Master Bedroom: His Dresser

With Peter's first "real" paycheck he purchased a rather large television. With no place to put the television, he made a quick trip to Goodwill and found a $40 dresser as a temporary solution. 

My dad has often pointed out that many temporary solutions stick around longer than we anticipate. Peter's Goodwill dresser has been with us through three moves, lasting longer than the television it used to hold. Today, rather than storing Xbox games and DVDs, it holds his clothes. A few years ago, right after we adopted Lily, our sweet new pup attacked the entire right side of the dresser doing significant damage to the upper corner.  The damage never bothered either of us since we figured the dresser would be replaced one day.

Of course, we both like the dresser; it is sturdy, solid wood, and provides enough storage for Peter's clothes.  The only real issue I had with the dresser was that the dark wood created a gigantic eye sore in our room. In order to reduce the amount of visual space the dresser consumes, I decided to paint it off white. Using the Annie Sloane chalk paint, once again, I transformed the bulky dresser into something a bit more sleek while camouflaging Lily's damage.  I used wood-fill to plug the holes where the old hardware was attached then primed those spots but otherwise I did no prep work before painting.

After looking at Hobby Lobby, Home Depot, Anthropologie, and Lowe's, Peter picked out new hardware for the dresser at Lowe's for a grand total of $17.63. I decided to install just one handle on each drawer in order to create a more modern look. I'm just guessing, but I think Peter's new and improved dresser may be with us for the long haul.

Dog Treats

Yesterday afternoon I found myself in a familiar predicament: we'd been to the grocer twice already and yet I was in need of another item. I hate going to the store without a list! Anyway, we needed dog treats. I figured the dogs could live without their treats for another day so I moved on to bigger and better things— like making fruit leather. If you've ever made fruit leather you know its a rather time consuming process, if you haven't just take my word for it. While my fruit purée cooked down, it struck me that I could probably make some dog treats with ingredients I had on hand saving me another trip to the store and at least $10. After a quick internet search I learned I could!

With a combination of seven wholesome ingredients and 90 minutes, we are now stocked up on dog treats. Gunther even assisted me by cleaning up the bits that fell onto the floor. He is such a helpful sous chef.  I'm hoping that the simple ingredients are kind to Gunther and don't upset his stomach. If all goes well, I will certainly be making dog treats again. I may even put the money we save into the pups' daycare fund. 

 

If you're interested in making treats for your own canine friend, the recipe from 17 Apart is simple and easily adaptable to the ingredients you have on hand: 

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 finely chopped apple (or sweet potato or banana or carrots or a mixture of them)
1 beaten egg
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 cup cold water 

Directions 
Preheat oven to 350°. Blend flour and cornmeal in large mixing bowl, then incorporate the remaining ingredients until well blended.  Flour a workspace and roll out dough to desired thickness. Cut cookies into desired shape and size (I used biscuit cutters to make 1" discs for Gunther and 1.5" discs for Lily). Place cookies on greased baking sheet and bake for 35 minutes. After baking, turn oven off and leave cookies inside for another 30-45 minutes until crisp.

Nursery: Artwork

The final project we tackled in the nursery while my mom was here was artwork. After all, she is the artist extraordinaire! The plan was to use artwork to introduce some color into the room. In my opinion, white, black, and shades of gray only look better when supporting a pop of color.

The first piece is an abstract painting on very large canvas (100% inspired by a nursery I found online). My mom used molding paste to create some texture. She used the colors to create the much needed pop. It's unreal how the colors jump off the canvas in the gray room!

 

The second piece is much smaller and pretty simple. Way back in the day, when my mom was early in her career, she often did skies for clients in their children's rooms. I thought the sky would serve as a lovely and simple background for this quote from Prince Caspian:

The final piece of artwork is actually a print from Hatch Show Print in Nashville.  Last September, I saw a tongue in cheek print that I haven't forgotten. It says: Are you from Tennessee? Cause you're the only ten I see.  When I found out that I was pregnant I thought the print would go oh-so-well in the nursery.  A few weeks ago when we were in Nashville for a wedding, I popped into Hatch Show Print and picked it up. I bought a simple black frame which Peter sprayed gold. Then I found some appropriate fancy-pants wrapping paper to use as matting.

There are still a number of projects that need to be tackled before the baby arrives but we are certainly off to a good start!