Chez French

Wordless Wednesday: Paul's Graduation

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 17:16:57 -0500

Pinterest Challenge

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 11:16:09 -0500

Last Tuesday, Sherry announced that she would be hosting The Pinterest Challenge on her blog along with three other bloggers (one of them happens to be a Design Star winner!). I knew immediately that I had to participate. As I’m sure you are well aware, I am kind of addicted to Pinterest. Ok, with 1,329 pins, I guess it’s safe to say that I’m completely addicted to Pinterest. It’s a sickness, people!

Once I found out about the challenge, I had to tell Paul about it. I told him that all I needed to do to participate was find something that I had pinned on Pinterest and make it. After it was made, I just needed to link it up on Young House Love’s blog.

I decided the best place to start in my brainstorming was my DIY folder on Pinterest. Paul and I looked through everything I had pinned and decided to make this sunburst mirror that I pinned from The Lettered Cottage.

We decided that this mirror would be perfect over our console table where we hung the wreath. The wreath was supposed to be a place holder anyway until we found a round mirror.

Paul and I also discussed what color the mirror should be. At first, I thought about some kind of a wood tone, but there are enough wood tones in that area, so we needed something different. Next, I tossed out the idea of an all white mirror. Paul wasn’t too sure about that, though. This is a constant struggle in our marriage. I love all white furniture and prefers dark furniture. Finally, Paul suggested a compromise. He suggested painting the mirror white, but having a few pops of color. I loved this idea!

After we had the color figured out, it was time to pick up supplies. I first went to Lowe’s for the shims and ended up picking up five bags total. That’s 70 shims! After my Lowe’s trip, I headed to Michael’s to pick up three wooden floral craft rings. I didn’t have any luck there, so I went to Jo Anne’s but they didn’t have any either. Finally, I went to Hobby Lobby, but once again, nothing. I decided to paint all my shims in Franklin and wait until I was in Huntsville to look for the rings.

I decided to use three colors for the shims, white, light blue and dark blue. The white paint was the only paint I bought and the dark blue was left over from painting our apartment. To make the light blue, I just mixed the white and the dark blue paint. I also cut all the paint with water because I wanted some of the wood grain to show through the paint. It took me all day to paint all 70 shims!

I didn’t do anything with my project until Tuesday. I finally found two of the wooden rings I needed at a Michael’s in Huntsville. Since I needed three, I decided to pick up a styrofoam ring for my third ring and hope for the best.

Finally, a week after I started my project, it was time for assembly. I did a couple tests to try out a couple of lay outs before I started gluing.

I decided I liked the last layout the best. It was time to bust out the Liquid Nails and get to work.

Assembly was pretty easy. I glued the back of the shim to the larger ring for the first layer and then glued the shim to the smaller ring for the front layer.

Once everything was in place, I gave it a quick coat of polycrylic.

Once the poly dried, I added the mirror. I turned everything over and put paint cans on top for added weight as it dried.

And here is the final result:

I will post an update when it is hanging on the wall, but I want to give it a little more time so I can be sure it is completely dry. It was a lot of fun to make and it was pretty easy (once I found the floral rings).

***Be sure to check out Young House Love to see what everyone else made in the Pinterest challenge.***

I promise to have some posts with a little more content later...

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 14:05:44 -0500

I promise to have some posts with a little more content later this week, but for now, enjoy a little music from my hubby. This was recorded last night at the evening service. The arrangement of “Softly and Tenderly” that Paul is playing and singing is his own arrangement. Enjoy!

Obsession Confession

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 08:00:00 -0500

Can you guess what my latest obsession is???

Did you guess yet? I definitely have an obsession with white bedding!

All of these images and more can be found here.

Farkie Photo Shoot

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:25:24 -0500

Some of you may know that I really enjoy photography. I know next to nothing about it, but I enjoy taking pictures and learning how to manipulate my camera to do what I want it to do. Normally I take pictures outside either during the day when there is plenty of light, or in the evening as the sun is setting. By the way, I’m pretty sure anyone can produce awesome looking pictures just before sunset. The lighting is magical! If you don’t believe me, try it for yourself!

If you couldn’t tell from the paragraph above, I do not like taking pictures indoors. I can’t ever figure out how to make my pictures look the way I want them to look and I normally end up frustrated. This morning, I decided to change that. I first went to The Pioneer Woman’s website and started reading various articles in her photography section. I also decided to download the manual for my camera and read through it as well. Let me tell you, it was an exciting morning!

Once I did some reading, I picked out a couple of techniques I wanted to try and decided to have a photo shoot. Poor Farkas was my victim, but she was kind of sleepy so she didn’t mind me putting the camera in her face. Here are some of the pictures I took of her today:

Now these are nowhere near perfect, but slowly I am getting over my fear of taking pictures indoors. I also just realized that I forgot to adjust the white balance on my camera before taking these pictures. Shoot! Oh well, you can’t win them all!

Paul's Recital In Pictures

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 01:24:24 -0500

Here are some pictures from Paul’s recital today. He did such an amazing job and I’m so proud of him!

Big Day!

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 08:11:26 -0500

Today is the big day of Paul’s graduate conducting recital!

Doing What He Does Best

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 10:56:00 -0500

Paul’s boss is out of town this week, which means Paul gets to plan the music for Sunday’s worship service and lead the congregation in worship on Sunday. He also got to run rehearsals for both choir and orchestra last night.

Since Paul was leading rehearsals, he asked me to take pictures and video for his resume and portfolio. Here are just a few of the pictures I snapped at rehearsal last night from both orchestra and choir rehearsals.

Fourth Festivities

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 10:04:48 -0500

I hope everyone had a great Independence Day! I know Paul and I had a fun, relaxing family day.

We started out the day the best way we know how- sleeping in! Once we got up, we quickly got ready and headed out to get the supplies for our picnic. We kept it pretty simple and picked up Lawler’s pulled pork, potato salad, Combos, and pop. It wasn’t the healthiest meal, but it was good!

We weren’t sure where we wanted to go, so I suggested the only two parks in Huntsville that I know, Monte Sano State Park and Big Springs Park. Paul thought Monte Sano sounded like a winner, so that’s where we headed. It was definitely the right choice. It only cost two bucks to get in and we had no problem finding a picnic table in the shade. We also had a great view from our table, which was a nice bonus. We thoroughly enjoyed our meal. By the way, if you haven’t had Lawler’s BBQ, you are missing out!

Farkas also got in on the action and ate a little pork.

She gave it two thumbs up. Well, she would have if she had thumbs!

After our picnic, we went to the lookout to check out the view…

… and take some family pictures.

After that, it was getting a little warm for us northerners, so we decided to find a Redbox and rent a movie for the afternoon. It’s a good thing we left when we did because as soon as we left the park, Paul discovered a tick on Farkas’s tail. We hurried to CVS to pick up some tweezers, a lighter (I heard somewhere that ticks don’t like heat), and our movie from the Redbox.

Once we got home, Paul removed the tick from Farkas’s tail and we settled in to watch our movie. We rented The Dilemma starring Vince Vaughn and Kevin James. It was pretty terrible, but it was still fun to watch a movie together.

After the movie, the temperature had cooled considerably, so we decided to get ice cream. We brought Farkas along, so Paul went inside to get the ice cream while I waited outside with her. There was another family sitting at a table close by and as soon as they saw Farkas, they started talking about how they used to kill the dogs that would come on their farms and eat their goats. Not kidding. Welcome to Alabama! Thankfully they left not long after Paul brought the ice cream out.

We took our time eating our ice cream and took a quick walk to let Farkas burn off some of her energy and then headed home for the night.

Happy Independence Day from the French Family!

Taco Salad Day

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 12:31:33 -0500

I meant to post this yesterday, but I spent most of the day reading a new book so I kind of forgot. I’m sorry!

Wednesday is normally our taco salad day. It’s the day that Paul spends the most time at church because of evening services and rehearsals, so if he has time to come home at all, it’s a quick trip. In Nashville, we lived too far away from the church for him to come home for dinner, so I usually brought dinner to the church. Since I didn’t have much time between getting home from school and leaving to go to church, I needed a quick meal to take. Enter taco salad.

I got this recipe from Paul’s mom who put in a book of recipes she gave me just before Paul and I got married. It is also a Weight Watchers recipe, so it is pretty healthy- score! Once I started making it, I realized that it was pretty quick to throw together- double score. And since the ingredients aren’t very expensive, (I normally can get a good deal on salsa and taco seasoning isn’t expensive) it makes for a fairly frugal meal- triple score! Oh and did I mention that it freezes beautifully- quadruple score! So basically, I am in love with this recipe and I want to share it with you.

To begin, gather all your ingredients. If you want to set them up and take a picture of them, that’s up to you!

You will need:

- 1 cup salsa

- 1 pound lean ground beef (we substitute ground turkey because we like it better, but feel free to play around with it and find something that works for you)

- 1/2 packet of low sodium taco seasoning (or you could make your own)

Once you have everything you need, brown the meat.

Then, add in your taco seasoning.

And mix it up really well.

Add the salsa. The recipe calls for a cup, but if you can adjust it to your preferences.

And ~~whip it, whip it good~~ mix it, mix it good.

Once the salsa is combined and heated through, you are done! Seriously, it’s that easy. You can use this filling for a bunch of different meals, but we like to use it on a taco salad.

This recipe is really easy to double if you need more or want to make extra to freeze. We have added black beans and green peppers to this recipe in the past and really like it. It would be good with corn, diced tomatoes, onion, olives, guacamole, or anything else you want! Enjoy!

Farkas isn’t living up to her name- she doesn’t like...

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 16:51:01 -0500

Farkas isn’t living up to her name- she doesn’t like it when I play the French horn. Ok, maybe this has more to do with my playing than anything else! Recently, she has been hiding under the bed once I start playing, and is suspicious of it even when I’m not playing it.

Today, I decided to take a break from playing and I set my horn on the couch. For some reason, it attracted Farkas’s attention and she began to bark at it incessantly. I threw a blanket over the horn to hide it so Farkas could forget about it. This made her even more curious! She would get close to it, tug on the blanket, figure out what it was and run away barking. Naturally instead of reprimanding her, I decided to get it on video. If you don’t want to watch a couple minutes of a dog barking at a blanket, then please skip this video!

Sundays at First Baptist Church

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 12:59:00 -0500

Sundays at First Baptist Church :

Here is yet another way to keep in touch with us and see what we’re (ok, mainly Paul) doing at church. The above link will take you to the video of the traditional service. The video is updated each Sunday, so check back each week if you want! If you look around on the website, you can also find video for First Fellowship, which is a more contemporary service. Paul will be doing some work in that service as well.

This past Sunday, we were honored to play a fun arrangement of Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho with an amazing trombone soloist. Oh yeah, I have to mention that he just graduated high school! This young man is truly spectacular and has a bright future ahead of him. It was so much fun to play this arrangement. You can hear it at 1hr 3min in the video. Enjoy!

***** All you have to do is click the title of this post and it will take you to the video****

Here’s some Monday inspiration to get your week started...

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:07:49 -0500

Here’s some Monday inspiration to get your week started off right. Just give me a hammock on a beach and I’m good to go!

Images found here, here, here, here, and here.

A Cinderella Story

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 14:53:53 -0500

One day, Paul, Farkas and I decided to go to a garage sale in the neighborhood next to ours. As we were rounding the corner to the first house, Paul said “I think we should stop here”. I thought he was crazy because all I only saw baby toys and clothes. Now that I think about it, I probably said all that out loud- oops! He, however, saw a dresser and knew that we were in the market for a dresser. Our dresser was his childhood dresser. The handles were falling off and we couldn’t close some of the drawers because we might not ever get them opened again. On a related note, this dresser is listed on Craigslist if you want it!

Ok, back to the story. We decided to check out the dresser. Even though it definitely needed some work, it was love at first sight. It had great lines, was solidly built, came with a mirror, and, the most important part, was 20 bucks! In no time at all, Paul set down the money to claim our prize. Somehow we managed to wedge part of the dresser into our trunk with the rest of it sticking straight up into the air. Thankfully we were only about a minute away from our apartment. Still, we sweated the entire drive and cringed over every bump, afraid that our precious dresser would fall out of our trunk and smash into a million pieces on the road. Once we got back to our apartment, we realized we were worrying for nothing. We almost could not get that dresser out of the trunk! Thankfully we both have been working out, otherwise I’m not sure what we would have done. We hauled the dresser out to our deck, where it would live for longer than I want to admit as I began the beautification process.

It was on the deck that I really got a good look at the dresser. It was in a little worse shape than I realized, but nothing a little sanding, primer and paint couldn’t handle.

Here is a view of the top of the dresser.

Paul and I spent a better part of the day trying to decide what color paint to use. I was dead set on painting it either white or blue for a pop of color. Paul really wanted to paint it black, but was starting to lean towards blue. He almost convinced me that black was the way to go, but I hesitated because we have so much white in our room and I didn’t want that big of a contrast. Finally, I tossed out the idea of dark brown, which he really liked. With that decided, we went to Home Depot to get supplies.

The first thing we did at Home Depot was pick the paint color. I was like a kid in a candy store (or like me in a candy store), grabbing every dark brown paint swatch I could get my hands on. Right away, Paul picked his favorite, a dark brown with gray undertones, which is the one we decided to get. After picking out paint, we went to the hardware section. We decided on pewter hardware that looks a little aged. Since our dresser has clean lines, we did not want to pick hardware that would make it feel super modern. We also picked up a few more odds and ends for the project and headed home.

Here is our “Cast of Characters” (yes, I’m channeling my inner Pioneer Woman) for the project.

Going from left to right:

- Pewter knobs (for the top drawers) from Home Depot

- Paint brushes

- Behr premium semigloss paint in “Fedora”

- Minwax semigloss polycrylic in clear gloss

- Kilz oil based primer

- Pewter handles (for the bottom drawers) from Home Depot

- Wood filler

- Foam craft brushes (We had these laying around, so I decided to try to use them on some of the project, but I don’t recommend them at all because they create too many air bubbles)

As far as painting goes, I followed these directions on Young House Love.

Paul and I decided to tag team this project. He did a little work on the structure to make it even more solid while I went work painting. I started out with a thin coat of oil based primer. Oil based is great because it covers almost anything and holds up really well to years of ~~abuse~~ use. Remember this: Oil based primer + latex paint = great results. Just don’t try to paint latex paint over oil based paint! The only bad part about oil based primer is that it smells really bad. Try to prime in a well ventilated area and if you have small children, you might want to go with a latex or eco-friendly primer to avoid the fumes.

Once our primer was completely dry, which takes longer for oil based primer, we busted out the paint. It took 6, yes 6, thin coats of paint to get the coverage we wanted. We also lightly sanded everything between each coat for a smooth finish.

After painting, it was time for the polycrylic. Polycrylic isn’t necessary, but I highly recommend because it makes the surfaces more durable and wipeable. We use Polycrylic in clear gloss and haven’t had any trouble with yellowing or other discoloration. We finished our coat of poly about an hour before we left for Huntsville. This worked out really well because the dresser had about 6 days to dry. Normally, I would recommend letting it dry overnight before you move it and a couple of days before you put anything on it to avoid unnecessary chipping or scratching.

I was so excited to get home from Huntsville to put the dresser back together. Once we were home, assembly was pretty easy. We tag teamed screwing the knobs and pulls into place and put the drawers in. Once I saw everything in place in our bedroom, I squealed, jumped up and down and did a little happy dance. That’s my typical reaction when I’m excited and I’m kind of a nerd and get really excited about home projects. Sometimes I sing while I’m doing my happy dance, but I refrained. I then spent the rest of the evening laying on the bed admiring it, leaving the room so I could come back in and see it again, and styling it. Here is what our dresser looks like now after her makeover. Yes, sometimes I refer to the dresser as “her”- with legs like that, she has to be a girl!

See the corks in the candleholder? I didn’t pay anything for them! I’ll take it one step further and say that I was paid to take them. Anytime I have to open a bottle of wine at Carrabba’s, the cork normally ends up in one of my pockets and ends up coming home with me to use as vase filler.

Here is a close up of the hardware:

And a shot of those legs that had me at hello:

A close up of my favorite vignette:

And for those of you who like to see the before and after side by side:

Not too shabby, huh? I will say that you can see the paint brush lines in person, which I was concerned about, but Paul says he likes it because it adds character! I like the color we chose because it looks different depending on the lighting. Sometimes it looks olive green, sometimes brown and sometimes dark gray. Now we just have to paint our bedroom- the list never ends!

Mission Organization

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 22:55:19 -0500

As Paul and I were unpacking Friday and Saturday, we quickly realized that we were running out of storage space. We thought about getting some kind of a bookshelf, but knew that we really didn’t have the floor space for it. When floor space is an issue, the natural answer is to go up with the storage and install shelving or cabinetry. We didn’t feel like it was appropriate to put nail holes in the wall to put up shelves since our host is letting us stay in this apartment rent free. So, we put our thinking caps on. Paul had already taken the liberty to push the dining room table against the back wall so we could use it as a bookshelf, so we decided to try to find something to sit on top of the table without taking up too much room but still adding storage space.

With this idea in mind, we headed for the closet organization section of the awesome Super Target right around the corner from our apartment. We found an espresso shoe organizer that we thought would fit perfectly on our table. After checking the price (less than fifteen bucks), we were sold and happily threw the little organizer into the cart and brought it home.

Once we were home, Paul handled the assembly. It was pretty easy to put together, except we forgot to bring a screwdriver with us, so Paul had to use scissors to tighten each screw. Thankfully he is super strong and was able to make the shelf sturdy. As he was putting the organizer together, he realized that there is a way to connect multiple organizers. This was great to hear because we are planning to bring a few more kitchen items back with us, so we might need to pick up another organizer.

Now here is the part where you pretend I remembered to take a before picture. If you really want a refresher of what the table looked like before, you can alway check out the video tour.

Here is what the table looks like in all its organized glory:

So far, it is working out great. We have storage and we still have plenty of space to eat! Anybody else out there have a creative storage solution? Love our idea? Hate our idea? Would have done it completely differently?

This doesn’t go with the post, but I just have to say that everyone we have met so far at First Baptist Church has been so welcoming to Paul and me. Paul is already learning a lot and is doing a great job! Thank you, FBC Huntsville for making us feel welcome!!!

Yesterday after church and lunch, I interviewed Paul about his...

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 06:19:00 -0500

Yesterday after church and lunch, I interviewed Paul about his internship. Forgive me for getting the giggles toward the end of the video and steering the interview completely off course. At least I kept the creepy heavy breathing under control!

If you don’t understand the “touch of elephant” joke, it’s ok! Paul is just remembering me telling him about this post on one of my favorite blogs. He gets major hubby points for not only listening to me talk about blogs, but also remembering what I say and inserting it into conversation!

Here is a video tour of Chez French Huntsville. Please forgive...

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 18:30:00 -0500

Here is a video tour of Chez French Huntsville. Please forgive my narrating skills; this is my first video! It sounds like I am out of breath the entire time, but it’s because we have a super sensitive microphone on our camera. I promise I’m not that out of shape! I also mention that I will tell you about the best spot for getting internet in our apartment and I don’t. Whoops. It’s in the bathroom in case you’re wondering. Enjoy the video!

Getting Settled In

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 12:39:56 -0500

We are officially all moved in to our apartment in Huntsville. We rolled into town around 7:30 last night, met our host as well as another couple from the church, got unpacked, grabbed some dinner and went to Kroger (I’m glad there’s a Kroger wherever we go). Did I mention that it took Paul and I twenty minutes to get out of our neighborhood? Yeah, we kept wandering around in circles. It didn’t help that we were exhausted and it was completely dark, but we still felt kind of dumb just driving around. Once we got home from our shopping trip, we were so exhausted that we went to bed early (for us). It was a good thing that we went to bed early because we have skylights right above our bed and apparently it gets light around 5:00 in the morning. I know, who knew? We decided to get up and take a walk around the neighborhood around 6:00 and the weather was perfect! I plan to take some pictures/ video of our new place sometime today, so be on the lookout! Have a great Saturday!!!

Mr. Clean

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 04:03:00 -0500

Paul reached a milestone on his journey! To see why he shaved his head tonight, head on over to his blog.

I’m so proud of you, honey!!!

***Oh, and if you want to read about another milestone he reached today, check out this post.

Office Mood Board

Sun, 29 May 2011 00:01:00 -0500

For awhile now, I have been wanting to redo our office. I was thinking of painting it a light yellow or blue and having all white bedding. My husband, however, decided he liked a very dark purple color. In an attempt to stretch my mind a little bit, I decided to create a mood board based around that dark, moody purple paint. It definitely took me out of my comfort zone, but I really like what I came up with!

Here is a breakdown of everything I chose for the mood board:

A: This is the color that started the ball rolling, Behr Ultra in Darkest Grape

B: My next challenge was finding curtains that would work with such a deep shade of purple. I chose these because I didn’t want a solid color (solid white would have been my safe/easy choice) and I loved the bold graphic print on these Ikea curtains. Unfortunately for me, Ikea no longer sells these curtains, but I found similar ones at Anthropologie.

C: We already have this yellow Ikea table and I decided to keep it and work some yellow into the room. Bonus: Our wedding colors were purple and yellow!

D: Since we already had enough high contrast pattern on the walls, I wanted to bring some solid purple to the floor. I like how the subtle tone on tone branch pattern ties in with other fabrics we have in our home. This Overstock rug looks kind of brown, but it’s actually eggplant.

E: I wanted a mix of colorful, natural and white accessories. The white and natural colors keep things calm, while small pops of color, like in these vase fillers, keep things fun. All of these accessories are from Ikea.

F: We already have this comfy Target chair, so I decided to work with it. Bonus: it folds out to a bed!

G: I thought this Mercedes Benz ad would be fun to enlarge and hang on the wall. It shows both sides of Paul’s and my personalities (we both have strong left brain and right brain tendencies) and it coordinates with our room colors.

H: These purple and yellow Etsy pillows tie our purple and yellow theme together. The branches tie into the rug and also tie into fabrics we have in the rest of the house.

I: This purple room was desperately needing some white to brighten things up, so adding Billy bookcases from Ikea to one wall breaks up some of the purple and gives us plenty of space for books and accessories.

J: I would like to add two of these dining room chairs from Ikea to our two person desk for a natural color. The cushion could either stay white or be covered with a fun fabric.

K: To add some office storage and some space to put decorations, I would add 3 chunky white floating shelves above the desk.

L: To break up some more purple, I want to add two white desks shaped like an “L”. The desk on the longer wall would be for office work and the desk on the shorter wall (right by our window) would be for a vanity area.

M: Over the vanity, area, I want to add a round Target mirror.

So, thats what I’m thinking for our office right now. Who knows if we will actually redo our office or if we will go in this direction, but it was fun to think outside the box and create a bold, moody space.