in "The Castle" for a year, I had grown to expect tall ceilings, delicate woodwork, and grandiose mantles upon which to place decor.

I mean, just look at it!

Here's the castle "turret" where we would dine.  I have the place a little jazzed up for Halloween.

Looking down on a snowy walkway from the castle.

Here's the view from the outside--can you believe that this was ever ONE man's house?

Needless to say, when we moved into our little white box here in Rochester, I was little less than inspired.  I did decide that it would be a good time to start over in our bedroom with a blank slate.  So, I moved our duvet cover to the guest room and left ours plain white.  

Although this only shows a part of the room, you get the idea.

I really liked this look for summer.  It was funky fresh and cool.  It was super "zen" in there and I really liked it.  But, now that it's getting a little chilly . . . I need a little spice!

So, we took a little trip to IKEA.  Jaime actually picked out this duvet cover, and it turns out, I LOVE IT!

Spicy!  And this was a super quick change to add something special to the bedroom.  
Now I'm inspired to make some quick little changes to our apartment to give it a little more character to it.  Any ideas?  Share them!


Tuesday, November 15, 2011

The many uses of butternut squash

If you, like me, have a huge bag of butternut squash in your pantry, you are probably continually looking for delicious recipes in which to use it.


I happen to be a lover of butternut squash.  My grandma grows it in her garden and usually gets a really good crop.  She is generous with the fruits of her labor and I am more than happy to accept her gifts.  There really are a lot of great squash recipes out there, and it seems like squash is even becoming a foodie trend, which I heartily approve of.  So, without further ado, here are some tried and tested recipes that I really liked.

Need a Thanksgiving appetizer?  Try Butternut Squash Ricotta and Sage Crostini from Tracy at Shutterbean--one of my fave blogs.

This Roasted Butternut Baked Penne was a great hearty supper that comes together very quickly.  This comes from the blog How Sweet it Is.

The first butternut squash dish I ever made was Ina Garten's Butternut Squash Risotto.  It's a winner for any type of meal.  It would be great for entertaining.

This soup is so delicious.  I don't know what it is about sage and butternut squash, but the combination of flavors is a winner.  I didn't make the croutons and it was still delish.  Here's the step by step.

Start by cutting your squash into cubes and roasting it in the oven.  The photo is above.  Then saute your onion, sage, and olive oil.  Let your senses be dazzled!

Add cooked butternut squash and chicken stock.

Let it simmer...let the flavors meld...

Then get out the immersion blender (or regular blender) and go to town!  I cover my pot with a towel so that the soup doesn't spatter everywhere.

Taste the flava flave.


Monday, November 7, 2011

Homeowner Task #1: Refinishing Hardwood Floors

by Erin
 

I think this picture sums up Max and I's existence for the past month (wow, we closed on our house one month ago today).  We are living in a mixture of sawdust, plaster dust, and whatever the hell the contractors are doing in the bathroom (hey, who needs to shower, right?!?!!!!).  After taking ownership of our new abode, Max and I went immediately to work on the floors (see our previous carpet removal post).  It was three weeks of after work sanding and three full weekends of sanding and sanding preparation (i.e. removing staples from the floor, etc)

After we completed four floors in our house I asked Max if he would recommend doing this to a friend.  His response, "hell no."  In some ways I agree, but I must say that I had quite sense of accomplishment after that final coat of poly went down on our floors.  I would just tell a friend that they better need to know what they are getting into by being prepared to take it slow, to know that you are going to have a serious mess on your hands, and to be sure and have somebody on hand that can give you advice.  Thankfully our lord and savior, Tony, my school's building engineer, answered frustrated text messages to help us through any and all problems we had.  He also didn't seem surprised when I told him it took me three days to sand the first floor, so I felt like I wasn't a complete idiot, which was how I spent my first weekend of sanding.  You also need to be prepared to find butt prints all over your house, from weary sanders that need a place to lean. 


Anyway, here is what we did. 

The office, sanded and ready for polyurethane.
The office is the first room we went to work on.  It was Columbus day weekend, so I had three days sand this, and it took all three of them to get it to this state.

Coated floors

 
Next I moved on to the living room and dining room.  Now, we didn't have to do this one, since it had most likely been recently done, but it looked dingy and we weren't a fan of the bright white color.

Living room dining room in progress.
This floor was super strange.  If you didn't move the sander along it quickly enough it would create kind of a paste out of the sawdust, then grind it into the floor, which required more sanding to get it off.  It took some serious finesse.  


Here is me staining the floor with a roller.  It was recommended that we apply the stain with a rag, but you know, we were tired.



The floor looks lovely and shiny now!

While I was working in here, Max took on the bear of a room, the "stair room."  The carpet in this room had been secured down with glue.  Ugh!

Max removes toxic glue.  Safety first!
Poor Max spent several days chipping away at the glue with paint remover.  Thankfully Max seems to enjoy slow, tedious project.  Strange.

Grimy edges
Max handling grimy edges!

Ready for poly!

Do you see the x's in the floor?  I'm pretty sure Indiana Jones is going to come over and find something underneath this one!

The final floor we tackled was the upstairs bedroom.  It proved to be the most uneven, and it had a nice coat of carpet padding under it.  Lovely.

Streaky mess
 All of the floors resembled this after using the drum sander, but this one took the longest to fix. 

Closets were always such a bummer.  We would feel like, we almost had it and then. . . the closet!  Another mess.

So I guess I haven't taken a final picture of this room, but I didn't want to wait any longer to post on the floors and it doesn't take a whole lot to get distracted in this house, so I'll put it up later.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving weekend is drawing to a close, and as I type the only sound I hear is that of Max's rollers (bike training).  Gone are the Thanksgiving days of sweet squeals of laughter from my niece, the vibrant vibrato of Leslie and I's rendition of Climb Every Mountain, and the familiar voices of my family in our new house, like they've always been here.  I always have much to be thankful for, but having all of my family here at our new home for Thankgiving is truly the icing on a most delicious of cakes. 

Of course, you know that nobody could have stayed in this house without the help of my most wonderful friends and family, and I want to close this Thanksgiving weekend by thanking them personally.  So here goes (if I forgot you it doesn't mean I 'forgot' you, it just means I have too much on my mind.  Please forgive me if I do!):

Grandma - For calling me for our Sunday phone visits instead of waiting for me to call you.  I think she knew it may never happen if she didn't call. :) That extra bit of money didn't hurt either!

Jeffe Perkins - Thank you for your Xtreme staple removal! Jeff spent over three hours with me, removing staples from the guest bedroom floor.  Who knew removing staples could be such fun?

James - Thank you for your unending use of her car, island assembly (we got it to work, BTW), and delivery of Home Run Inn pizzas and vino.

Buck and Jen - Thank you for your extreme wallpaper removal in both our bathroom and kitchen. 

Jen (again!) - Thank you for coming over twice this week, to help get the house ship-shape for guests.  Jen and I were roommates in three different places together, so we are on the same wave-length when it comes to setting up a room!

Mike and Eva - Thanks for snacks and fun with Walteress on our first weekend here.  You had to know we were starving, because we were too busy to remember to eat.  Oh, and that gin is sooo good. 

Jean and Kevin - Thank you for turning what I thought was an almond refrigerator white and essentially being at our beck and call.  At one point Jean said something to this affect, "if you need something just text me the word, don't even bother saying you need it."  And let me tell you, she meant it!

Laura - Thank you for taking my teary calls and providing the support and understanding I needed.  That was rough week. 

Laura and Les - Thank you for planning an improptu 'let's help Erin' visit, taking days off work, painting kitchen, and working tirelessly for an entire weekend.  Our kitchen looks beautiful because of you two. 

Lisa and Patrick - Thank you for removing more wallpaper and keeping me company on a lonely Sunday afternoon.


Tony, Jill, Katie - Thank you for working with me through the difficult decision of which toilet to buy on a Saturday night in Chicago.  You might never have heard such deep conversation between four people in the toilet isle at Home Depot.  Together, we team-lifted that thing back home and into our non-existent bathroom. 

Garrison - Thank you for being generally awesome and helping us with just about everything: fixing walls, cabling a tree, Home Depot runs, just to name a few. 


Tony - Thank you for the use of your sander.  Without it, the money we would have spent on renting it would probably been equivalent to an actual sander.  Thank you also for all your advice,  encouragement, and introduction to The Magic Eraser.  You are the best!

Meagan - Thank you for that voice mail you left me when you explained to me that pretty soon house stuff was going to feel overwhelming and not fun, but that I shouldn't worry because it would eventually be all right.  I can't tell you how many times I listened to that over the past month and a half.  Also thank you for the lovely Lemon Verbana Mrs. Meyers cleaning products; they smell so good!

May - Thank you for tearing down that weird wall and putting a new one up the very next day!

Mary - Thank you for offering up your bathroom while my sisters were here.

Lisa (our new neighbor) - Thank you for letting us use your shower for two weeks.  I've never had a shower that felt so good, as that first one at your house.  Ahhh!

Eleanor - Thank you for making me lunch the week of the move,  you knew that otherwise I would be eating crappy chicken sandwiches from the school cafeteria.  Also, thank you for letting me dominate our lunchtime conversations with our successes and tribulations at the house. 

Mom and Dad - Thank you for coming to Thanksgiving in Chicago with work clothes and seemingly endless energy to do jobs around the house. 

Penny - Thank you for taking kindly to your new home, and reminding me that I need to sit down and take a rest so you can sit on my lap and take a cat nap.

Yeah, no kidding, pretty amazing friends, huh?  I have so much to be thankful for.  I love you all!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Spicing it Up...in the bedroom.

by Leslie

No.  It's not what you think.  Really.

As you might know, we live in an apartment, or, as I like to call it, the white cube.  By most standards, our apartment is great.  It is pretty spacious, it has some good sized rooms, and it has two bathrooms (hooray for guests!).  It does have a few problems, though.  After living in "The Castle" for a year, I had grown to expect tall ceilings, delicate woodwork, and grandiose mantles upon which to place decor.

I mean, just look at it!

Here's the castle "turret" where we would dine.  I have the place a little jazzed up for Halloween.

Looking down on a snowy walkway from the castle.

Here's the view from the outside--can you believe that this was ever ONE man's house?

Needless to say, when we moved into our little white box here in Rochester, I was little less than inspired.  I did decide that it would be a good time to start over in our bedroom with a blank slate.  So, I moved our duvet cover to the guest room and left ours plain white.  

Although this only shows a part of the room, you get the idea.

I really liked this look for summer.  It was funky fresh and cool.  It was super "zen" in there and I really liked it.  But, now that it's getting a little chilly . . . I need a little spice!

So, we took a little trip to IKEA.  Jaime actually picked out this duvet cover, and it turns out, I LOVE IT!

Spicy!  And this was a super quick change to add something special to the bedroom.  
Now I'm inspired to make some quick little changes to our apartment to give it a little more character to it.  Any ideas?  Share them!


Tuesday, November 15, 2011

The many uses of butternut squash

If you, like me, have a huge bag of butternut squash in your pantry, you are probably continually looking for delicious recipes in which to use it.


I happen to be a lover of butternut squash.  My grandma grows it in her garden and usually gets a really good crop.  She is generous with the fruits of her labor and I am more than happy to accept her gifts.  There really are a lot of great squash recipes out there, and it seems like squash is even becoming a foodie trend, which I heartily approve of.  So, without further ado, here are some tried and tested recipes that I really liked.

Need a Thanksgiving appetizer?  Try Butternut Squash Ricotta and Sage Crostini from Tracy at Shutterbean--one of my fave blogs.

This Roasted Butternut Baked Penne was a great hearty supper that comes together very quickly.  This comes from the blog How Sweet it Is.

The first butternut squash dish I ever made was Ina Garten's Butternut Squash Risotto.  It's a winner for any type of meal.  It would be great for entertaining.

This soup is so delicious.  I don't know what it is about sage and butternut squash, but the combination of flavors is a winner.  I didn't make the croutons and it was still delish.  Here's the step by step.

Start by cutting your squash into cubes and roasting it in the oven.  The photo is above.  Then saute your onion, sage, and olive oil.  Let your senses be dazzled!

Add cooked butternut squash and chicken stock.

Let it simmer...let the flavors meld...

Then get out the immersion blender (or regular blender) and go to town!  I cover my pot with a towel so that the soup doesn't spatter everywhere.

Taste the flava flave.


Monday, November 7, 2011

Homeowner Task #1: Refinishing Hardwood Floors

by Erin
 

I think this picture sums up Max and I's existence for the past month (wow, we closed on our house one month ago today).  We are living in a mixture of sawdust, plaster dust, and whatever the hell the contractors are doing in the bathroom (hey, who needs to shower, right?!?!!!!).  After taking ownership of our new abode, Max and I went immediately to work on the floors (see our previous carpet removal post).  It was three weeks of after work sanding and three full weekends of sanding and sanding preparation (i.e. removing staples from the floor, etc)

After we completed four floors in our house I asked Max if he would recommend doing this to a friend.  His response, "hell no."  In some ways I agree, but I must say that I had quite sense of accomplishment after that final coat of poly went down on our floors.  I would just tell a friend that they better need to know what they are getting into by being prepared to take it slow, to know that you are going to have a serious mess on your hands, and to be sure and have somebody on hand that can give you advice.  Thankfully our lord and savior, Tony, my school's building engineer, answered frustrated text messages to help us through any and all problems we had.  He also didn't seem surprised when I told him it took me three days to sand the first floor, so I felt like I wasn't a complete idiot, which was how I spent my first weekend of sanding.  You also need to be prepared to find butt prints all over your house, from weary sanders that need a place to lean. 


Anyway, here is what we did. 

The office, sanded and ready for polyurethane.
The office is the first room we went to work on.  It was Columbus day weekend, so I had three days sand this, and it took all three of them to get it to this state.

Coated floors

 
Next I moved on to the living room and dining room.  Now, we didn't have to do this one, since it had most likely been recently done, but it looked dingy and we weren't a fan of the bright white color.

Living room dining room in progress.
This floor was super strange.  If you didn't move the sander along it quickly enough it would create kind of a paste out of the sawdust, then grind it into the floor, which required more sanding to get it off.  It took some serious finesse.  


Here is me staining the floor with a roller.  It was recommended that we apply the stain with a rag, but you know, we were tired.



The floor looks lovely and shiny now!

While I was working in here, Max took on the bear of a room, the "stair room."  The carpet in this room had been secured down with glue.  Ugh!

Max removes toxic glue.  Safety first!
Poor Max spent several days chipping away at the glue with paint remover.  Thankfully Max seems to enjoy slow, tedious project.  Strange.

Grimy edges
Max handling grimy edges!

Ready for poly!

Do you see the x's in the floor?  I'm pretty sure Indiana Jones is going to come over and find something underneath this one!

The final floor we tackled was the upstairs bedroom.  It proved to be the most uneven, and it had a nice coat of carpet padding under it.  Lovely.

Streaky mess
 All of the floors resembled this after using the drum sander, but this one took the longest to fix. 

Closets were always such a bummer.  We would feel like, we almost had it and then. . . the closet!  Another mess.

So I guess I haven't taken a final picture of this room, but I didn't want to wait any longer to post on the floors and it doesn't take a whole lot to get distracted in this house, so I'll put it up later.