My parents have a plum tree and this year's crop was crazy. Like, plums out the ears. Every time we go out there, Greta picks 4 or 5 and eats them as she runs around the yard, leaving the pits strewn across the patio, swing set, garden etc.. Because the tree had so many, they […]
We are no strangers to dark paint. Painting a few walls in our last home's living room a blueish-greenish-almost black (Crave by Kwal Paint) made for one of our favorite before and afters. But I think there were a few things that made that dark paint really work. First, the huge window that let light […]
We closed on our new-ish house yesterday! It was terribly anti-climatic, a formality really. Mostly because we had been living there for a few weeks anyway. We already had the keys. We've already started on a few little projects, but now that things are official--we're calling yesterday our "first day." Let the renovation calendar begin! […]
Something that bugs me is when people use the word "healthy" to describe anything that addresses a food allergy or restriction. For example, I've seen so many recipes for "healthy pizza with cauliflower crust" - I mean, it's cauliflower! Soooo healthy!!! Yeah, then you read the ingredient list and find out that you use as […]
Although I haven't been feeling the best, last night we went out and celebrated the sale of our first home--officially. Whew and Par-tay! Selling a home is stressful even when it goes relatively smooth, but when things go wrong--you might just feel like the world is against you. We have learned that anything can go […]
For those of you who don't follow us on Facebook, you've probably been wondering why there's an overdose of Chris posts lately, and not so much Julia. Jules has been sick and is taking a break from blogging. I'll leave it there for now and let Julia give the details when she's ready. She misses […]
So for anyone who follows me on the ol' Pinterest, you may have noticed I have a board titled "Inspiration Recipes." Honestly I don't use Pinterest very much, but in looking for better ways to eat healthy, I've been finding good recipes that I feel like I can adjust (either a little or a lot) […]
A couple days after we moved into this house, we were sitting on the swing set outside and had a visit from one of our neighbors. Greta was especially excited about this visit, because it was a 9 year old girl (Greta loooooooves other kids). Eleanor (the girl) was very friendly and excited to meet us. […]
Don't you hate it when people say stuff like, "You don't even feel like you're dieting!" and then they share a dish that is clearly diet food? Like last week there was this guy on the internet who was all, "I'm gonna start losing weight, and I'm not going to eat diet foods." But I […]
The very first piece of furniture Chris and I ever bought together was a large, off-white sectional. We walked into the store, saw it, sat on it and decided to buy it--it being the floor model because that's all our still-in-college funds could afford. The sectional was huge, u-shaped, and our apartment was small. We […]
Yesterday marks 5 weeks since we officially moved from our Utah home and thought we closed on it. Some of the details around the demise of that sale we don't feel are appropriate to share here, but we knew it was time to move on and try to sell the house again. We had a […]
You know what I love about roasted vegetables? The fact that you could be talking about anything when you say that. What kind of vegetables? Sweet potatoes? Green beans? Broccoli? Doesn't matter, as long as they're roasted. But perhaps one of the least roasted vegetables of all, is the tomato. So why don't people roast […]
Over the weekend we realized we hadn't done a house tour video of our new home yet. In our last house, we did a new video every 6 months or so and loved watching our home evolve. In that spirit, and in preparations for our first projects (details to come), we thought we better get […]
What a great time of year this is. Especially since we now live in Idaho and I have free-reign of my parents' garden. The last time I took Greta out there to pick tomatoes, I became a little engrossed in what I was doing and failed to notice my daughter had snuck away from my […]
One thing this house isn't shy on is hooks. Perhaps you've gathered that from Instagram: As an update, I found two more sets in the garage. 16!! The slightly humorous thing about this all is that there is absolutely no convenient place to hang our bags when we walk in the house, whether through the […]
Once we packed up all of the art, photos and frames in our last house, I suddenly felt disconnected from it. It no longer felt like our house and now that we're here in this new house, with still blank walls, we are still feeling a sense of disconnect. Art warms a home, at least […]
One of these days I'll have to write a post about the lessons we learned in our first house, because we would do more than one or two things differently. The number one thing that Chris and I both took away was, you can't take even a season off from exterior up-keep. When we moved […]
When I lived in Louisiana, I met a man named Skip. Skip was a young Cajun who made a living catching crawfish out of the bayous and shrimp from the gulf, and selling them roadside out of 2 old coolers. He lived a simple life, spent most of his time alone, and always smiled. And […]
Long story short: Yesterday was not a good day, but we are going to be okay. Long story long: If I were to write this post a few hours earlier, it might have sounded very different. Very angry. Our buyers (who I have since purged the blog of) had another excuse why their money wasn't in […]
As you may have heard, read or gathered--we have had some bumps in our road--mainly we have yet to receive the money for the sale of our house and it all comes down to today. If we don't receive the money today, then we will lose our new house. And if we do, we can […]
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Welcome to our online community where we've posted home, DIY, style, renovations, and family since '09. Renovating our #cljmoderncottage in Idaho and headed for new adventures in Raleigh, NC. #cljfam #cljtransformations
