sectionals

Sectional or L shaped sofas seem to be a hot item in the world of interior design and I totally get why. They are extra comfy, they provide lots of seating (usually 7 butts as we like to say at work) and they are very family friendly. My parents recently purchased one for our northern Michigan home (see design post here) and Jeff and I loved lounging on it during our post-wedding staycation. They are, however, not the easiest piece of furniture to work with. They are difficult to size and visualize in a room (lots of measurements involved), are generally expensive (its more like buying two sofas than one) and are often times sort of sloppy looking (think a giant recliner). Needless to say, we are sourcing quite a few of them at work so I have them on my mind. Here are a few of my favorite "sectional" inspiration images. 

1. via House Beautiful design by Cary Tamarkin  2. via Architectural Digest design by Standard  3. via Lonny design by Hillary Thomas  4. via Lonny design by Jamie Meares of Furbish Studio  5. home of Rachel Bilson design by Kishani Perera

happy st. patrick's day

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Yesterday, we celebrated the luck of the Irish by cooking with friends. Jeff made Guinness beef shepherd's pie, I made sauteed cabbage and soda bread and our friends brought over bangers and mash. It was a delicious and filling meal with probably way too much beer consumed.

Seeing as we celebrated early I thought I would share our recipes in case anyone is in need of an Irish inspired meal for tonight.  I made this Irish soda bread recipe by Ina Garten which I don't think qualifies as official Irish soda bread seeing as it has orange zest in it but either way it was delicious. Just a little bit sweet, nice and crusty and actually quite easy to make.

via Food Network

I also made this sauteed cabbage recipe from Epicurious. It calls for Savoy cabbage although I used green (is there even a difference?). I also used green onions instead of scallions (again is there a difference?). This recipe only took 15 minutes from start to finish and was a well needed vegetable amongst all the potatoes and meat.

via Epicurious - photo by Stephanie Foley

The bangers were from a local butcher (Bauman's if you are in the St. Louis area) and the mashed potatoes were just your standard deliciousness. Jeff's shepherd's pie recipe came from Picture Perfect Meals. It took almost 2.5 hours but it was well worth the wait and effort. We modified the recipe by using less beef and substituting white cheddar for aged cheddar. If you have the time today I would highly recommend it. Happy cooking! 

via picture perfect meals

spring

via Amelia

Spring is just around the corner and while I know we aren't out of the woods for some wintery weather just yet - I am going to be optimistic and fully embrace the coming of warmer weather. In anticipation of the coming of Spring, I have these things planned for the weekend:

1. Spring Cleaning - After returning from our honeymoon, I started the processes of doing some major clean out and managed to sort through the kitchen and living room taking a large load of items to Goodwill. This weekend, I plan on tackling the bedrooms and my office which is a royal mess and maybe/hopefully the basement. I am thinking that if I accomplish my goal, I will treat myself to a cleaning by the Better Life Maids. I featured Better Life products several months ago and just discovered they have a cleaning service. As it was described to me, they use the most sustainable means of cleaning (minimal trash, the most advanced mop and vacuums etc.) and of course all of their own products. I haven't tried them yet but it sounds pretty amazing. 

2. Garden Planning - If you have been following along you know that last summer I had my first adventure with edible gardening (you can read a summary of my experience here). This year I have large hopes of starting earlier to catch the first harvest, expanding my crop (my small little garden probably doesn't qualify as a crop but I am going to go with it), to become more educated about what I am growing and how I go about doing it and most pressingly to start my plants from seedling. I want to find non-GMO, organic and preferably local seedlings so it is going to probably take research and some searching. 

3. St. Patrick's Day celebration - I already mentioned that I plan on fully celebrating the Irish holiday and while I don't really consider St. Patrick's Day a Spring holiday I am going to make it one by enjoying it outside!

4. Signs of Spring - I haven't done this sort of thing before but I just signed up for the Terrain + GARDENISTA Pinterest contest. Its called Signs of Spring and essentially you create a Pinterest board inspired by what else - Spring. The prize is a $1000 gift card to Terrain so I thought why not. You can enter the challenge here or follow my Signs of Spring board here.