A Birthday Treat

Today is a very special day because it's my amazing husband's birthday!!! So, in honor of the momentous occasion, I decided last night around 6 p.m. that I needed to make him a proper birthday treat. ("Why didn't I plan ahead?" you ask, despite knowing today was going to be Landon's birthday? I don't know!) 

After listing a few things off to him that I was willing to make, it was clear after I mentioned cheesecake and received his follow up question of, "You are going to make a cheesecake?" that, that is what he really wanted. So, I pulled out one of my favorite cheesecake recipes and headed to the store (because, of course, I had no plans to make anything until this moment).

Now, for those of you who made it your New Year's resolution to eat healthy, I advise you to simply stop reading now. Seriously. 

This cheesecake is not for those on a diet. Matter of fact, it might be one of the worst things you could ever eat, but it is oh so good. I found the recipe somewhere online, and it is supposedly a "Cheesecake Factory Cheesecake." I'm not going to claim it's as good as the restaurant's, but it would rival any other homemade cheesecake.

Here's what you need. First, let's start with the crust. That's one of the things that makes this cheesecake a little different than others. It doesn't just have a graham cracker crust. The ingredients include:

Crust
1/4 cup finely chopped pecans
1/4 cup finely chopped almonds
1/4 cup finely chopped walnuts
3/4 cup finely chopped vanilla wafers
2 Tablespoons melted butter

First things first, pull out your food processor or mini chopper and make sure everything is nice and fine.

Next, add in your melted butter. It won't be a real moist crust, but that's okay. Press the mixture into a 9-inch buttered springform pan, trying to line the sides as much as possible. The recipe says to try and go about one and a half inch up the sides, but I can never get mine that high. I just do what I can.

Next, it's time to work on the filling. Here is what you are going to need:

Filling
24 ounces cream cheese
1 1/3 cups sugar
5 large eggs
16 ounces sour cream
1/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons lemon juice

This time, you'll need to pull out your mixer. The recipe says to begin with all ingredients at room temperature. This really is wise, but I have to confess that my ingredients are never fully room temp, so my cheesecake may not be quite as smooth as it should be. But, honestly, I always forget that one little direction, and it's usually too late for me to wait for everything to warm up!

Anyway, back to the recipe ... start by beating your cream cheese until it is light and fluffy, keeping the mixer on the low setting throughout this entire process.

Next, add the sugar a little at a time, continuing to beat the mixture until creamy. 

 

Now, add one egg at a time and beat after each. 

When eggs have been mixed into the cream cheese, add the flour, vanilla and lemon juice and mix well. Add the sour cream last and once again, beat well. By now, you should have a creamy mixture.

Add this mixture into your springform pan. You should have plenty of filling so that your pan is very full.

My mouth is already watering! Okay, so the hardest part is done but unfortunately, we are no where near being able to enjoy!

Next, place the pan on the top rack in the middle of a 325 degree preheated oven for one hour and 15 minutes. (I was going to post a pic of my cheesecake in the oven, but then I realized how dirty the inside of my oven is! Yikes! I need to add that to my to-do list!) A little advice, speaking from my own experience, don't put your oven rack as high up as it will go. The cheesecake will rise and if it's too high up, you will have a nice mess on the top oven burners!

When the time is up (and your kitchen is smelling really good), prop open the oven door. Now, once again, you don't get to enjoy just yet. Leave the cheesecake in the oven with the door open for another hour. (I know, for those of you like me who are impatient, this recipe is a good test of patience!)

After one hour, you can finally remove the cheesecake from the oven. Let it cool pretty well and then place the cheesecake in the fridge. The recipe says to leave the cheesecake in the fridge for 24 hours so that it can season. If you think ahead to make this 24 hours before you are planning to eat in, then by all means, follow the directions. It will be worth the wait.

But, since I didn't get started on mine until 6 p.m. yesterday (really more like 7 p.m., by the time I went to the store), then we'll be digging in a little early! We have some friends coming over tonight to  celebrate Landon's birthday and help us eat the cheesecake. I can't wait!

Now, one thing with cheesecakes that I have never been able to avoid is cracking. Every cheesecake I have ever made has cracked, including the one last night.

I know some people will cook the cheesecake in a water bath. I've never done this but would love to hear if you've perfected the "no crack" cheesecake and have a secret.

If, like me, you haven't, then that's okay. There are a few ways to remedy the situation. There is  actually a video on e-how.com of a professional showing how to fill in the cracks. He makes it look really easy. If it had not been 11 p.m. last night by the time my cheesecake was done, I might have tried this, but instead, I decided to use another tried and true trick -- topping. I always buy a little topping for the cheesecake, though it really doesn't need anything. One of my favorite toppings is cherry pie filling, but you could also do hot fudge, caramel or strawberry topping.

I figure tonight, once it's nice and chilled, and I've sliced it and added some topping, no one will really know that it was cracked. Also, as much as I'd love for my cheesecake to look perfect, all that really matters is the taste, and I can guarantee that it will be good tonight!

Pillow Talk

Since our family and many of our friends do not live near us, I expect them all to come and visit soon ;) So, I obviously need a great guest bedroom for when the time comes.

We are fortunate that when Landon's parents last moved, they ended up downsizing, which means we inherited some additional furniture. We are of so grateful for this, as it meant we didn't have to go out and buy additional bedroom furniture. We had this furniture in Nashville, and there, I used a red comforter, which had lots of pearls and embellishments, on the full-size bed.

Well, my dog, Bug, really liked to lay on this comforter.

Even more so than that, he really liked to eat off the pearls. It was clearly his mission to remove each one, and he didn't do so perfectly, so along the way, he put a few holes in the comforter, as well.  (Those of you who have met Bug, probably aren't shocked by this.) So, as a result of Bug's mission, that comforter no longer looks good enough for company. 

That's not a problem though, because I have a beautiful quilt made by Landon's mom. She gave it to us as a wedding gift.

She used amazing red, black and gold fabrics, including some that represented my love for music.

I definitely knew I wanted to display this in the guest room. In Nashville, I had it on a quilt stand, but I decided for my new guest room, to move it over to the bed. I thought I would use a layered look on the bed, so I placed the quilt folded up at the foot of the bed. With nothing to go with it, I decided to take a little shopping trip.

I'm still learning where everything is around our home, but stumbled upon a new T.J. Maxx not too far away. I had been going to a different one, but I'm pretty sure I'll start making this one my staple store. Perhaps I just knew what I was looking for, but this particular store seemed to have everything I needed and a few things I just wanted!

I could have bought a ton of items, but I restrained myself. Here's what I ended up with:

I found the perfect white quilt, with just the right amount of detail and two fabulous pillows. The black one is more satiny while the off-white rose pillow is cotton. The fabrics complement the quilt perfectly. You can kind of see it here ...

Here's a before picture of just white sheets and my quilt on the guest bed:

After:

I don't believe the pictures do it justice (I really need to invest in a new camera and read through my notes from my college photography class, so I can get better results!), but it really does make a difference. I even went as far as to pull this out, and anyone who knows me, knows that's a big deal. Even Landon couldn't believe it:

Here is a close up of the pillows, which allows you to see the textures of everything:

Now, on the "future" list is getting some additional pillows, including new red pillows or perhaps even making some, which would add another "to do" item to the list -- learning to sew. I really should have taken my mom up on those lessons she said she'd give me. Now I'm kicking myself for it! I can do some very limited sewing, though, so I'd like to try out this DIY ruffle pillow.

In addition, I want to make a headboard for the bed. I have a great DIY project for that, too. My list is getting a little long. I just hope I can keep the motivation to get all these projects done!

So, you ready to come visit yet?

More than a Closet

Well, it's a rare treat in Texas, but we actually had snow yesterday! We easily had one to two inches.

Fortunately, it was warmer on Saturday, which allowed me to tackle a project I've been wanting to do since we moved. I was hoping to have the post about it done, but it just didn't happen. So, for now, let's talk about something else.

Since it's only Landon, me and the two dogs at home, we are fortunate to use the third bedroom as our office/extra room. We really don't own that much furniture, yet by the time we put our desk, exercise bike and all my scrapbook items (which is a lot) in the room, it seemed kind of cluttered. So, I was very excited when I saw an inspiring post by The Painted Hive about turning a closet into an office.

We have quite a big closet in the third bedroom, so after talking it over with Landon and measuring to make sure the desk would fit, we decided to give it a go!

Here it is before. Sorry the pic isn't the best, but I took it on my phone:

And here it now:

I really like it. It not only provides us more space, but also adds an interesting element to the room.

Did you notice the wall above the closet? The previous owners used this room for their boys and decided to stencil the first two lines of the beloved song, "Deep in the Heart of Texas." Texans have a lot of pride for their state, but as much as I do love Texas, this element of the room will not be staying. Eventually, we'll paint over it. We're going to paint the inside of the closet the Sea Spray color from "The Cole Color Palette." I can't wait!

Do you have any other space saving secrets? If so, let me know!

Colorful Decisions

I don't know about you but I had a very productive Saturday! I can't wait to show you all what I did once it's all done. But, for now, let's talk about the bigger picture ...

When we first bought our house, I couldn't wait to get in it and make it my own. The house was built in 1985, and the main reason we bought it was because it was in such great condition. Still, it needed a few cosmetic updates to make it more of our style.

So, the first thing I started talking about was paint colors. Our home is average size with three bedrooms, two baths, a living room, dining room, sun room and kitchen. Our living room has original wood paneling. 

Currently, the bedroom and kitchen are both green. 

The dining room is lavender, which is a color I knew had to change.

Everything else is pretty neutral. Still, I really wanted to change it up a bit with a few new colors.

Most people talk about how paint is one of the easiest and most inexpensive ways to change a room. Painting shouldn't be a big deal, but Landon and I haven't had the easiest time painting. See, our last home in Nashville was great. The living room and kitchen was an open layout, but as a result, it had tall ceilings - up to 15 feet in parts. In addition, the color we chose needed two coats, on top of a primer. So, we started painting at the beginning of January and two months later, we finished. Yes, you heard me right - TWO MONTHS. I've never been so tired of painting in my life! So, painting is a big deal to us.

Well, I thought I knew what colors I wanted for my new house, but after just a month of talking about it, I had already changed my mind a few times. Because of our painting history, Landon wanted me to be completely sure of what I wanted before we pulled out the paint brushes again.

As I was reading the Young House Love blog, I noticed they had an entire post on creating a color palette for your home. I thought it was a great idea and so did Landon, who gave me a challenge to create a master plan for the our house.

After grabbing hundreds of paint chips (ok, that might be an exaggeration), I've finally made up my mind. Here's "The Cole Color Palette" ...

Dining Room

Walls

Granite Grey (Glidden)

Accent Colors

Seal Grey (Glidden)

Vintage Yellow (Glidden)

Dusty Gold (Glidden)

Kitchen

Walls

Mountain Haze (Behr)

Accent Colors

Polar Bear (Behr) - this looks blue, which is weird, since it's clearly white!

Candy Apple (Glidden)

Master Bedroom

Walls

Contemplation (Behr)

 Accent Colors

Antique Beige (Glidden)

Olivewood (Glidden)

Second Bedroom / Office

Walls

Natural Linen (Glidden)

Sea Spray (Glidden) - I'll explain where this color will come in, in a later post

The sun room and bathrooms are already about this color, which we're going to keep:

And the guest bedroom and hallway is about this color, which we'll also keep:

I've yet to decide whether I want to paint the wood paneling in the living room. I know the "in" thing is to paint it, but I also know that once I paint it, there is no turning back.

What do you think? I'm not sure these pics show the colors like they look on the paint chips. We're still planning to buy some samples of each color to throw up on the wall before painting the entire room, but I think we're off to a good start.

Everyone Needs a Little Inspiration

I have to give my good friend, Courtney, credit for my obsession with design. blogs You might know Courtney, because she has a fabulous blog called Practicing Creativity, which I highly recommend!

Well, Courtney is the one who recommended the first design blog I began following -- The Lettered Cottage, written by Kevin and Layla Palmer. If you are looking for inspiration, then you must check out their blog. Layla and Kevin have a great sense of style and amaze me with their talent!

The great thing about blogs is that once you find one great blog, you will easily be able to find others. So from The Lettered Cottage, I also discovered another VERY useful blog for a novice designer like me -- Young House Love. What's great about this blog is that not only are there amazing ideas from this couple's own design adventures, but they also blog about some of the fundamentals of design, which I'll be telling more about in future posts.

I've listed some of my other favorite bloggers in the blogroll to the right. While I favor blogs (because you can get FREE design and cooking ideas), I'm also a fan of magazines such as Better Homes & Gardens, Real Simple and Cook's Illustrated.

What about you? Where do you pull inspiration? Do you have a favorite magazine or blog? If so, I want to know!