Dining Room Hutch

When I bought my Dining room furniture almost 5 years ago I had only wanted the buffet and not the hutch. Loved it for the first 4 1/2 years and then I decided I wanted the hutch on top. After searching the internet for the matching piece and then calling the manufacturer directly, I found out that the whole set had been discontinued and was no longer available. Ugghhh! I'm a very matchy matchy kinda person so not having the exact piece that matched perfectly was hard for me to imagine looking nice. Well I knew I had to fight those feelings if I was ever going to get a hutch. And so a couple days later I saw a commercial for a local furniture store that was going out of business. So that saturday my husband, kids and I went to that store and looked for what I hoped would be the perfect hutch. I didn't see anything but my wonderful husband spotted something underneath a pile of stuff as we were leaving. It was a hutch, looked about the right size, but it was white and I needed black. I'll admit I can be lazy sometimes and I don't like to re-finish furniture. But my sweet hubby convinced me he could paint it to match and so we asked to see how much it was. We were completely surprised when he came back and said $100.00. That was it? The parts alone were worth more than that. So we took it home only to discover that it hung over the buffet 4 inches too long. My husband, he's so amazing, he took out 4 inches thru the middle, re-built the whole piece and painted it black. I love that my husband was the one who saw potential in it the whole time.
Here's what it looked like half way thru. (I didn't even think to take a pic before he even started.) And then you can see what it looks like now!




He totally made it perfect and I Love it!

From the garden

We've got alot in our garden this year and this week was the first time that we were able to go out and pick from it to make dinner. There are tomatoes and peppers just about ready but the basil is what I cooked with the other day. My daughter Rachel helps water the garden and prays every night that it will grow, so I let her go out and pick the basil and then wash it.
I made a very simple Basil Pesto that I served over liguini. Here is the recipe...

2 cups fresh basil leaves
1/2 cup olive oil
2 Tablespoons pine nuts
3 garlic cloves
Put ingredients in blender till well blended
Then put in bowl and whip in 3 Tablespoons butter at room temp. with 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese and 2 tablespoons grated romano cheese.
Remove 1-2 Tablespoons hot water from the pasta and add to pesto.

Enjoy!

I bought this chandelier when we first bought this house almost 5 years ago. It was a much needed upgrade to the brass one that the builder put in. It's pretty basic and black which is what I wanted. I figured I could always change the look of it with new shades. However, my style changes quite often and the dining room itself has already seen 3 different looks in the past 5 years. But my most recent change to the Dining room is one that for sure will last. With the new look, I really wanted an all black crystal chandelier. I knew I could convince my husband to let me purchase a new fixture. I'd remind him how the one we have now only cost me $100.00 , and that was 5 years ago, and knowing how my husband spoils me, he'll for sure say yes. And like i thought, he said sure, but it turned out that I was the one not wanting to spend the money. I decided to be creative and create the look I wanted without buying a new chandelier. So the first thing I bought was a new set of black shades. Then i went to the jewlery section at Michaels. I bought some black beading wire and some black beads. Without much money spent and in very little time I had a new look to my chandelier, one that I love and am very proud of.

Pantry Door Re-do

I've been wanting a new pantry door for sometime now. I've looked for antique doors but found none that would fit. I wanted a screen door but the husband wasn't liking that idea. I settled on ordering a new glass door at Lowes but that didn't work out either. I'm glad none of those ideas worked because they would have cost me more money than I would have wanted to spend. So I went thru my paints and and decided to paint it a distressed black. The only cost I had was the new hardware. I wanted a glass knob style with a skeleton key. I know most people probably don't have a lock on their pantry door but I need it with my 3 kids. :) So I ended up spending around $20.00 and I got a new look to my pantry door that I love!

Now off to my next project! :-)

coupons

So this is my first official blog and what else am I going to blog about but....coupons! Anyone who knows me knows how in to coupons I am. Why pay full price if you don't have to, right? I started clipping over a year ago and can't believe how much I've saved. Being a stay at home mom, it's given me a great feeling in that I contribute financially. Because lets face it, I know how to spend in other areas (i.e. HOMEGOODS) :-)

Here is just a sample of some things that I've bought recently. Take a guess at how much I paid. There's name brand stuff there. Gotta guess? Did you guess FREE. Not only free but I actually MADE money on these items. On the hot sauce alone they gave me over $3.00. And all because of clipping coupons and a little smart shopping.

So this is my coupon book. I started out with the smaller accordian type folders and have quickly progressed to this. I use baseball card holders which makes it very easy to use. I can clearly see all my coupons and their expiration dates which makes my shopping alot faster.

Here are just a couple tips I have

1. Find out what your grocery store coupon policy is. My store doubles coupons up to 99 cents everyday. They also occasionally do triple coupons.

2. Just because something is on sale 2/$4, doesnt always mean you have to buy 2 of that item.

The same with BOGO's (buy one get one free), almost always I just buy 1 and get it at half price.

3. Some grocery stores honor other stores ads.

So don't forget to get your sunday paper and clip those coupons!