Grilled Pizza

is there anything better than pizza for dinner? you would think the answer would be NO, but the only thing better than homemade pizza is homemade grilled pizza.

when i am feeling too lazy to make homemade dough, we use the bread machine, which takes about an hour and you get this:

the first rule about grilled pizza is to be generous with your flour…and cornmeal doesn’t hurt either. you want your pizza to be thick and a little tougher than a thin crust pizza would be.

we use a charcoal grill, which can be a little bit more difficult than a gas grill because you can’t turn down the heat to begin with and you can’t turn up the heat as it starts to burn off.

because charcoal is really hot when you first pour the charcoal in, the best thing to do is to grill your toppings first…putting dough on a grill that’s too hot will give you a burnt and not-cooked-through yucky dough.

we grilled eggplant and onions and also prepared artichokes and fresh mozzarella

next, slide your pizza onto the grill. if you floured and cornmealed enough, this should be fairly easy

keep an eye on it and don’t be afraid to peek!

once you get some nice color on the face down side, flip your pizza dough back onto your pizza peel

you will want to top the pizza as quickly as possible to avoid the charcoal getting too cool. we brushed on pesto and topped with the eggplant, onions, artichoke, and mozzarella.

slide the pizza back onto the grill and close the top immediately…this will help the cheese to melt and your toppings to get nice and hot *with a grilled pizza, it’s important to fully cook all of your ingredients in advance as it won’t be on long enough to cook them*

try not to check too much so that you don’t let all the heat out, but pretty quickly, your pizza should be done

next, the best part– the eating.

it took us a while to perfect this, so if for some reason the charcoal isn’t hot enough and you are unable to melt the cheese, pop it into the oven under the broiler to finish it off…it will still have that amazing smokey taste .

bon apetit!

Mother’s Day Weekend- aka Furnish the House Weekend

how was everyone’s mother’s day weekend? ours was spectacular…for many reasons. first- my whole family was able to come up for the weekend and spend two days together before my lovely siblings head out to other parts of the country for the remainder of 2012. my mom said that all she wanted for Mother’s Day was to have us all together and we were happy to make that happen

it was such a gorgeous weekend, weather-wise, that after everyone went home on Sunday, Dan and i were able to explore a state park that is only about 1.5 miles from our house. we couldn’t be more excited that this gorgeous place full of hiking & biking trails, kayaking, picnicking, camping grounds, and an epic frisbee golf area is within minutes of us. check out some pictures from the 3 mile hike we chose:

it was part country roads, part peaceful woods

part beautiful lake

and ended with gorgeous eye candy in the form of a 1900s mansion…sounds like my kind of hike!

it was nice to get out and do something non-house related for a change since 2 months ago when we moved in. however, the weekend wasn’t all play . we could not be more lucky to have the best family & friends who always think of us when they get new furniture as they know how much we like to repurpose/refinish things…especially *free* things. i mean, seriously, who doesn’t love free beautiful furniture?

so basically, i am now well-stocked with projects from now until 2013. the first piece came to us when we first moved in, from my grandmother and grandfather’s lake house, which has since been occupying our entranceway:

this weekend, our family and friends worked tirelessly to help dan load all the new furniture onto a moving truck and into our house. here is the new lineup:

a wonderful new 1.5 sofa and ottoman to complete our reading nook. it is SOOOO comfortable and we have been enjoying the corner even more since its arrival.

next, this adorable desk…sewing nook, anyone? can’t wait to refinish this with something fun…i am open to ideas!

the desk was part of a whole bedroom set with a beautiful long dresser to finish off our upstairs guest room:

as well as a headboard/footboard:

and mirror which used to be attached to the dresser, but i can’t wait to find somewhere else to hang/repurpose it:

i love the clean lines of all these pieces.

one of my favorite pieces (for sentimental reasons) is my Nana’s dresser. i am thrilled to have it in our home and i am kind of in love with the crazy finish…although you may all call me crazy for loving it.

the detail, to me, is beautiful:

speaking of detail, here is another dresser which is currently in our family room and will probably become a behind-the-couch table/storage:

any ideas on a color scheme for this one?

and then last, but certainly not least, the retro-glam piece from my parents old set:

can’t wait to figure out what to do with this guy

so the question is…where to start?

Fireplace Before & After

when we first started the fireplace re-do, we thought it would be quick & easy…give a few pointed swings to the plaster, it would crumble to the ground, and we would give the brick a quick coat of paint.

little did we know that there were a few surprises in store, including the plaster removal process being excruciatingly difficult, as well as a hidden chopped-off mantle– check out the first steps here.

here’s what the fireplace looked like during our inspection, covered in plaster (boring):

after a lot of hard work, we exposed the brick and the hidden used-to-be-a-mantle:

you can see that the plaster removal damaged a lot of the bricks, taking chunks of them with it as we hammered it off (i use the “we” term lightly here, of course).

we used a brick/grout filler to spot patch these areas of damaged brick after priming

the best thing about painting is that you really can’t tell the difference after it dries and gets painted.

for the hidden mantle, we chipped out as much of the leftover wood as we could, and then used a “patch and level” product to smooth it out.

i picked out some marble tiles on amazon.com with my amazon credit card points…yay for free tile!

we spread quikset and then applied the tiles:

yes, we are absolutely using paint stirrers for spacers…improvise, people!

after grouting, i painted with Behr’s ultra high gloss paint in ultra white and…..ta da!

next step for this room is for Dan to begin the wiring for the tv and me getting over the scary idea of drilling into the fireplace for the mount…eeek!

Before & After

it’s no secret that i have professed my undying love for different shades of grey with white trim.

after all, our former living room:

family room:

master bedroom:

and mudroom all sported shades of grey with white trim:

..but you know how in middle school and/or high school you had crushes on boys/girls and you thought it was true love? And then you met THE ONE and realized that it was all just a silly crush?

Well, if Dan were a paint color, he would be Martha Stewart’s Seal with white trim, because i am in serious LOVE people. a love so deep that this may just be my favorite paint-before-and-after ever….seriously, ever.

have i built up enough suspense yet?

let’s take a look at the befores for memory’s sake:

yellow,

yellow, more yellow,

and more yellow:

and NOW for the after…

this is probably more true to the real color in direct sunlight:

and in the darkness, it morphs into an inky black…which i was initially worried about, thinking a dark black color would feel too cold, but in reality, it’s just the opposite. i think it gives the room this amazing cozy feeling that transforms the room…

seriously, i can’t stop looking at the walls…

Simple Updates

i wish i had a reveal for you, but we’re still working diligently on it! there were so many things that i didn’t think about when i started this dining room/reading nook makeover. #1- the radiators..what a pain in the you-know-what. #2- i just realized that the skylights were actually painted yellow too..who does that?? #3- everything is taking 2 solid coats of paint + primer to cover the horrendous yellow.

when i got to painting the door and trim of the door, the horrible brass hardware was staring me in the face:

i got to work removing the hardware, which consisted of two door bolts, a handle on each side of the door, and the dead bolt.

the first thing i did was wash all the hardware with soap & water, and then i scrubbed all pieces down with a wire brush to rough them up a bit and get them ready for their makeover.

i chose the ever-popular ORB spray paint (oil-rubbed bronze) by Rust-Oleum

i did two coats of primer…waiting until noon so that the temperature would be over 50 degrees!

and then i did 3-4 coats of oil-rubbed bronze spray paint:

once i put the hardware back on the door, it was an immediate update:

the room is looking better already!

oh, and on another note, how cute are these cacti?

i picked them up at IKEA for $2 per cactus and $.49 per porcelain pot. we usually can’t keep any plants in the house like flowers, herbs, etc because the cats chew on every single one that i have tried and they eventually die when all their leaves and stems have been chewed to death. Enter the spiny cactus…let’s see them try to chew these .

Opening Day

since we moved in 6 weeks ago, we have been staring at this in the backyard:

until today!

we called our local pool company to inquire as to when we should schedule our pool opening. considering that neither of us have ever had a pool before, we wanted to guidance of the experts for our first opening to learn more about the steps to turning on the filter, pumps, etc.  we were under the impression that most people open around Memorial Day weekend in these parts, but the reality is that pool companies have been recommending openings since April 1st due to the unusually warm Spring. with a vinyl liner pool, you keep the pool filled completely throughout the winter because the water helps to keep the liner in place. when that pool water stays continuously at a higher temperature as Spring “springs”, you start to grow algae…

exhibit A:

welcome to our jewel green pool! on the bright side (no pun intended ), the pumps are working, the filter is filtering, and the chlorine is pulsing through and starting to clear everything up. in 24 hours, we will be taking a quart of the water to the pool place and they will tell us the chemicals we need to add based on their analysis.

after the pool guys did their thing, we got to take a test run. or…Dan got to play with the new toy and i got to take pictures.

look at my cute pool boy.

course, we need to work on what the proper tool to fish things out of the filter is…not my pasta spoon.

i did have to step in when this was discovered coming out of the filter:

my pool boy is NOT a fan of spiders.

in honor of the pool opening, i decided to pull the trigger on some pool furniture…more specifically a chaise lounge. i have been agonizing over many chaises, at many different stores. most of which were between $600-$800 per chair, which was way out of my budget. this is what i ended up purchasing:

they are the APPLARO chaises from IKEA, which are made of stained acacia wood, which is very durable and only needs a new coat of stain every couple of years.

can’t wait for the first warm day!

…and maybe a blue-er pool

Paint, paint, paint

did y’all think i was just chillin in my PJs while dan worked on the fireplace?

i was in paint up to my ears this weekend…literally, i found some inside my ear while enjoying my coffee at work Tuesday morning. hopefully no one else noticed it before i did…

do you ever look at a weekend and think about all the projects you are going to complete, completely underestimating the time it is going to take to complete the projects? ya, that was me this weekend.

first on the agenda was finishing off the upstairs living space ceilings. here is the asbestos-laden popcorned before:

here’s what all the ceilings looked like when we moved in (and what most of them currently look like):

it was a BIG room, and i think my neck/shoulders are permanently sore.

here’s the after…finally!

please try to ignore the big bird shade of yellow and the bachelor pad style furniture that is currently occupying this room..

i’m just happy that a big chunk of ceiling is looking bright, white, and clean!

so basically, that huge ceiling took me an entire day to paint, edge, and paint a second coat.

the sun rose on day #2 and i couldn’t wait to get my hands on the most exciting project (to me), my first adventure in a dark & daring shade of paint!

are you ready for what i am about to say? listen closely because i am probably never going to say it again…

i wish we didn’t have so many windows…

okay, that’s a lie. i don’t wish we had less windows, but painting trim REALLY sucks. big time. it is so time-consuming and everything needs more than one coat to cover up this horrendous yellow. not to mention painting all the radiators.

i also had to face my fear of falling and crawl all the way up to the top of this guy:

i wouldn’t say i have a paralyzing fear of heights, but once i get up there, i am a uncomfortable and short of breath the whole time.

you know what else made painting difficult?

painting a cats favorite place to jump/sit/stand is not convenient…especially when you have one of those newfangled open floor plans that you can’t corral them into one room.

soooo…no reveal yet, but i’m working on it!

Unexpected Surprises

when we first moved into the house, we hung a picture on the fireplace as a place holder while we worked on the tv power/cable relocation project. this is what we have been looking at:

which i liked, because i love that picture with a white backdrop.however, i started thinking about how i would feel once the TV was hung there and the pretty picture was gone and i wasn’t diggin’ it. i felt like it would be very stark. thus, a plan is hatched to expose the brick fireplace behind the plaster.

i had showed this sneak preview last week…it’s messy. we had originally thought that the plaster would have been put on the brick fireplace the “right” way, basically on top of strapping that would have separated it from the brick. unfortunately, it was plastered right on top, which explains why it was not a smooth finish and was lumpy.

and then, without fail, the unexpected surprise. you know that one that creeps into pretty much every DIY project that you think in your mind should be “easy”.

as you can see, dan had done some good damage by the time we uncovered the wood strip. but…there was no stopping now!

so he kept hitting…

and hitting…

…..and resting?

let’s take a closer look at the blaring line across the middle:

clearly, prior to the plastering, there was a mantle that was poorly ripped out, leaving a jagged line of wood.

i will admit that i freaked out *just a tiny bit* when i saw this…what to do? the only thing i can think of is a possible tile strip across here? what are your thoughts?

picture a white fireplace with a strip across of something like this…or like this?

did i mention that this was messy?

i think i spent more time vacuuming this stuff with the shop vac than i have ever used a vacuum in my combined entire life.

after the bulk of the plaster was off, it was using the chisel and the mallet to get the smaller areas that were still stuck on:

and here’s where we are at now:

still some more chiseling to do…

who thinks we made a HUGE mistake for exposing this brick? i am pretty excited to see the finished product myself

Bachelor Pad

hope everyone’s weekend is going well !

my little brother, Joe, is graduating college in a couple weeks and moving out to the Sacramento, CA area for a great job offer from a major computer company.

this is him (on the left, in case you weren’t sure):

since he is moving across the entire country (we grew up in CT), he is heading there with zero possessions aside from his clothes and needs to furnish a whole apartment. i have never done any designing for spaces other than our own house before, but i decided to try some mood boards for his new place! Keep in mind that these are VERY basic and my first attempt. He is also only 22 y.o. and on a budget…really only looking for the basics right now. i kept that mind when creating these as he will be mainly heading to the local IKEA.

Here we go:

The Bedroom

Bedroom:
1. MALM bed frame, high, black/brown, Full size: $179
2. ODDA 3 drawer chest, black/white, $99.99
3. ODDA nightstand, $49.99
4. KLAB table lamp, beige: $29.99
Total Cost: $359

The Living Space:

Living Space:
1. TIDAFORS corner sofa, edsken dark grey: $1,099
2. VISHULT gilded city picture: $49.99
3. BAROMETER floor/reading lamp, nickel-plated: $59.99

4. TOFTERYD Coffee Table, high gloss black: $199
5. HULDA VILSE, rug low pile: $39.99
6. BESTA BURS tv unit, high-gloss grey: $249.00
Total Cost: $1,699

Miscellaneous:

Miscellaneous:
1. STIG bar stool with backrest, black/silver: $16.99 x 2: $34
2. LJUSAS UVAS desk lamp, blue: $39.99
3. GALANT desk, white: $85
4. RUTGERS/JULES swivel chair with casters, black: $59.99
5. TORSBY/TOBIAS Table and 2 chairs, glass, grey: $308.98
Total Cost: $528

TOTAL COST FOR FULL APT: $2,586

thanks for giving me some fun, Joe

Eat This. Now.

85 degree+ weather in New England in April must be celebrated. pretty much everyone and the neighbor was out grilling last sunday, which called for my favorite grill recipe EVER. plus, is there any better way to celebrate spring than with a grill and asparagus? i think not.

do any of you read Pink Parsley? it’s one of my favorite food blogs for recipes. a year ago (May 2011) she posted a recipe for Grilled Asparagus Panzanella which is pretty much god’s gift to my stomach. for those of you who don’t know, panzanella is a bread salad…and can anything with bread actually taste bad? No.

Recipe:

cut up into large chunks a red onion, red pepper (actually it calls for yellow, but the yellow peppers were twice as much $$ so i subbed haha), and trim your asparagus.

next, find yourself a delicious loaf of sourdough (or other crusty bread) and slice. brush everything with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

send platter to your husband/wife/significant other who is manning the grill

make sure they get some good char flavor on everything

bonus points if you dress to match your astro-turf

mmmmm….

in the meantime, get some pine nuts toasting in the oven (or toaster oven if you have one). don’t be stingy, pine nuts are delicious!

chop up some grape tomatoes and chiffonade some basil (fancy word )

next prepare your vinaigrette, which consists of-

just pretend that the rice wine vinegar is white wine vinegar (i ran out)

also pretend that there is a log of goat cheese in the picture above, because that’s one of the.most.important.parts.

cut all of your grilled items into a large dice and mix everything together, crumbling the goat cheese and folding in-

don’t even try to take a small portion because you can’t stop eating it, it’s THAT good. you will notice that the recipe link has olives in it, which i leave out as i am not a fan…also i think it would overpower the flavor a little too much for my liking anyways.

enjoy!!