Our House

Joe's parents were kind of enough to let us live in his grandmother's house after she passed away when Joe first moved to STL and I moved in after we got married last May. They did lots of renovations to bring the house up to modern standards. The kitchen was completely gutted; the bathroom was taken down to the studs. Here's a few pictures to see all the changes, both before and after.

After

It was up to us to fix up the outside and do the landscaping. It wasn't until this past spring and the weather turned warm that we actually started contemplating what to do with the yard. I was a little hesitant. I know absolutely nothing about gardening/landscaping. My thumb is by no means green. Last year, I tried to fill a couple of pots up with flowers and put them on our front steps. The flowers quickly died. And by quickly, I mean they died within the first week. So, you can imagine my hesitation.

Here's a before picture of the front of the house. There were two large bushes in the front that I convinced Joe we needed to take out.  Thankfully, he didn't know how much work it was going to be until after we were in the middle of taking them out. And, once we got started, there was no stopping.

After the space was cleared, we had to put down soil, place a weed barrier on top and then put in the plants. Lastly, we covered with mulch. Six weeks after, I can happily say the flowers and plants are still green and growing. I'd like to say I've grown a green thumb but I can't take all the credit.  I have a secret weapon:  miracle grow!  It truly is miracle! I don't think our plants would look this good without it! (PS - I am not a paid sponsor of miracle gro :) ) Here's a couple of after pictures.

Joe also decided we should start a garden. We started small this year, but so far we have a healthy-looking patch of green peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes and watermelon. I'll keep the updates coming!

Pesto Artichoke Chicken Pizza

My least favorite thing about making dinner is trying to come up with something to make. Luckily our local grocery store provides recipe ideas and samples along with all the ingredients in one location every day. 

A while back they had an awesome recipe for pesto chicken pasta. I decided it might make a better pizza than pasta recipe. I am also a lover of artichokes and spinach so I added that as well to my make-shift pizza.  It's been a hit at our house. Here's the recipe:

1 pizza crust

pesto sauce

grilled chicken (already cooked)

marinated artichoke hearts

spinach leaves

mozzarella cheese

Make the pizza crust as instructed. I recently bought a "pizza crust kit" from Crate and Barrel which was fabulous but a little pricey. 

Top the crust with pesto sauce, artichokes, chicken, spinach and cheese

Bake at 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by!

Jill

Cardinals Game

Since getting married last year, my morning alarm has changed from the pleasant sounds of music on the radio to ESPN's Mike and Mike in the morning show (Joe's request). Hence, my sporting current events knowledge has dramatically increased.  I know all the ins and outs of the dispute between the owners and players in the NFL. I know Lebron James embarrassed himself in the NBA finals. Mostly recently I was jarred awake by Dirk Nowitzki singing Queen's "We are the Champions." I also know he shouldn't quit his day job and start a career singing like the ever popular Kareem Rush recently did. 

I've only lived in St Louis about a year now. However, I've listened to more stories on the news and radio about Albert Pujols and Stan Musial than I care to count. Seriously, when Stan Musial won the Medal of Freedom there was a TV special about his life almost every night and the sports portion of the news was devoted entirely to him every nite for about a month (no exaggeration).  The drama over Pujols not signing his contract this spring reached a frenzy and the "will he or won't he sign" debate went on and on. (Unfortunately it's still not over). However, I'm pretty sure he's kicking himself now that he broke his hand (another fun fact I learned on Mike&Mike's show).

However, it has been refreshing moving to a city where the hometown baseball team is actually a winner (sorry KC Royals fans). I was only 4 in 1985 when the Kansas City Royals last won the world series and were actually fun to watch!

Last nite we enjoyed a nite at the baseball game cheering on the Cardinals with some of our friends. 

Happy Summer!

Jill

Welcome!

Welcome to my fabulous new blog! I decided to start a blog to document my creative projects, life and adventures in St Louis! Thanks for stopping by!

A New Chair

I've always wanted to learn how to re-upholster furniture. There is just something so cool about turning something old into something new again.  My husband's grandmother had an old worn out chair that I saved from a garage sale with the intention of making new again with a little reupholstery. However, when I finally got around to picking out fabric and getting down to it (2 years later), I realized I was in over my head. So, I took it to a professional. In turned out pretty good!

         BEFORE

AFTER

I worked up some confidence to tackle a less challenging chair for my first re-upholstery project. I'm telling you, anyone can do it. Here's my step-by-step tutorial for completing a simple chair upholstery project. 

I needed a new chair to use for my desk/work station. I went to an antique store and found something I thought I could easily tackle.  And at just $16, I knew if I screwed it up, I wouldn't be too upset about it. 

Here's a couple of before pictures of the chair I found. 

Isn't the floral fabric cute! (sarcasm). We sent my in-laws the before and after pictures and my father in law thought the before picture was the finished chair! ha!

The first step was to remove the seat from the chair by unscrewing it from the bottom.

Next, I sanded down the chair

I used two cans of spray paint to brighten up the chair. And then used 3/4 yard of fabric to cover the chair, stapling it to the bottom of the chair. I ended up stapling right over the existing fabric as the cushion of the chair was still in fairly good condition.  I gathered the fabric at the corners to make them as smooth as possible. See pictures below.

The final step was to screw the bottom back onto the chair

And here's the final picture! 

Thanks for stopping by my first blog post! I hope to share more creative projects and stories in future blog posts!

Jill