A Bedroom Idea Was Born on Friday Night

We spent last Friday night watching one of our favorite movies with friends:

 

Hilarious.  Something in one of the scenes caught my eye and I didn't say anything, but I have been doing some research.  I noticed the wall behind the bed in this scene:

This is the best picture I could find, but I LOVE the accent wall behind the bed and how it's textured and kind-of like wallpaper (it actually may be wallpaper)... not sure.  I am also currently in LOVE with this bedside bench from Pier 1:

 Not a great pic, but if you have a Pier 1, go see it. It's beautiful.  It may be my inspiration for re-purposing the old coffee table into a new bench.  I just have to figure out how to do it.  I have been thinking a lot about curtains in our room, too.  We have those nice blinds, but I don't really like them.  We have a weird set of windows: one on each side of the bed and one extra one in the corner.  I thought about floor-length curtains, but that didn't seem like it would work.

So, I thought with some cool accent wall behind the bed, I wouldn't need big textured curtains and I could either keep what I have or get some other plain/solid ones.  So I did some research on non-wall-papered accent walls.  I am not about to attempt any sort of wall-paper-hanging.  I mostly got stenciled ideas, which are great.  Then I found this on Pinterest:

This is officially my bedroom inspiration picture.  I will do this.  And the headboard coordinates with the Pier 1 bench.  And I love gray.  And I promise I can do it without making it girly.  I made a goal for myself to not make my house girly.  I hate going into  other homes and seeing really girly rooms with tons of flower prints and pink striped walls and whatnot.  Dude.  Your husband has to sleep in there!!!!  Not fair.  So, I made it a personal goal to not make any room "girly".  Except my closet. 

Garage--Just for Fun

Yes, we have a garage.  It's just a one car garage but there is sooo much extra space for other stuff.  I do NOT like things to be unorganized, so the fact that I'm sharing this with you is big.  I have major plans for the organization pretty-ness of this garage.  First of all, we plan to use all of our WVU decorations from our old townhouse to "decorate" the garage.  That is, after we paint it.  It is all ready to be painted, but it definitely won't happen for a while... maybe next spring or summer?  

Josh installed those shelving units soon after we moved in.  As you can see, they are disorganized.  Yuck.  And there are still boxes underneath that we haven't unpacked from the move in JUNE!  Those stairs lead to a door in the foyer.  

                            

And up next is our little sink area.  The shelf next to it is currently filled with spray paint and other paint-related things.  And tons of gallons of paint on the ground.  The previous owners left all of it, which are very grateful for.

This is an old dresser that I love (but doesn't really work well in our bedroom).  I am sending it back to my mom's as soon as we can get it there.

My goals for the garage are:

1. Paint
2. De-clutter
3. Organize with lots of shelving/storage
4. Have a place for all of our WVU decor/memorabilia.

Happy (or not-so-happy) Monday!

Before and Not-So-After: Kitchen

I just realized that I haven't shared the kitchen since we moved in.  Well, that's because it looks pretty much the same.  We like the color  A LOT, so we are definitely going to keep it.  We like the color of the cabinets, and there really isn't much wall space.  We will do some little things in the future to make it more personal, but for now we are happy.  The kitchen is also very difficult to photograph because it is narrow and small.

Before:

 

And after:

I bought that fruit bowl at Wal Mart (it was brown) for $5 and spray painted it white.  We like the curtains above the sink (for now), so we will keep them.  The picture on our window sill is one we found underneath the refrigerator while cleaning.  We have no idea who she is so we named her Ava and her semi-permanent home is the kitchen window.

 

We now have our coffee pot, tea kettle, and spice rack over here.  Thankfully, we registered for all stainless steel and black appliances and it just so happens that they match very well :-)  We added some wine bottles that were extras from our friends' wedding.  They might be there for a while.

All we did over here was put that monogrammed grocery list on the side of the fridge.  I would REALLY like a print of lemons and limes or some sort of fruit over on that wall.  I am desperately trying to bring more "nature" into our home.  Still looking...

I found these at Big Lots for $3 each and loved the print.  I really like leaves and I really like canvas.  Plus, they were the first step in bringing nature inside.

I thought it would be a good idea to hang them in different directions, but I have changed them since.  They are both hung the same way.

They do look greener in real life.

And I bought this cute thing at TJ Maxx when shopping in Morgantown a while ago with my mom.  I pictured putting three daisies in it, but this seems to work for now.  They are leaves and berries from one of my bushes outside.

There you have it.  I have a few ideas to make the kitchen more personal, but will probably wait to tackle those.  For now, I am still working on bringing nature inside :-)

Tasty Tuesdays: Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

***Tasty Tuesdays is for sharing a meal/dessert/snack recipe that you made this week.  It doesn't have to be gourmet!  It just has to taste good! If you want to link up, let me know and I will link you to my Tuesday posts.  Use this^ button to link back to my page!  

First of all, let me say that fall is my favorite season.  Soup and pasta are my favorite foods.  Soup and pasta are perfect in fall.  Therefore, I will probably be sharing lots of fall-ish recipes.  I found this one in a Family Circle magazine, ripped it out, and forgot about it.  I found it and decided to give it a go.  We ended up really liking it!

1. Gather ingredients:

3 cans chicken broth 

4 cups water

2 boxes of Rice-A-Roni wild rice (should have used wild rice, not rice a roni, but I didn't have any)

1 med onion

some celery

some carrots (we LOVE carrots, so I used a lot)

about 2 chicken breasts cooked and shredded (when I buy chicken breast in bulk, I cook and shred it all, then freeze it for later)

poultry seasoning

salt and pepper

 

2. Sprinkle about 1 c of wild rice into pot.  Add the medium onion, chopped.  Add carrots, peeled and chopped. Add celery, chopped. (I used about two ribs of celery--Josh doesn't really like it)

3. Add chicken, chicken broth, and water.

4.  Add 2 tsp poultry seasoning, 1 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper.

5.  Simmer until rice is cooked.  

I missed a crucial ingredient: the water.  DOH!  It was not soupy at all, but still really good.  Next time, I will use the water :-)  You could also add mushrooms or any other vegetable that you like in your soup.  I usually cut up some celery leaves to put on top, too!