Feb23

Lettuce Always Be Friends

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Lettuce Always Be Friends

When the husband and I went to our neighboring town, Rosemary Beach, for Valentine’s Day we ran across some pretty cool shops. One of them in particular, called Zoo Gallery, had all kinds of souvenirs and higher end interior items that had us drooling. Although it wasn’t in the budget for us to cash in on a $500 SugarBoo painting, we did come home with some adorable post cards to remember our trip by.

I decided to mat and frame them for a little inexpensive, and sentimental art work.

SugarBoo also makes these adorable postcards, but at $2.00 a pop, they were much easier to justify.

I had some black frames lying around so I spray painted them white (who’s surprised?) and hung the two veggie’s appropriately in the dining room.

Not sure where I’ll put that lovey dovey sheep yet, but I’m thinking I’ll save him for the office when we decided to tackle it down the road.

And since I’m all sentimental, I’d like to say to you…let us always be friends, too. I appreciate all of you who have subscribed to my little ‘ole blog, and give me the great feedback that you do! It’s super encouraging and fun to hear from you about the design decisions that we make at our humble, little lake house. I look forward to sharing even more as our renovation and design projects unfold! XO, Iris

Feb22

Oh Deer!

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Oh Deer!

I’m not sure what it is with me and spray paint this week? I think it’s one of those things that you start doing and then see all the other stuff around you that would look amazing with some spray paint, too. Regardless, I done bought me some antlers.

(I started priming before I took the “before” pic. Total rookie mistake. Blogger fail.)

I found these sturdy, metal bad boys at Hobby Lobby a while back for $4.00 and couldn’t help but think of the antlers I’ve been lusting over from West Elm for months.

Yes, they have their differences, but the general idea is the same. The main thing I dig about West Elm’s version is the white color and texture of the paper mache. So, I whipped out the white satin spray paint and got to work on my knockoff.

Here’s what he’s it’s looking like these days. Happy little antlers chillin’ above the switch in the dining room.

I really like how the white paint brought out the texture, too.

Aren’t they better white? I debated putting them by the door so we could hang keys and bags upon them. After some thought, I decided they belonged safe from clutter in the dining room, just to be admired as art. <3

Feb21

And This Little Pig Went Bling Bling Bling

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And This Little Pig Went Bling Bling Bling

Told ya I’d be back today. Tonight, technically.

Just wanted to show you the other thing I whipped out when I was spray painting the lamp from today’s earlier post. Anyone remember the brown piggy peaking out on the side of Denny the Denza?

We received this adorable (and insanely heavy) piggy as a wedding gift and have always made sure to display him. When we received him we were told that pigs are supposed to represent prosperity and :::couch::: fertility :::cough:::

Well, as if he wasn’t cute enough already, I decided to give him a gold mud bath, er, spray paint bath. I used my favorite gold spray paint ever, Rust-oleum’s Primer and Paint combined in Antique Brass.

It is perfect because it’s not like Flava Flav’s Teeth Gold. It’s subtle, and purdy (for lack of a better adjective).

Maybe people will notice him a little more now. I feel that he deserves that.

Feb21

I Love Lamp

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I Love Lamp

You saw the big, gold lamp sitting on Denny yesterday? Here she is, just incase you missed it.

It’s another item I claimed when we were helping my Mother-in-law move recently. I love the shape, love the size, I even kind of loved the gold, honestly. BUT, when you got up close, it was scratched, rusted, and chipped off in places.

So, off to Lowe’s I went. I came up with this beauty from Valspar’s line of amazing spray paint that you’ve probably heard me rave about in the past. 

I loved the light blue-gray color and the fact that it was a gloss finish. So I got started. First, sanding, cleaning, priming…

I always keep an old bulb screwed in when painting any kind of light to prevent paint from getting into the socket and compromising the functionality. This is especially helpful when spray painting chandeliers.

Also, when spray painting, you always want to go thin to win. 5 or 6 really thin coats are much better than 2 drippy ones. You only have to wait a couple of minutes between coats, so it still goes pretty fast. Things may look splotchy for a while, but it will all even up. Trust meh.

Here she is after her final coat and 24 hours of curing up in the garage.

Hello gorgeous. I love the extra shiny surface. Yummo!

And she is lookin’ so fly sitting on top of our friend, Denny. Don’t cha think?

Lamps can be so expensive. Especially when you can achieve a pretty chic look by finding a good shape at a thrift store (or relative’s garage) and painting it whatever shiny color you fancy for a total price of around $10. Amazing what a little spray paint can do. Have you guys spray painted anything lately?

Pssst: I’ll be back later today with another spray paint post involving metallics and, hmm, how do I put this? Farm animals?

Feb20

Denny For The Den

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Denny For The Den

Up until this weekend, our media solution was looking something like this.

Although we love the console that we purchased at Home Goods about three years ago, it just wasn’t cutting it for cord storage and, well, storage in general. Hardly a solution at all. We do have plans for ‘ole Conny the Console, though. We’re thinking she’d make a lovely bathroom vanity one day. But, for now, she spends her days in the garage.

After thinking on the matter of den media storage for a few months, we finally decided to install the all-loving, the all-knowing, the all-encompassing, “Fauxdenza”, coined by Anna of Door Sixteen.

I first saw Anna’s use of Ikea AKRUM cabinets to form a line of floating storage about a year ago, and loved the idea. So, we took some measurements and got to it.

For our Fauxdenza, or as I like to call her, Denny, we decided to use four 30×18 AKRUM cabinets with APPLAD doors. Since ours would need to function as a TV stand, we knew the cabinets needed to be short and hung low enough to make the TV eye level from the vantage point of the sofa.

Some action shots.

Florida Boy and his understudy pretty much figured things out while I sat on the couch sipping green tea and occasionally getting up to fetch a tool or two.

Ikea cabinets are fabulous in that they are extremely easy to assemble, and the installation process is pretty breezy as well. The suspension rail is put on first. Then, the cabinets are slid onto the rail and secured in place.

Woah, really bad photo, but you get the point.

When the dirty work was done, I came in for some styling. Keep in mind, we are planning to install a countertop on top and possibly extending down the sides of the cabinet. It will be some kind of wood stained nice and rich.

Here’s what we’re rockin’ in the meantime.

I am loving how it turned out. It’s sleek, full of storage, AND since it’s floating, I can sweep right under it! Win!

I think the dark wood countertop will really warm it up, too. I’ll be sure to do a follow-up post when we get all that going.

Let’s see her from some other angles.

Ignore the huge brass lamp. She may or may not have gotten a little paint job, so you may or may not be seeing her again soon. As in, tomorrow.

One of my favorite things about this cabinet is that it sits right in front of all the plugs that litter this huge wall.

Gotta love that!

With a surface this long, there is a lot of styling fun to be had. I’m sure this setup will change a hundred times before I’m satisfied. I just kind of threw some stuff up there without over thinking it.

You likey my deer?

I mean, we live in the woods. And what’s a proper lakehouse without some tasteful deer art? I got this pretty doe from a talented photographer, Zoe, on Etsy a few weeks back. I was fortunate enough to catch it on sale, too. Isn’t she dreamy? What shall we name her?

The pot is one of my favorite things that we have. It’s from Florida Boy’s Nana. The same one who gave us the cedar chest that I jazzed up a couple of weeks ago over on A Pretty Penny Blog. She actually made it herself in a ceramics class! How hip is that?

But, back to Denny…

So, what do you guys think? Anyone else tackle a big project this weekend? Anyone else name their furniture? Just me? Okay.

Feb18

Low(er) Calorie Cake Batter Milkshake

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Low(er) Calorie Cake Batter Milkshake

Yep. I said it.

Get. Ready. To. Live.

When I found this recipe for a Funfetti Cake Batter Milkshake over on A Beauitful Mess, the first thing I did was fall out of my chair.  The second thing I did was think, ‘how can I devour this and have any calories left in the day to eat dinner?’ Any one else counting calories? No bueno.

So, basically, I found that if you take Elsie’s recipe and substitute apple sauce for the oil that the cake batter requires, then use lowfat ice-cream, and skim milk, it cuts a lot of calories and is still uh-maz-ing.

I highly recommend you get Breyer’s Extra Creamy Vanilla Fat Free ice-cream. It’s my favorite low cal treat and it doesn’t taste icey and weak like some other “diet ice-cream”. Also, you’ll want to use unsweetened apple sauce, because with the sugar of the batter and the ice-cream, you won’t really need anymore added sweetness (or calories).

So, you’ll just make the cake batter according to the box, substituting the apple sauce for the oil and omitting the eggs. Mix some batter (you don’t have to use it all) with 4-5 cups of skim milk and 4-5 scoops of low-fat ice-cream. You can kind of play with your proportions to get the consistency and taste you like. Personally, I prefer a so-thick-it-gives-me-a-brain-anurism-to-suck-it-through-a-straw shake.

Elsie also made a Devil’s Food and Pineapple Supreme version of this shake which you can find on the same post, here. I haven’t tried these using the low-cal substitutes, but I’d imagine it would work just as well.

Go ahead, make yourself one. Let me know how it turns out. sllluuuurrrrp!

 

Feb17

Just Another Painting Post

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Just Another Painting Post

Get used to it, friends. It’s not the first, and will most definitely not be the last.

While the man of the house was out-of-town last week, I decided to fish out the dusty ‘ole tray and roller. Who am I kidding? I didn’t have to fish anything out. Those tools can barely be cleaned and dried before being abused by me again.

But, yeah, I always decide to take on projects like this when Mr. Florida Girl is out-of-town. Why is that? Maybe because I’m bored. Or, maybe because I like his reaction when he comes back and sees the change? He’s an animated guy, easily excitable, so, that is always fun.

“SHAM-WHIZ-OWA! YOU PAINTED THE DINING ROOM!!!!”

(For those of you who know my husband, you understand.)

More likely, it’s because I’m constantly doing projects, so the show just continues as usual whether a man is here or not.

On this particular day, my victim: The Dining Room.

The dining room with its dingy walls and dirty, off white trim. I chose a light, taupey-gray tone that would look nice with both our living room and kitchen, since the dining room hovers in between the two. Our kitchen cabinets are a buttery color that we plan to change one day down the line, so I was really more concerned with the color looking really nice with the living room and decent with the kitchen. See my logic?

Keep in mind, there are a lot of other things that need to happen in here before it gets the “done” stamp. Getting a picture in that empty frame, for starters. ha! We still need window coverings (roman shades?), we plan to DIY a dining table down the line, new chairs, a rug for under the table, a pendant light for over the table, etcetera etcetera.

But, for now, I’m happy to have a pretty color on the walls, and some shiny white trim.

A dear friend painted this picture of Tula, one of our long-haired chihuahuas, a couple of years back. I’m so happy to finally get to hang it up in this house.

I know the photo quality is not great, but hopefully you can get an idea of the paint color.

The butterfly collection came from my Mother-in-Law.  She purchased it from the Museum of Modern Art back in the 70′s, displayed it for a while, and has just been storing it for the past decade. Recently we helped her move, and when I saw it, I kind of freaked out. I started gushing about how hip insect collections are now, a lot of them are fake, but THIS, this one is real, OH the colors, blah blah blah. Needless to say, she handed it over. Talk about something coming full circle. SCORE one for Florida Girl!

Feb16

Baby Steps Fireplace Progress

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Baby Steps Fireplace Progress

If you were to ask me to describe our flagstone fireplace painting progress, I would have to respond back to you with the words, “baby steps”.

It’s hard to believe that we first started the feat of painting every square inch of our 18 foot tall fireplace over three weeks ago, annnnd, we’re STILL not done. Not even close. We have about 75% of the beast primed, but it’s going to need atleast two coats of paint after that. Sigh. Baby steps.

I could unleash my excuses on you, just like I do every loved one who walks through our door and sees a huge, half painted primed fireplace. Like how we have to borrow a ladder to do the tallest part, and Mr. Florida Girl went out of town for 5 days, and then there was Valentine’s Day, and now PRESIDENT’S day is coming up, and we’re going to get around to finishing it really soon, but TIME, there just hasn’t been any TIME.

But, I know my excuses will just fall on deaf ears. I know you guys will just roll your eyes, and say things like, “Yeah, whatever Florida Girl, just finish the damn thing already. We’re tired of waiting.”

I know. I know.

Seriously, I’m not sure I realized just how slow going painting big ‘ole stones and big ‘ole grout could be. First of all, that porous stuff really soaks up the primer. Secondly, you have to pretty much blot paint on the grout with a shredded and mangled paint brush little by little. It’s a dirty job, but at this point, I’m feeling really optimistic.

Here’s some progress shots, just so you can see the effect of having all the flagstone and grout the same color, albeit stark white primer. I’m already loving the uniformity and the way it makes the wall color pop.

It also really brings out the shiny white trim and doors on the interior of our house. I think once we warm it up a smidge with the paint color we chose, it’ll be perfect.

Even after being just primed, it’s still leaps above what we were rolling with a few weeks ago. Brace yourself.

So, any encouraging words to help me just get ‘er done, already? It’s slow moving, but I feel like a deadline would be really helpful. Let’s say I must have it completely finished, and official “after” pictures posted by: Friday, February 24, (2012). Yes, at this rate, I find it important to include the year in that due date.

So, have any of you ever painted stone and thick grout like this? Does anyone feel muh pain? Can I get a witness?

Feb14

Happy Valentray’s Day

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Happy Valentray’s Day

I was browsing the interwebs recently, and ran across this beautiful tray from Jayson Home & Garden.

I don’t know if it’s this lovey-dovey holiday season, watching too much Zoey Deschanel, or just my natural hearts and rainbows inclination that got me obsessing over it so much. But, I knew the price was too steep for me at $78. Boooo.

So, I decided to take some things I already had lying around and DIY a heart tray for my very own self. I’ve had this tray for a couple of years now and love love love its shape and funcationality.

I believe it’s from Home Goods. It was looking a little stained and dingy, so I brightened it up with a fresh roll of white latex paint.

After the paint was completely dry, I took a heart shape that was printed from online, and traced it onto the four corners of my tray in pencil.

I got out my little acrylic craft paints and found a color I fancied for the hearts. After taking into consideration the overall aesthetic of our house, I decided to go with gold rather than red (like my inspiration piece).

I used a really small, fine bristled brush to fill in the heart outlines I made. It took about 4 coats to get a nice, consistent result. When it finished drying, I brushed the entire tray with a thin coat of poly for protection and easy, wipeable cleaning.

I’m so excited with how it turned out! The gold is really pretty and the whole thing is super shiney from the poly.

What a heartfelt little tray. Don’t ‘cha think?

Feb9

Fancy A Parsnip?

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Fancy A Parsnip?

For those of you who don’t know, the parsnip is a weird, less popular relative of everyone’s friend, the carrot. They make small talk at family reunions. They send each other Christmas cards. But, they’re not really hangin’ out on the reg.

Let’s face it, up until about a week ago, I’d never even thought about buying parsnips at the grocery store. They were right in between potted meat and pickled eggs on the list of things I’ve never considered eating.

Recently, however, Martha Stewart told me about something amazing. It’s called Parsnip Fries.

Fries?!

Without the frying or calories?

Fries, that are actually parsnips?!

Yes. Por Favor.

Look who is stepping up their game. Parsnip, really climbing the social ladder. I mean, if Martha is talking about you, you know you have finally arrived.

But, without further adieu (and anthropomorphizing of vegetables) here’s the run down.

Peel them white carrots then slice to be the size of fries.

Coat thinly in olive oil, then sprinkle kosher salt and cracked pepper all over them. Heck, you could even put some cajun seasoning on for a little cajun fry kick. I’m going to try that next time.

Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes. You’ll want to shuffle them around every 10 minutes or so to make sure they get nice and brown all the way around.

Dip them in ketchup and eat every last one without the complimentary side of guilt. MMMmm!

I admit, at first I was skeptical, but after making these, I can really attest to them tasting shockingly similar to regular french fries. Mr. Florida Girl also agrees. A win!

p.s. I’m over on the most adorable blogger, Keira’s website, A Pretty Penny, talking about a little heirloom cedar chest redo. So, check meowt!  Also, you’ll want to stay tuned to A Pretty Penny for amazing outfit inspiration every day and tips from Keira on how to look completely fabulous and put together, all on a budget. xo