When you're not looking

It was hard to curb my enthusiasm for furnishing our home but we've done a decent job stretching it over the course of the year. Most of our living area is furnished now but our bedroom could use some sprucing up. We splurged on crystal orb lamps and a nice dresser and bed tables but our bed is still on metal castors bereft of any dressing. Almost a year ago, we fell in love with this Collette bed from Crate and Barrel. We both liked how it was klutz-proof so even if I do bang my shin against it, it probably won't hurt as much as it would against sharp wooden corners. I guess we also have a thing for cream colored curves with nailhead trim because it's pretty much just like our sofas haha. I dislike the look of matchy matchy stuff but I think it's far removed from the living room enough that it won't look like we bought a set yet close enough to unify the decor.



Anyway, over the course of time, I've stumbled on the Collete but at $1800, we just couldn't stomach the price. I found a similar one on Overstock a few months back but it was still $1100. I decided to switch tactics and searched for headboards only instead of a platform bed. There were plenty of tufted upholstered ones but they still cost $400 or so for the ones that I liked and it still seemed wasteful to spend $400 on a piece of fabric covered plywood.

So what did we do?

Nothing. Dismissed it. We decided after our harried dining table adventure that we wouldn't rush into things. (In our defense, we had to get a dining set quickly because hubby's grandmother wanted to have dinner at our place before she went back to the East coast after our wedding). I digress. Tonight, tired and bored, I felt the urge to look at Target and found Collette's twin, Rochelle.



For about 1/3 of the Crate & Barrel's Collette, free shipping coupon, a bing 10% discount and a forgotten wedding gift card (Thanks Dan!), we got it delivered for just under $450! Is it risky to buy online, sight unseen? Nah, in this case, it's actually "Return to Target Store" friendly!

Now that we can handle! And it will be ours very soon. I cannot wait!

Table Re-Do

When hubby and I moved into our first house, his parents gave us an old dining set to use. At first, it was meant to be a makeshift temporary nook table but as time went on, I found out that hubby is secretly very attached to the table. This dining table belonged to his parents and they've had it for over 20 years. This table has been well loved and the finish has worn to bare wood in many places over the decades of repeated use and wiping. Long scratches mar the surface and the style is most definitely of the 80's variety. There was hope though--the set was solid hardwood which made it durable, light, and best of all, refinishable. (Is that even a word?) I digress. The chairs were still in good condition--the finish was still shiny but the cushions were stained in some places. As a compromise to replacing the set altogether, hubby agreed to let me refinish it and re-upholster the chair cushions.

Now...I took construction in high school and loved it so I had some idea of how to proceed. I didn't have a lot of the tools for a truly professional looking job but luckily, the "craftsman" style is in so a few nicks and bumps along the way just adds to the character. Here is the before:



Most of the wooden furniture in our house is a deep brown and leans more towards the classic/romantic look but there is no way that I could give the little table a deep stain and still have it look legitimate. It'd look like it was trying too hard to be something it is not. No...I examined the table further and realized that it has some Pottery Barn-esque possibilities. Small. Cute. Shabby Chic. Kind of like this:



Oooh...when I see this, I automatically thought of summer and sunshine. All this torrential rain makes me long for sunshine. So I thought...what if I painted the set white and redid the cushions in a summery yellow like this?



After some hemming and hawing, I decided to go for it. It doesn't really match or serve as a cohesive transition from the great room to the kitchen, but it's such a cute little table. Here it is, after 2 full days of sanding, priming, painting, glossing, and covering.



I'm hoping I did the right thing. There is no question the table needed to be refinished but I'm not 100% sure the white & yellow works inside. It'd be great for the outdoor patio that I am dreaming about though. It's too late to redo it now and I'm too exhausted to even contemplate another go around so I guess we'll just keep it as is.

Total cost: $20
Time spent: 25 hours

The breakdown:
Paint: free, all leftover from previous owners
Brushes/Supplies: n/a since the brushes were leftover from previous painting projects. Sure got our moneys worth!
Sunbrella outdoor mod yellow fabric: $20

Furnishing the Great Outdoors

The forecast for the next week is going to be gloomy, wet, and rainy but that isn't stopping me from imagining warmer days ahead! We had a BBQ over the weekend but spent most of the time indoors because of the weather. I have been longing for warmer weather and since it should arrive any day now, I am looking forward to spending lots of quality time outside. The benefit of buying an older home is that the landscaping has had a chance to mature and grow. In all but winter time, the leafy branches on the trees along the backyard create a delicate screen that provides us a lot of privacy from the neighbors behind us.

In order to enjoy the yard though, we do need a bit of furnishing. I'm sure that most people by now have heard of the design concept of "bringing in the outdoors" via plants or similarly hued colors. Our house has plenty of houseplants now...in the living room alone, we have one tree that is taller than I am, one palm, and seven varieties of houseplants. Even when we decided to do an indoor wedding, I still found a way to bring in plenty of chiffon draping and real trees decorated with fresh orchids.

A twist to bringing in the outdoors is to create rooms in the outdoors. The thought occurred to me during our multiple wedding planning brainstorms. I loved the plush outdoor "lounges" created by cascading filmy fabric on canopies and fancy sofas and chaises that were all the rage for weddings. Now, I am starting to see outdoor "rooms". Wouldn't this be an absolutely lovely place to sit and read on a warm summer afternoon? Or having friends over for an evening of cocktails and 'smores?



It looks like all they did was add some fabric and colorful accents to turn an ordinary covered patio into something exotic and alluring. The illusion french doors and windows were pure genius.


This picture is of a Portland porch. Again, a little bit of fabric and thoughtful furnishings went a long way into making this a cozy retreat. What a great place to sit and have afternoon tea!



For something super simple and festive, why not stake some bamboo poles into the grass ( or in pails filled with concrete) and drape fabric over it for an instant tent? Add in colorful print tablecloth for a much cuter and more comfortable way to picnic in the backyard. No more numb legs from sitting or sunburn from overhead!

(source for pics)

All in good time :) Probably not this summer unless I score some killer deals but someday.

Serendipitous Finds

Last fall, I tried my hand at making okonomiyaki, a type of Japanese bar food that is often given the misnomer of "Japanese pizza". It's actually more like a Chinese Egg Foo Young or Jewish latkes in theory but kicked up ten notches with goodies like shaved bento flakes, kewpie mayo, a tangy sauce, green onions, and dried seaweed flakes.



In some regions of Japan, it is made with yakisoba noodles in it but I preferred to keep it lighter.The result is a slightly crispy, chewy, veggie and seafood pancake. The ingredients were readily available, including the bonito flakes, but I could not find plain seaweed flakes for the life of me! I found furikake rice seasoning stuff but I could not find plain seaweed flakes. The aisles of the Japanese market had absolutely no rhyme or reason to it but after several rounds, I came upon this tin of seaweed powder.



Thinking that it was perhaps the same thing, I went ahead and bought it. It was evident when I got home that it was not the same thing and I ended up using rice seasoning on the okonomiyaki after all. It has been nearly a year hence and I totally forgot about the little tin of seaweed powder until today. To my delight, this is what I found!

"Kinjyo Jirushi Konbu Cha won awards from the Ministry of Aquaculture of Japan and Osaka City Government.

This is a savory tea made from dried konbu (seaweed) powder. You can drink it by just adding hot water. Since it has a touch of saltiness, some people use it in cooking to replace salt. The konbu (kelp) is known for containing an abundance of fibers, iodine, calcium, minerals, vitamins and iron. The charm of the Japanese women's black hair and skin is said to be related to the hormones secreted by the thyroid gland. Drinking this tea on a regular basis will help to regulate your hormone production and keep your skin and hair beautiful. Drinking Konbu Cha is believed to lower blood cholesterol, decrese constipation, and recover from exhaustion. In Japan, Konbu (kelp) is often seen at celebrating occasions to symbolize felicity. This is because the sound 'konbu' is similar to the word 'yorokobu' which means 'to rejoice' in Japanese." (source)

Very cool. My mom often made us a seaweed soup called "fa(1) chai(3)" that looks like black hair and told us that it'd make our hair darker and prettier. She also made us weird black dumplings filled with black sesame paste for the same reason. I used to think that all east Asians had naturally black hair but when I moved to SoCal, I discovered that there is a small minority of east Asians with naturally light hair ranging from honey brown to reddish brown. Even my full-blooded Chinese nephew had dishwater blonde hair for the first 2 years of his life that is only a deep brown even now. Maybe there is some truth to the seaweed after all.

Either way, I am happy that my little mistake yielded something new and fun for me to try. Use in place of salt? Why yes, indeed.

Yay for Propagation!

A few weeks ago, I brought back a spider plant I purchased 10+ years ago to my new house. It was very gray, scraggly, and small. I took it apart to repot and discovered that it was actually 6 plants stuck inside a small pot! I have since separated them and repotted them. They are now a vibrant green and flourishing rapidly. Spider plants are hardy but after 10 years, it needed some serious nutrients.

Yesterday, I brought home a very ill looking spider plant from my mom's house to nurse it back to health. It is also at least 10 years old, possibly 15, and also grayed, wimpy, and stunted. I separated them and put them into 5 pots. In less than 24 hours, the gray cast is gone and it's almost fully vibrant green again! I'm looking forward to when my mom sees them hehe. She'll be so surprised to see 5 healthy plants!

While I was at it, I also brought back my 10 year old Christmas catcus and started propagating most of my other houseplants. It was a big project and I managed to double almost all of them. I ran out of pots for the tiny little shoots and baby plants towards the end with random plants left here and there. Then it hit me, I had mini 2 inch pots from the flowers I bought for my hanging planter! They were the perfect size for my much coveted terrariums!

And here you have it! A mini peace lilly, a shoot of a mother-in-law's tongue, and a darling patch of african violets.

The Daily System

We went to our friend's house for dinner earlier this week and had a great time eating yummy food and talking about the joys of marriage. Surprisingly, we had very similar experiences so it was such a relief to know that we weren't alone in our neurosis. We just felt a lot better sharing laughs as well as serious talks ranging from budgeting all the way to organic eggs from the farmer's market. One of the things we noticed at their house was their super cute and organized daily calendar with menus written on a small whiteboard in the hallway. For them, it helps them stick to their grocery budget. I also liked how every two days was a "leftovers" day. I dislike leftovers so having a set "leftover" day will make me stop making more stuff.

We both left that night thinking that a weekly menu/calendar was just what we needed to keep our schedules in synch. I don't really like the smell of dry erase boards so I went on the hunt for chalkboard. While I was at it, I wanted something to hold mail that comes in because right now, it just gets tossed onto the kitchen counter. Lastly, hubby has a habit of tossing his wallet and keys in any nook or cranny that is immediately available to him. It'd be better for all purposes if we had a designated place for his keys too.

Armed with those requirements, I set out browsing Pottery Barn for inspiration and it did not disappoint:


Here is a close up. It's cute, it holds mail, keys, and I can mix in a chalkboard panel instead of the magazine files if I wanted to, but at $118, I think I will look elsewhere.


Since I'm looking for something to contain errant mail, stray keys, and love notes, What about the Container Store?


Or this modern one:


This one is too cute!


At a low starting price of $12.99, these were truly great budget buys to contain mail and keys, but I wasn't sure how the chalkboard/calendar thing would fit.

Then it hit me, IKEA might have something available. A quick search yielded (almost) exactly what I was looking for:


Chalkboard? check. Mail slot? check. Key hangers: done. done. and done.

The only thing I don't like about it is that the square design is a little elementary skool looking. I'll probably distress it and repaint it a streaky blue/green. Seriously. Or white. But distressed blue has a bit more character to it.

Another idea is to ikeahack this frame:


and turn it into something like this!



I am loving the ornate look but that begs the question of what to do with mail & keys all over again. O options, my never ending temptress!

Simple Things in Life

Baking bread is one of the most satisfying and simplest pleasures in life but I used to be so scared to try it. I don't know why I boldly venture into quiches, tarts, and even home made puff pastry without a second thought but the idea of baking bread has me cowering in a corner. Once, when I was in middle school, I baked bread from a recipe on the back of a flour packet. It was under baked, a little dense, but otherwise decent. Still...it would be over over ten years later before I dared try it again.

A while ago, I read an article on "no knead bread" from the New York Times. It was suppose to be virtually fool proof but it required high quality bakeware that I didn't own at the time. Now, thanks to a dear friend who blessed us with a Le Creuset dutch oven, I have the requisite vessel. Two weeks ago, I anxiously proofed the dough overnight and hovered around it as it baked. To my great joy and delight, it was a beautiful round of rustic artisanal bread! It was crusty, chewy, with nice hole structure. I used just a few ingredients: a mix of whole wheat and unbleached all purpose flour, some yeast, water, and love. Supermarket bread, in contrast, have dozens of ingredients. Even high end bread (not Wonder bread) have chemicals in it to keep it fresh. Homemade bread is so much fresher and healthier for you. The whole process of baking something as fundamental as bread is soothing and appealing. It's like I'm transported to a simpler time and place.

Emboldened by my rustic loaf, I tried a classic sandwich loaf from King Arthur flours. I didn't have milk but I did have buttermilk leftover from a red velvet cake so I used that instead. I think I underbaked this one and it was more cakey and muffin-like in texture than springy, chewy, bread. Taste wise, it was good but I will try this recipe next time.



What I have realized is that good bread making requires very good equipment. The bread above was baked in Chicago Metallic Commercial loaf pans. About $11/ea at Bed Bath and Beyond. Next time I get a 20% coupon in the mail, 2 of these beauties will be mine. Yes, two, because bread freezes well and I'm afraid to tamper with the recipe to make it yield fewer servings. Baking is a science and I am but a poor Humanities graduate.

Below are next on my to buy list!

Pullman pan with lid for perfectly squared edges. You know, like bread from Asian bakeries.


Baking stone, for better heat distribution and retention.


Good bulk yeast-cheaper than supermarket packets and guaranteed to rise.


Bench scraper- to remove dough without tearing gluten.


(source)