Wallpaper in the Entry

I love how high the ceilings are in our entry, but it makes it a little bit tricky to decorate in there! The big walls just swallow up even two or three pieces of art stacked on each other.

I'm so excited to share more, but at the twelfth hour before the big shoot next week, we have decided to wallpaper the entry! I am beyond excited. 

The wallpaper arrived within an hour of the wallpaper hanger today - just in time! We saved a little bit of money by prepping the walls ourselves, but I wish I could have DIYed the whole thing. I've hung wallpaper a bunch of times before and it's usually a doable project, but this was definitely a job for the pros. A big part of it is we are completely out of time and this was a last minute decision, but the bottom line is I get dizzy just thinking about carefully hanging those long sheets on a 18' ladder! It is worth every pretty penny to get to admire from afar on this one! ;)

I can't wait to share the afters, but in the meantime, I'll show you my inspiration photos. I LOVE how wallpaper can stand alone in a room, and how it looks so magical layered with art and other colors and patterns!

A Bloomsbury Life

BHG

Meredith Heron for Style at Home

Anna Spiro (her gorgeous wallpaper line is HERE)

Celerie Kemble

Alison Womak Jowers

Markam Roberts

Timothy Whealon

Restoring a House in the City

Back to work! On my to do list for tonight: tuft a little headboard and dye six curtain panels. Sheesh - what have I gotten myself into??

DIY Upholstered Bench (from a Coffee Table!)

My latest Domino story is on page 52 of the summer issue and HERE online! Thanks for all your kind comments about the spread and for your support. I thought I would show you a little more background on the project today. We ended up shooting the story twice so I made two different versions of the tops. I'll show you the photos that Domino didn't run.

I found this coffee table at the Meeker Ave Flea Market in Brooklyn. It was stamped Dorothy Draper and I got it for only $10 because it was missing a top. Total score! The color of the stain was not my favorite so we stripped it using varnish remover first and a little bit of stripper.

This product worked pretty well to loosen up the stain and gel stripper helped to take the rest off.

The magic maker was using this Wood Bleach next. It does exactly what it sounds like it would do. It comes in a powder that you make a solution with water and use it to sort of clean the wood. The color lightens pretty quickly.

You'll definitely want to wear gloves for this part of the show. And working in a well-ventilated place is a good idea.

After the wood dried out, we waxed the finish and I LOVE the new color. It's still a little splotchy and dark in some places, but I like it.

I had some plywood cut to fit the top of the coffee table exactly at Home Depot and bought some high-density foam at Joann's with a coupon, along with some batting cut a few inches bigger than the plywood.

For the second try on the IKEA rug-binding, I did a tight whip stitch instead of the X's, which I think is a cleaner look. I used a large darning needle and some neon nylon thread from the hardware store.

Once the rug (which I had cut into three pieces and stitched in two rows) was finished, I lined everything up and layered the plywood, foam and batting under the rug and pulled everything back as tightly as I could while I stapled.

I stapled down the batting while I went too.

When everything was stapled down, I screwed the base to the upholstered top so there would be as small of a gap between the two as possible.

I love how the bench turned out! It was a cheap project and I love how I can use the bench in pretty much any space in the house. I layered it in front of a credenza for the spread and I've used it in our bedroom too.  We have been keeping it in the studio lately and I love the little pop of color from the thread. It fits perfectly under this DIY console table that I'll share later this week. :)

A BIG thanks to Michelle Herrick for the pretty photos in this post!

Cooking (in my NEW KITCHEN!) with Blue Apron

I first heard about Blue Apron when we lived in the city and some our friends would use the service. One of my good friends would always order a Blue Apron box when she was having house guests or if she knew it was going to be a particularly busy week at work.

We are getting the house ready for that magazine shoot, so my mom offered to take my girls up to her house in the mountains for the week so we could focus on projects. It felt like perfect timing when Blue Apron reached out to see if I would like to try a box for myself this week - the last thing I have time for right now is grocery shopping! So last weekend I got my refrigerated box full of the exact proportions of ingredients I needed to make three meals for Michael and I (though you can order the box for either two, four or six servings).

Meals are $9.99 per person - and they are DELICIOUS. These recipes are for sure keepers.

We made the Fresh Beet Pasta and it was so, so, so good! I pretty much love anything with beets, but the lemony tang and the fresh goat cheese and walnuts seriously put this recipe over the edge for me. Blue Apron uses only the freshest ingredients and they try to source local and artisan goods where possible. They were gorgeous.

I love that there's no commitments with Blue Apron. I can skip or cancel my delivery at any time for the weeks I have a little more bandwidth. But sometimes, like this week, where I feel like my brain might explode if I have to make a single more decision, it's nice to have a menu plan and all the ingredients sitting in front of me on my counter top at 5 pm.

The meals are so easy to prepare, especially with the well-designed recipe sheets. All of them take less than 40 minutes to make, though it will look like you slaved away for hours! Michael is always a good sport, but he definitely has an opinion about food (so it's a good thing he's always willing to cook), but this dish was a total home run with him. I'm excited to make it again when the girls get home! Claire loves anything with goat cheese. :)

Also, I was surprised at how generous the serving sizes were! We ended up sharing with friends who stopped over. It was fun to be like, "What? Oh, this? Yeah, I just threw it together. Just a regular old Wednesday night meal..." (as I'm quickly shoving the Blue Apron recipe sheets into a drawer) ;)

Have you tried Blue Apron? I am so excited to use it again and try some new recipes. They ship nearly everywhere in the US (there's a full map here).

And good news! Blue Apron is giving the first 250 readers two free meals with their first order! Here's where you can sign up. Happy cooking!

Black Concrete Countertops

I am pretty sure when we do the bigger kitchen reno in a year or two that we'll want to do soapstone for the main countertops. I love its look and how hard-wearing the stone is. Our little kitchen as it's currently laid out is a little dark though, so I thought I would try dark counters now to make sure that I'm comfortable with the look before we really commit.

Remodelista

I thought Ardex made Feather Finish in black, but they actually only make it in gray and white. So I poked around a little online and then called the Ardex people to make sure I could use this powdered concrete tint.

We built countertops out of scrap plywood to the exact dimensions of the old granite. 

We made the edges thicker by adding a little brick moulding beneath the plywood.

I also added a waterfall edge on the peninsula and I LOVE how it turned out. The first coat of concrete though, I didn't quite use enough black powder.

It turns out about a 1/4 cup to every two cups of concrete is just the right amount.

I used the same exact approach that I used in my laundry room, but this time I used a more expensive food-safe sealer. This stuff is pretty hard core. So far it's been worth every penny! I only needed about half of the bottle for several applications, so I think it's actually a pretty good value.

At sort of the last minute I had a change of heart about the shelving. I had wanted to use a taller series of three or four shelves, but I couldn't get this image from Remodelista out of my mind. I think the single, lower sleek shelf is just perfect here.

So we built a little backsplash and I used a pine board to make a shelf that I also layered in concrete.

It's not quite finished yet, but I was excited to share progress photos. I'm so happy with how everything is coming together! I especially love the black concrete - it's so pretty with the white cabinets. :) The cabinet hardware will finally be here tomorrow (five weeks late!) and we're finishing up the new window and door trim and then I'll take some more photos to share.