Easy treat for the WEEKEND!

NO-BAKE PEANUT BUTTER PIE

1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese

1 1/2 Cups powdered sugar

1 Cup peanut butter

1 Cup milk

1 (16 oz.) package whipped topping

2 (9 in.) prepared graham cracker crust

1.  Beat together cream cheese and powdered sugar.  Mix in peanut butter and milk.  Beat until smooth.  Fold in whipped topping.

2.  Spoon into two pie shells, cover, freeze until firm.

I made this for my company last night.  I think it turned out really yummy.  I also used everything fat free or low fat (except for the powdered sugar, obviously).  It still tasted and turned out great.  You could use an oreo crust or your favorite pie crust as long as it is prepared and ready to go since you don't bake this pie.   I melted a little Nutella and drizzled it on top and crushed reeses and sprinkled them around.  Still have one left over!

Have a SWEET weekend!

Where I spend the most of my time!

Dining area.  The china cabinet is an antique that my parents have had forever.  They gave it to us as a wedding present as well as our wedding!  It is STUFFED to the max with all of our fine china, 20 place settings and all!  Drew's mom chose the table and chairs before Drew moved into the house a few years ago.  It is counter height.  The log candles are from Nadeau in Homewood, love that store.  It is so inexpensive and they have some really neat pieces of furniture.

I bought the majority of these frames from Hobby Lobby in their 90% off section.  They had nicks or something, but spray painted them all the same.  I've thought about putting pictures in them, like a collage or something, but I really like the simplicity of it.  The light fixture was from I.O. Metro and I paid WAY too much for it.  But I do love a drum shade.

The barstools I bought for my apartment.  They are the wrong height here and just last night ordered some new bar stools.  They are FABULOUS!  They will be here just before Valentine's Day.  Happy Valentines Day to me!  Everything is pretty much standard in this kitchen.  Besides the back splash.  I put that up, it is from Home Depot.  I really think it spruces up the kitchen, in a very inexpensive way!  Less than $300 for the whole kitchen.  I have to keep my big every day china service pieces on the top of the cabinets because they are too big or there's not enough room in the cabinets!

I keep this on the counter.  It is an old mirror, I use it as a tray.  With my Southern Living green polka dotted vase and mini pears, and the art deco milk vases I found at J & J Junk for $0.75 a piece.

There is our kitchen!  My favorite part: the 50's/60's canisters I found a year ago.

(Picture taken at my apartment, hence the ALL white)

Be our Guest!

Come stay with us!  We already have 2 weekends booked in February!

This is the main guest room.  I call it the "beach room."  Drew's "man room" is the other guest room.

The walls are "Seascape" by Sherwin Williams.  When my parents re-did my room at home when I was in college, the white wicker furniture from 6th grade was saved for me.  This is what I used in my apartment and instead of buying a new bed room suite, I used this!  I know it isn't the most trendy right now, but I think I made it work!  The tan duvet with the white stripe was Drew's old duvet.  He never used the shams, so they are as good as new!  Drew's mom monogrammed them.  I bought the white duvet for around $30 at overstock.com (I'm telling you, it is a great website).  The little pillow is the same fabric as the window treatment.  I ordered it from my old job, it is a Robert Allen Home damask.  Already had the white Euro pillows and bedskirt.  The iron piece is from Hobby Lobby.  I have considered painting it white.  I can't decide, thoughts?  The lamp is from Home Goods and I put some sea shells in the base of it.

The mirror was an old, brassy, gold that my parents used long, long ago.  I painted it with some primer to make it look shabby chic.  There's a rocking chair, the desk faces the window.  The room gets a lot of light so the room is really cheery considering the wall color and all the white!

I have a white tray from Target on top of the dresser with one of my monogrammed candles and a couple of vases.  Drew had three mirrors that were never used.  I hung two of them and realized, I needed something else!  There was a shelf that used to be hung in the kitchen, so I added that a few other knick knacks.

Entrance to the guest bath room.

The little piece of wall art is a little sea shell window display from Old Time Pottery, another one of my fav stores.

Drew used this shower curtain in our bathroom, before me.  It goes perfectly with the duvet, so I just had a stripped pattern strip added to the top.  It was the coordinate with the Robert Allen damask fabric used in the guest room.  I had left overs from both, so I wrapped two small canvases, as you can see above the toilet.

THIS is this basket, tin, thingy I found at a garage sale for $0.50.  Recently I saw three of them in an antique store for $36 a piece!  I couldn't believe it.  I had some tall sticks in a vase at my apartment, so i trimmed them down and placed them here.  It is almost like you are outside when you are in the bathroom, because the vent is right above this and they blow in the wind!

One day, I will post about the other guest room "The Man Room."  It needs a little organizing and cleaning before I can take pictures!  Have a great Wednesday!

Where I won't be sitting this weekend!

Happy Friday!  I have so been look forward to the weekend.  This is where I won't be spending any time.. This is my "office/desk" area.  It is at the top of the stairs in the landing beside our bedroom.

I treasure the antique Herman Miller chairs I found at an antique shop here in Birmingham.  One of the more expensive purchases for this home.. What can I say?

The clear boxes are actually stackable shoe boxes, but great for organizing my office supplies and different cords!  My hanging file next to it is for all of my stationary, always writing letters! Great southern tradition.  Received the acrylic monogram trash can at my monogram shower in August.  I like it too much to actually put trash in it. =)

The white shelves and brackets were from Lowe's, very inexpensive.  They support a lot as you can see!   Great to display more picture frames and my little knick knacks.  I bought 4 cork tiles at CVS for like $3 and put them underneath the shelf.  The desk lamp is from HomeGoods, they have the BEST lamps and light fixtures.  The desk is from overstock.com.  SUCH a great website and the fact that it shipped for $2.95!  Anything from overstock.com ships for that price!  The desk was under $200 and Drew put it together with ease.  I love it.

Close up of another wall cluster! (more to come!) As some of you know, I have a deep obsession with Frank Lloyd Wright.  Drew agreed before we got married that if we ever built a house it would be Frank Lloyd Wright inspired.  As long as he had a putting green and some kind of hitting something.. Bought the Fallingwater poster and the 2 watercolors at his home and studio in Chicago senior year.  The sketch in the bottom left hand corner is from a book and it is of a lovely flat roofed house, that hopefully ours will look like one day!  Drawings in the middle on top are from my thesis.  The long one on the bottom was a sketch I did at my internship at Fuqua & Partners Architects in Huntsville.

To the side I have a mission style book case with all my old design books and many others.  I don't want to show it yet, because I have recently purchased a chair to go in the landing.  I am in the process of finding fabric (today, actually) and I will re-finish the wood as well.  It will come in another post!

Hope everyone has a fabulous, safe weekend!

Melange Downstairs.

This is downstairs.  View from the stairs.  We have a major MIXTURE of things.  Things we both have accumulated over the years.

I LOATHE the slip covered sofas.  Drew loved these sofas growing up, so when he moved into this house almost 3 years ago, they came too.  They are a dark green, and would not go with my Sherwin Williams "sleepy blue" walls.  So every day and every night I re-tuck the slip covers...  We have agreed that the sectional or sofa's are our first purchase when we buy a new house. We will start looking in about a year or a year and a half.

Better view of my beloved coffee table.  My most recent roommates Laura and Kerra know how important this sucker is to me.  Yes, I did find it at the Goodwill in Huntsville for $15 dollars.  Took me an afternoon to re-stain and fix it up, but I LOVE IT.  You can tell it was hand made, I've never seen anything like it.  But it is the Danish style I LOVE!

All of the pillows came from Home Goods, one of my favorite stores.  Also my 1960's "House & Garden" magazines on the coffee table, love looking through them!  The quilt on he back of the sofa.. Drew's grandmother quilts and for each grandson that moves out on their own receives one.  For the longest time it just stayed in the closet until someone got chilly.. But I really enjoy the color it adds to the room, it also reminds me of Monica's apartment on "Friends" with her different quilts on the back of her sofa!  The shag rug is from Home Depot or Lowe's, don't remember.  It was a great buy and I am very pleased with the way it holds up.

This credenza is so many things in 1!  I love it, my find from Salvation Army!  Another Danish style piece of furniture.  Soon after Drew and I got engaged I was searching for finds all the time.  Laura and I decided to go in Salvation Army and it was love at first sight.  It is a little knicked up, but I worked on it.  Drew and his cousin went to go pick it up a few days after I found it, said it was the heaviest piece of furniture they have ever had to move!  OOPS!  It creates a lot of storage space, which is good since between the two of us we have SO MUCH STUFF.  I prefer not having clutter on it, so it doesn't chop the room up.  I love how the space is open and I want to continue to keep it that way.  The basket is for mail, magazines, and newspapers.  I try to go through it once a week so it doesn't pile up too high!

Those two little nooks would be PERFECT for built in book shelves.  I work with what I have.  The green cane chair on the right has been a favorite of mine since I can remember.  My grandmother purchased it in 1964.  She gave it to me this October, I was THRILLED.  So I put green touches in the space so it would all flow.  I brought Drew to the new "Antiques and Consignment Furniture" in the old Ethan Allen building on 31 a couple of weeks ago to look at a particular chair.. what do you know I found a chair ALMOST identical to this chair.  We bought it, its in the nook to the right.  I couldn't believe it.  So when we purchase our new sofa in our new house, I will have them both recovered the same!

Closer look at the chair.  Tall lamp we ordered from Target.  The oval mirrors are from Home Goods.  I bought the side tables at Hobby Lobby before I moved into my apartment after college, they were bronze, black, silver, and gold.  I painted them black so they would blend in better for this house.

New chair!

I always told Drew I would marry him for this sunburst.  His mother and I found it when he moved into this house.  We found it at a consignment shop, but I think it was originally from Pier 1.  I was confused by this cart at first, but now I love it.  This little area is one of my favorites in the house.  The lamp is from Home Goods.  This is a place to display some pictures, my Frank Lloyd Wright book collection, etiquette book collection, and photo albums.  Some people say that your personal pictures and things should be in the part of the house where no really goes.. I totally disagree!  I want everyone to see my family and friends and the things that are important to me!  I also enjoy my "Keep Calm and Carry on" poster.  I ordered it from etsy, the girl I ordered it from was WONDERFUL!  She got the color I tried to describe through e-mail perfect.  One day i would like a chunkier frame for it.

Closer look.

This is our living area!  I enjoy it.  Also, about the wall color. "Sleepy Blue" from Sherwin Williams.  I LOVE this color, every wall in the house was vanilla as well as the ceiling.  But this has house good, white, chunky, moulding, so I wanted a good contrast.  I chose this color for all of down stairs (I didn't want to chop it up from room to room when it is all one large space).  It also goes up the stairs and into the hall way upstairs, again so it didn't chop up the space and it all flowed.  The painters said that they thought best to just paint one room with this color because they thought it wouldn't all look good blue.  I was like.. "Ok.. I am the designer right?"  I didn't really say that but I should have!  So they called me after they painted one part, to look at it.  I told them to keep going I loved it!  When they were done painting the house, they agreed that the color was perfect and that it really made the moulding pop.  It seems clean, fresh, and light!  All ceilings were painted white as well.  Good color, I think it is a good, neutral color.  Neutrals don't just have to be vanilla!

MasterBath

This is our master bath.  Also painted "Amazing Gray" by Sherwin Williams.  The piece of "art" over the toilet is an original by MOI!  I bought a couple of yards of this natural looking fabric, some greek key stamps, and the little .97 cent paints, everything from Hobby Lobby.  Got bored one night in my apartment back in August and just went wild.  Then wrapped the fabric around the wood frames that you pop together, also very inexpensive.

I have a problem with clustering things that are a like.  But I like my little "S" collection.  2 are from Hobby Lobby and 1 was from Urban Outfitters that I painted silver.  I try to keep the vanity clean without clutter.  So i have q-tips, cotton rounds, and flossers in the little glass containers I got at Target.

We bought a curved shower curtain.  The tub is rounded like a jacuzzi tub so we thought it would create a more open shower experience.  Drew HAD to have the expensive, rain, waterpik shower head and it is huge so the more room the better.  I bought a crinkle, cream shower curtain at Bed Bath and Beyond.  Had the 2'x2' sample of the Duralee fabric used on the pillows in the bedroom left over, so I had it sewn in the middle to pull it all together.  You can't see, but I have 2 green Shaw bath shaggy bath mats, one by the tub and one under the sink/vanity.

1st post of many on our home!

If only I had pictures of all of these rooms before. To be honest.. I feel as though this has been the only miracle I have been a part of. The transformation of a messy, dark, bachelor pad to our home! Nothing against my wonderful husband. Just now he has an Interior Designer, organization freak, and obsessed with cleaning wife.

I'll start upstairs and work my way downstairs. This is the master bedroom. This is what you see when you walk in. Art work by myself and my lovely friend Laura. The chair was $10 dollars at Salvation Army. Drew's mother bought it when he moved in and we recovered it. The same fabric is on my nightstand.

These pictures are a little backwards.. This is my dresser. The baby dresser featured in the post before this, revamped and made for me! I found the oval frame 1/2 off at Hobby Lobby and put a wall covering sample in. The bird jewelry holder I found at TJ Maxx for around $13-$14. Saw it in a catalog recently for $40! The mirror propped against the wall used to be gold and it has been rub'n'buffed silver, used to be in the dining room.
These are the dressers. Painted gray and new hardware. The hardware was the most expensive part of the transformation. The horizontal dresser was in his old room, it matches the night stand. They were just an ugly wood with lovely brass hardware...
New bed! Christmas present. It was from Three Sheets in Homewood, love that store. Drew's mom sewed everything from the duvet, pillows, curtains, everything. The mirrors were from Hobby Lobby, they are called craft mirrors or something. I hot glued wire to the back so that I could hang them in a cluster. The bench at the end of the bed was a TV console, long ago. Painted, new hardware and a custom made cushion.
I love our room. I also love mixing furniture, re-furbishing, etc. The paint color on the walls is "Amazing Gray" by Sherwin Williams. I think it is light and airy without being all white, which I used to want.. I am very pleased with how it all turned out!