bringing it down a notch.

Over the past few months, I have been trying valiantly to bring the exuberance of our den down a notch.

{You better be thanking me that the lighting in this pic is so moody. Your retinas would have detached if they saw this room in full-on daylight.}

Between the 800 different geometric prints, the vintage travel posters, and the statement curtains, one could CLEARLY see I didn't so much take a sip, as do a full-on keg stand of the kool-aid when it came to the whole resurgence of geometric, neon prints. As soon as we moved into our house, I felt like I couldn't get enough teal ikat or chartreuse honeycomb. Don't get me wrong, I still love me a good ikat, but when you have as much of it as I did, our den was quickly becoming less of a retreat and more of the next Plunko board on the Price is Right.

Luckily, the bones of the den were neutral enough that we didn't have to completely scrap everything - neutral couches, neutral tables and lamp bases, etc.. Truly, it was just a matter of replacing pillow covers, toning down the artwork, and reeling in every trendy whim in me to take this room back from Bob Barker.

The Billy Built-Ins were a huge step in the right direction. By decorating these with backwards books, milk glass, and gold or wood accents, the TV wall immediately became less overwhelming.

The next super quick and cheap-o fix were the pillow covers. I made new envelope pillow covers {following this sinfully simple tutorial} for all of the pillows in the room replacing the rainbow of ikat and chipper with various patterns of white and grey. On my larger solid grey pillows, I added a simple Greek key pattern, loosely following Sarah M. Dorsey's tutorial, to give them a little oomph without having to reapply for the nuthouse.

The art also got a face lift with a little DIY love from yours truly {tutorial on that forthwith - #downtonabbeyownsme} which helped tone down the room a bit more.

All in all, this room now only has a few "pops" - the curtains and the rainbow of books in the buffet - rather than the 1,239 pops it had when auditioning for the Price is Right. This more neutral, subtle color scheme makes for a more relaxing, cozy space in my humble opinion...aka - no more assaults on the retinas. Hallelujah.

Off to watch my girl Grace kill it in the figure skating championship! 

a happier hutch.

During our move to our casita, you might remember me finding this spectacular hutch at a garage sale on my way to a wedding shower for a mere sixty bones and restoring it so that it could take up residence in our dining room.

While I have been head-over-heels in love with this piece, over the past couple of months, the brass was becoming rather tarnished and discolored.

Sick out. Maybe I didn't polish it well enough with Brass-O when I first refurbished the piece or maybe the brass hardware was simply showing its age, but either way, it was an eyesore and it certainly wasn't making the name of "campaign" proud.

Since the Brass-O polishing approach failed miserably after the first attempt, I decided to apply a bit of Rub 'n Buff to each of the brass pieces so that they'd really pop against the smoky gray body of the hutch. Campaign Restorers Anonymous may tar and feather me for not polishing, but #sorrynotsorry.

For the hardware that was nailed into the hutch, I simply applied the Rub 'n Buff with the hardware still affixed so I didn't have to wrestle with those minuscule nails again. As for the pulls, those were easy enough to remove from the drawers and since they were more layered, I figured I would need to work on those in a more detailed manner. So I removed all of the pulls from the drawers...

...and after a single application of Rub 'n Buff, we were looking so much better!

With the pulls sufficiently buffed and the affixed hardware glistening like new, the hutch is looking so much more campaign-worthy!

Oh, Rub 'n Buff, how did I ever do anything without you?!

oh brother, where art thou?

Over a month and no new blog post? Disgust-oid. How did I let this happen? This is how I let it happen. This.

This has been my homepage for the past month. This is the reason why all posting exploits have ceased. However, after much jumping through flaming hoops and placing of heads inside large lions' mouths, we are back online, folks! Turns out my wireless card decided it would rather not live a long and healthy life. But with a new wireless card in tow, we're full steam ahead!

On the upside, it turns out that having absolutely no internet access on my computer makes me an exceedingly productive person! Go figure! Project checklist completion at its finest. Here's a sneak peek at what I've been up to for the past month:

An update to the brass plates on our campaign hutch:

A more neutral color scheme in the den thanks to new shams and new artwork:

{hashtag deuce photobomb}

And a complete re-design of the master bedroom! We're talking new paint color, new headboard, new linens, the works! As we're still in the middle of this projecto, here's a small photog to tickle your intrigue.

As for the teaching world, I've actually begun developing my first set of curriculum units! From farms and shapes to matching and threading, I am so excited to share these preschool units with you!

So stay tuned, patriots, you'll be getting full deets on the projects mentioned above and plenty of preschool updates over the next few weeks!

Happy Sunday Funday to you and yours!

saving the spice cabinet.

When I initially organized my pantry a couple of years ago, I also tried to come up with a prettier/more efficient way to store my spices. I used some spice jars I found at Ikea, labeled the jars, and considered it a done deal. However, after only a couple of weeks, I started noticing that some jars weren't closing...

...causing a lot of my spices to dry out quickly.

Attractive, right? But being that the real world gives you bigger fish to fry than spice cabinet dilemmas, I really didn't have time to deal with this minor problem, so when we moved in to the house, I threw my spices into the storage rack on the door and called it a day!

While my spices were looking all organized and pretty in the door, the truth was that I wasn't even using spices out of these jars! Truth be told, about 80% of them were dried out, and even if I could use them, nothing bigger than 1/4 teaspoon would fit in the jar's opening when it came to measuring! Textbook definition of first world problem.

Since I couldn't use the spices out of their pretty jars, I just started buying spices as I needed them and tossing them into my bulk spice bin that lives in the pantry.

A practice that quickly turned my spice bucket into a spice bonanza.

Cute, right?

Not at all impressive.

A couple of weeks ago, though, I finally had time to deal with this BIG TIME DILEMMA! I bought a couple of flats of these 4-ounce mason jars...

...and a packet of Avery's 2 1/2 inch round, glossy labels.

I then emptied out my spice bucket and sorted the spices into two groups: specialty/bulky spices and everyday spices.

I transferred the everyday spices into mason jars and scribbled a label for them on a post-it for the time being.

After all of the spices had been transferred into jars, I created a cute, but simple round label for each of the spice jars and applied the label to the lid of the mason jar!

Once all the jars were labeled, I loaded them back into the pantry door's storage rack!

Placing the spices in the mason jars solved both of my problems: the mason jars provide an airtight seal AND they have a wide opening that will allow all of my measuring spoons to fit easily inside! Oh happy day!

Now that all of my everyday spices are in their new happy homes, my spice bucket only holds a couple of bulk spices and specialty spices!

You are now talking to one happy cook!