Quick Office Makeover

The title of the blog post is Quick Office Makeover.  I suppose that is true, however, I started out intending for this to be a quick rearrangement of furniture, but ended up spending most of one day moving things and reorganizing the entire space (not as quick as intended, but quick indeed for the results).  My 12 year old niece has been staying with us for the past few weeks and since we have our spare room set up as an office instead of a guest bedroom, we just threw and air mattress down on the floor and called it good.  Since she's going home today I decided I needed to tackle cleaning up the office and decided I might as well rearrange the furniture while I had my niece here to help.

Well... it ended up taking most of the day and turned into one of those spiraling projects.  You know what I mean, right?  You just wanted to move the book case, but then you decide that you have too many books on it anyway.  Then you realize that you would rather have some of the books in the closet, but there is no space for books in the closet, so you have to take everything out of the closet to make space, then you realize that you really would rather have the card catalog that holds craft and office supplies in the closet anyway, and it would be lovely to have your grandmother's vintage sewing machine within reach so you can fix that strap from your daughter's dress that ripped last week....

Yes, that's how my mind works, which I know leans toward the obsessive side, and makes it virtually impossible to get anything else done until I've completed the project.  Who needs food? water? a shower?

Anyhow, back to the point, which is, I rearranged my office today.  And my craft closet. And I'm pretty pleased with how it all turned out.

Here's a little before with the air mattress on the ground.

I'm still stuck with my iphone camera, but I think you can see the improvement! :)

Summer Dinner Delivery

Things have been so busy around my house that I've left the "Dinner Delivery" part of my business on the back burner lately.  Now that I'm back in the swing of things and finally working out a summer schedule I wanted to let you all know that I'm ready for orders and just posted some menu options for next week (find them here)!  I also wanted to take the opportunity to expand your choices this summer and let you know that I will also be taking special requests/orders.  If you aren't sure what you'd like to order, be sure to browse through the archives or my Recipes section on the blog!

Here's a sneak preview of one of the options for next week!

**Remember you can order one meal or all three! 

Caprese Salad

I'm blessed  to live in a climate where summer means tons of fresh produce.  Although the word drought has become common place, and we can only water two days a week, we are still able to get some of the freshest and most delicious vegetables out there, thank goodness!

Tomatoes are a summer staple at our house and we eat them almost every day, but I think this Caprese Salad may be my favorite way to eat them.

All you need if fresh ripe tomatoes, basil, fresh mozzarella cheese, a drizzle of olive oil and salt and pepper.  Couldn't be simpler! 

How do you use up your tomatoes in the summer?

New TV/Media Cabinet

Hi friends.  Can you believe the school year is almost over?  My daughter only has two days left of first grade!  I still can't believe how fast she is growing up.  The last few weeks of school have really been keeping me busy.  I've been told that I must live in a bit of a time warp since I seem to be able to get more done than most.  I don't know if that's true, but I do have a heavy dose of OCD and once I set my mind to do something, I get it done!  Which leads me to my latest project... If you checked out my Summer Home Tour on the blog the other day, you may have noticed that I have a "new" tv/media cabinet.

We like to watch TV at our house.  Probably a little too much.  I confess I'm counting down the days (10) until the third season of Orange is the New Black is released.  My husband always complains because I binge watch my shows and then I have nothing else to watch.  Right now we've been watching the first season of Game of Thrones.  Wow... what a show.  Anyhow, we've had a 40" flat screen for a few years now, but my husband really wants a bigger tv.  The cabinet we had just wouldn't hold one so I've been keeping an eye out for something that is bigger and would work.

I came across this guy at Goodwill a few weeks ago and knew it would be perfect.  Plus at only $29 dollars it was within my budget.

I didn't really take any progress photos, but I can walk you through the steps I took to give this piece a makeover.

First I sanded down (with a hand sander) a few of the rough edges which were splintering.  I also took all the hardware off and removed the doors. Since the door handles were obviously not original and had some extra holes drilled into them I filled them with some wood filler.

I also filled any nicks and cracks in the rest of the piece.  I'm not gonna lie, this guy was in rough shape, but had lots of potential.

Next I chose a paint color.  Since I had two shelves that I wanted to flank it with to give it more of that Pottery Barn media unit feel, I knew I wanted to stick with black, but the current paint was a glossy, gloppy spray paint and would not work.  I chose a color - Tomcat by Benjamin Moore and had a quart mixed up.  I was torn between sealing it with wax or using polyurethane so I picked up a can of rub on poly as well.

Chalk painting is pretty much the only type of painting I do anymore, and I mix my own to save money.  I am certain that Annie Sloan paint is awesome, it's just not in my budget.  I use a high quality plaster of paris and really hot water to make my paint.  You can find my exact recipe here.

Once my ingredients were mixed a applied a coat of paint to the entire cabinet, including the inside of the cabinet.  I ended up applying 3-4 coats and let each coat completely dry in between.  Once the entire piece was dry I needed to apply some type of a seal so the chalk paint won't peel or chip.  You must do this or your paint will not be protected and it will chip eventually.

Since I have young kids I really wanted to have the inside cabinet sealed with poly.  I just think it will keep the paint from scratching as much when they pull out their baskets of dvd's and mess with the dvd player.  I used the wipe on poly on the inside and it turned out great, but it didn't give it that depth and texture that you get from a wax, so I decided to go with a wax for the outside of the cabinet.  I used clear and dark wax and buffed it with a microfiber cloth.  Find out more about the wax I use here.

I ended up just spray painting the hinges with some leftover oil rubbed bronze spray paint that I had on hand.  It looks black and blends so you can hardly see them.  I really liked the gold brass knobs that were on the doors already and didn't mind the pulls on the top drawers, but I didn't like the other brass pulls.  I looked at Hobby Lobby but they didn't have anything that would match the knobs I wanted to use so I ended up getting these simple pulls over at Home Depot.  They worked our perfectly and are really close in color.

I'm so thrilled with the way it turned out!  I'm not gonna lie, this basically took me two days to turn out and my back is still sore a week later, but it was definitely worth the effort. Dontcha think??

Do you have a any big furniture painting plans this summer?? Let me know if you have any questions about chalk paint, wax, ect.  I'm no expert, but I have done a number of pieces now and can offer lots of advice!!

I hope this inspires you to see beyond the less than beautiful dresser at the thrift store and inspires you to get painting!

Sesame Chicken

Do you shop at a local Asian or International Market?  If you don't you might want to give it a try. We have a pretty big selection of Markets on the South Side of Sacramento, but not so many up in the area where we live.  However, there is a pretty large international market called KP that isn't too far away.  Especially on the weekend when there's no traffic.

I headed over there yesterday to pick up a few things that I needed.  I ended up with a cart full of fresh produce, some egg roll wrappers and some de-boned chicken legs, and let me tell you, I would have easily spent twice as much if I'd bought the same things at Raley's.

I knew I wanted to make sesame chicken and the leg/thigh meat is so much more flavorful, and it was also really cheap!

I found this recipe on Pinterest and it worked pretty well.  I'd definitely try it again!

Ingredients for the Chicken

1 large egg
2 Tbsp cornstarch
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken leg/thigh portions
2 Tbsp vegetable oil (for frying)

Ingredients for the Sauce
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp water
½ Tbsp toasted sesame oil
1½ Tbsp brown sugar
1½ Tbsp rice vinegar
1 inch fresh ginger, grated
1 clove garlic, minced
2 Tbsp sesame seeds
1 Tbsp cornstarch 

Instructions for the Chicken:
In a large bowl, whisk together the egg and 2 tbsp cornstarch.. Trim any excess fat from the chicken leg/thighs, then cut them into small 1 inch pieces. Toss the chicken in the egg and cornstarch mixture.
Heat a large skillet with 2 Tbsp of vegetable oil over very high heat. When the oil is very hot (it should look wavy on the surface), add the chicken and all of the egg mixture. Cook the chicken, stirring only occasionally, until it is golden brown and cooked through (about 7-10 minutes). Drain off the excess oil, if desired. (If you double this recipe you may want to brown the chicken in batches so it all gets golden brown instead of just steaming.)

Instructions for the Sauce:
While the chicken is cooking, prepare the sauce. In a small bowl stir together the soy sauce, water, sesame oil, brown sugar, rice vinegar, fresh ginger, minced garlic, cornstarch, and sesame seeds.
Once the chicken is cooked through and golden brown, pour the sauce over top. Toss the chicken to coat in the sauce. The sauce will begin to thicken as soon as it hits the hot skillet. Once the chicken is coated and the sauce thickened, turn off the heat.

Serve the chicken over a bed of rice and sprinkle the sliced green onions over top.