Completion.

The hutch is done. Well, I messed up cutting the fabric so it actually is not done. I need to order more fabric and fix the bottom piece. But it's complete. And it's in our dining room and it looks fabulous.



I am so proud of us for getting this done. And I absolutely LOVE it. And so many people have said, "That doesn't look like your style!" Well, when we first got married and bought all our house stuff, I thought our house was supposed to look a certain way. I thought everything was supposed to be very mature looking and adult-ish. I thought the responsible thing to do was buy furniture that was somewhat classic or traditional. And while I liked our old place, and while I think it looked good, it just wasn't fun!

Now I'm decorating our house for us. I'm just buying things I love that are fun and representative of us, and not worrying about what other thinks or what our house is supposed to look like. And that's why we are having so much fun! If we could start over from scratch we definitely would, but for now we are making the best of what we have and changing things up where we can. The total cost of this hutch was just $120 dollars, and that's including the power sander we bought! I actually put the fabric in the back with velcro, so I'll be able to change it up whenever the desire strikes! And now that I've cut the fabric once I can use the original fabric as a template. Because somehow cutting the fabric was the hardest part of the whole project.

Anyway, thanks for letting us share this project with you. It gave us a good sense of what we're capable of (which let's face it, after this, is pretty much anything!) and we're excited to share more of our projects with you. And trust me, there will be more projects. Even though we don't own this house, it's still important to us to make it home.

Now that this big project is out of the way, we just need to clean up the garage and we are actually going to have some FUN this weekend! Though I know some of you secretly enjoy listening to me talk about home decor and refinishing furniture, I started the blog to share our experiences in California so it's probably time we start experiencing it!

No-name-appropriate-to-describe-the-deliciousness meatballs.

I'm not going to claim these meatballs are the best ever because every meatball recipe claims it is the best ever. But honestly these ARE the best. I'm super picky about meatballs and I have been trying for a really long time to find a perfect meatball recipe. I had just about given up, but last week when I was making the grocery list and was seriously craving meatball subs, I found a recipe that sounded really good. It wasn't right though - it was missing what I consider to be key spices in meatballs and included parmesan cheese. I really don't like parmesan cheese IN meatballs. I'm not sure why, because I love parmesan cheese in and on just about everything. But that's besides the point. So, I made said adjustments to the recipe, and adjusted the beef to sausage ratio, and this is now MY meatball recipe. I was even hesitant to share it, but it's just too good not to share. I should probably copyright it, it's just SO good.

For the sauce:

1/2 pound mild/sweet Italian sausage
1/2 cup diced yellow onion
1 small green bell pepper diced
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 12oz can tomato paste
2 8oz cans tomato sauce
2 teaspoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
Pepper to taste

For the meatballs:

1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
1/2 pound mild/sweet Italian sausage
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
3 tablespoons milk
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/8 teaspoon sage
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper


Cook sausage, onion, and green pepper over medium high heat in a dutch oven or large sauce pot until sausage is browned and drain the fat. Add the rest of the sauce ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer.

While the sauce simmers, combine meatball ingredients and mix well. Shape into meatballs, about 1 - 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Brown in about 3 tbsp olive oil and drain. Add to the sauce and cover and simmer for about 2 hours.

Serve them on french rolls and top with sliced mozzarella or parmesan cheese if you wish! SO GOOD! You can also serve them with pasta (which we ate tonight, and which was also delicious), but if you like saucy pasta I would probably double the sauce recipe!

Our hutch and our homes.

Besides making the best meatballs ever tonight (recipe to come later), today was a productive day. We worked on the hutch.

This is how it started.
For some reason this picture doesn't do justice to just how ugly it was. You can't tell at all in this picture but the original finish had like black speckles of paint ALL OVER IT. Were they going for an aged look? Because black speckles of paint over cream colored stain doesn't speak "aged," it speaks ugly. Or dirty. Or accidentally speckled with black paint.

This is the hutch sanded down.


And this is the hutch primed.

We're obviously taking out the hanging lightbulb, but we decided to keep the gold foil backing. Just kidding, obviously. I'm not going to show you the hutch painted until it's totally complete with fabric backing and hardware. I'd show you a sneak peak of the fabric and hardware but that would ruin the fun!

I also made these.


We are big on paying homage to where we come from and what we've experienced. These aren't a new concept but I love the way they came out. The maps are from a 1937 encyclopedia and some of the towns listed in Massachusetts don't exist anymore, at least to my knowledge. And also Google's knowledge. I also thought it was funny that Oceanside is on the California map. I don't know why but Oceanside seems so insignificant to me. I also made a larger U.S. map for a different part of the house that was a two page spread from the same encyclopedia. The California map is SO empty, but I can't wait to change that!

A Few Sneak Peaks

My books now have a home. :)


Don't we have a pretty monogram? The decal is just on the glass, and we took the back out of the frame.


I really want to do a big reveal of all of the rooms. They'll all still be a work in progress but I'm waiting on one thing for each of the rooms to arrive. Hopefully I will be able to show you before I GO HOME for a visit in NINE days! I can't wait to see all of you in MA!

I promise this won't turn into a pet blog.

I know I need to do a major update with lots of pictures but I am exhausted from days and days of unpacking and cleaning. Seriously though, how is it mid May? I promise I will be sharing pictures of the house soon. I'm just waiting on a few essential backordered items to arrive!

Matt has been suuuuuper busy at work. I should probably just stop writing that because his work schedule will always be busy. But he's home, and that's all that matters to me. And besides taking my last undergrad finals ever (!), I literally have been doing nothing but unpacking, painting, cleaning, and decorating the house - and snuggling with the pup of course. It's taken me a bit longer than I expected doing it solo. And moving from one home to another, and making the new home feel like home, is kind of a daunting task.

With Matt's help, I was determined to finish the "getting settled" process this weekend so we can finally start doing the things we've been looking forward to doing since we got here. Friday night, we picked up a bunch of things we needed for the house. Yesterday, we sold what we could and gave away the rest and today, we deep cleaned the house. When it was time to relax, we thought Jack was feeling neglected so we took him to the dog park. Jack has never been to a dog park, and we were hoping other dogs would be there to watch him interact and play. Unfortunately, it was just our little family. Jack still had a good time though.

Excited Jack.

Running Jack.

Handsome/sweet/perfect Jack.

Matt finally has an off week so we are hoping to work on and finish the hutch by the end of next weekend. We also have some fun things planned for this week, so I will have much to report soon!

Dozin' Doggy.

Caught Jack in his bed and had to share:

Notice the bed is ON the couch because he wouldn't stay in it on the floor. Hopefully we can make the big move to the floor soon.

SO excited.

I am probably jinxing us by writing this, but ever since I saw this post on the blog Young House Love, and since I showed it to Matt, and since we realized our dining room is big enough for a cabinet/hutch of that sort, I have been stalking Craigslist trying to find one. Two days ago I came across this hutch:

I am absolutely IN LOVE with it. It's perfect - the perfect size, in great condition, nothing is broken - the perfect candidate for a makeover! Someone actually contacted the owner first, but didn't go pick it up today when he was supposed to. Luckily I was determined to make it mine (I even tried bribing the owner to sell it to me instead of the first guy who contacted him.. yeah, I'm nuts). We kept in touch with the owner all day and as soon as the first guy bailed, he offered it to us! If all goes smoothly it will be in our possession tomorrow night!

Somehow Matt got off early today and we went and picked up paint for the kitchen and dining room. We also picked up these little guys:

What can I say, we love cacti. I named mine Jose. He's the one on the left. Isn't it fitting?

We also bought Jack a dog bed in an attempt to make him less of a lap dog. He ALWAYS needs to be sitting with us ON our laps and even though we love snuggling with him, it gets REALLY annoying. He's never had a dog bed before and he'll sit in it (though not long enough for me to take a picture), but I sort of think he thinks of it as a big old toy. We're also hoping he'll actually sleep in this. It's getting pretty old having him sleep in our bed and we worry about the days when he's an old man and there's a human baby in the family who needs to be in bed with us too. Don't worry, that day is very, very far away. But the older he is, the harder to break him of habits, right?

If anyone has any tips for making needy dogs less needy, I would LOVE to hear them!

Busy (boring) days.

I still don't have much of anything to report! We're still so busy but not doing anything exciting. Matt's work schedule is CRAZY, and still, none of our stuff is here. Matt got out of work super late on Friday night after spending a couple nights in the field, so we slept in Saturday morning then finished painting the living room and bedroom. Saturday night, we grocery shopped (still can't believe we can buy two weeks worth of food for well under $200!!), and decided we didn't want to eat any of the food we just bought (financially sound decision, I know) and got some Mexican instead.

Today, we went to the flea market in Oceanside (which kiiiind of felt like we were actually in Mexico) and got a few little treasure for our house. It's funny how Mexican music is already starting to grow on us like Hawaiian music did. Then, we got ice cream and walked the pier since I had never seen it. Oceanside really isn't that pretty or exciting for southern California, but for family members who want to see where we live, here are a few pictures:

This stork (?) was just hanging out.
Edit: Apparently this is a pelican! haha and apparently we do NOT know our birds.

Oh I do have two exciting things to share - First, I turned in my last paper/assignment of my undergraduate education Saturday. I just have two finals left to take on the 11th before I hold a bachelor's degree! Then on to volunteering and job searching and GRE studying! Second, I booked my plane tickets and will be in Boston June 2nd-June 9th. I can't wait to hug and kiss my sweet little nephews!