Living Room Update | All White Everything

living room, monochrome, sherwin williams, fireplace, ikea hack, painted white floors, gabbeh, noguchi table, minimalist living room, home style, home decor

Aside from a down and dirty paint job on a super spooky small bedroom, the third floor was the first room we tackled when renovating the house. Originally, we decided to save our efforts (and dollars) to put towards moving forward on the deli. As we realized that timeline was becoming more and more abstract, our imaginations took over and we slowly began undoing the previous home owner’s years of bad paint choices.

living room before, before, renovation, linoleum, fixer upper

Nearly the entire house was covered in linoleum, but this sickening green was reserved for the third floor. After successfully wearing Ed down, he agreed to convert the front room into an office. Focusing most of our efforts installing shelving and a floating walnut desk, we didn’t put a whole lot of thought into color and grabbed a neutral beige on the fly at Home Depot. We kept some of the “charm” of the original wall color by opting for one of the brightest hues we could find for the fireplace: Intense Teal.

We realized the dire shape of the walls on that first go round, but the inital paint job was such a drastic change that we were estatic with our results at the time. And for the next few years the room served as an office / studio, where we predominantly stared at our computer screens toward a single a wall.

image

Read about our first round of renovations on this room HERE

A combination of neurosis and practicality, our living room has shifted forms and geography over the last few years, eventually taking up residence in this space. As my gaze continued to settle on the troubling exterior wall, eventually we decided it was time for another refresh.

While I still dream of painting every room pink, age and Ed have me gravitating more towards shades of grey. The “neutral beige” had not grown on us, and in low light still echoes the original green we were trying to hide. The ceilings on this level of the house are about 2 feet lower than our first floor, so wanting to make the room feel more open, we opted to whitewash the room. We removed the bizarre hodgepodge of masonite they had used to “smooth” the exterior wall, and Ed secured the loose plaster and skimcoated the room.

living room, monochrome, sherwin williams, fireplace, ikea hack, painted white floors, gabbeh, noguchi table, minimalist living room, home style, home decor

The cast iron coal fireplace had been hiding behind a plywood board all along! We matched the black and carried it out along the surround with Sherwin Williams Caviar. The rest of the room got a few coats of Sherwin William Snowbound, the walls in flat, the mantle and trim in semi gloss, and the floors in a high gloss floor paint. Unfortunately their store hours didn’t line up with our schedule, otherwise still #benjaminmooreforlife.

Tiling the hearth, we stuck to a basic carrera herringbone from Home Depot. More detail shots to come, but definitely more of a struggle than we anticipated as Ed has freshly completed his sister’s back splash.

living room, monochrome, sherwin williams, fireplace, ikea hack, painted white floors, gabbeh, noguchi table, minimalist living room, home style, home decor

We’re still working on finalizing wall art and tweaking some of the accessories, but overall super pleased with space!

Cinnamon Swirl Mini Loaves

Cinnamon Swirl Mini Loaves

cinnanon-swirl-mini-loaves-1
I went through a bit of a bread phase years ago.  It’s been something that I’ve missed since we moved into the new house and I went from having a fairly nice oven to cooking everything in a toaster oven.

cinnanon-swirl-mini-loaves-2
I was planning on doing a tiny Pate en Croute for a picnic, which ended up getting delayed due to the weather, but not before I bought some mini loaf pans.  I was staring at them in the morning when I remembered a really good cinnamon sugar swirl bread recipe from Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.  If you’re at all interested in bread baking, check his book out, It’s got a really good detailed section at the front explaining the importance of each step in the bread baking process.

cinnanon-swirl-mini-loaves-3
cinnanon-swirl-mini-loaves-4 cinnanon-swirl-mini-loaves-5
I forgot how fun bread was to make, and how impressed everyone always is when you make it.  The recipe for that one is pretty easy, just a bit of waiting for proofing.  It all went well, but if I did it again, I’d probably roll it out a little thicker and do less of a swirl.  It turned out great, though, and the little loaves are really cute.

cinnanon-swirl-mini-loaves-6 cinnanon-swirl-mini-loaves-7
I got the bread bug back a little now.  I made some plans to build a wood-fired bread oven in the driveway behind my house, but Maggie said that I can’t do that right now even though it will cost basically zero dollars, so I’ll focus on getting the most out of the toaster oven and see how hot I can get the smoker after I swapped out the heating element.  I think I’ll do some mini cheddar chive loaves tomorrow.

cinnanon-swirl-mini-loaves-8

Double Chocolate Double Flowers Double Dinner

Hey happy valentines day! I didn’t have too much time to get presents this year so I bought us some tulips, salted dark chocolate caramels, and Olive & Sinclair’s Benton’s chocolate brittle.  It tastes like chocolate ham. We were going to have crab legs and steak for dinner.
floral design, bouquet, daffodil, roses

Maggie was off on Sunday, so she decided to outdo my whole foods run and surprise me with a nicer version of everything from 4121 Main.  She went there to get some chocolate for us to re-make the chefsteps chocolate souffles that we made last year, and apparently couldn’t leave without buying one of everything. Not that I blame her, their store looks crazy great all the time.

russian blue, charteaux, cat, hugThat nathan miller buttermilk chocolate is really something. Really into that. The chocolate moderne ones were a little less exciting than they looked, but I think some on the edges didn’t have enough smoky salt- though next to the benton’s ham-chocolate we might have blown out our smoke and salt detectors.

commercial steamer, crab legs, commercial kitchenWe dragged up the steamer we bought for the deli and never used after it kept blowing circuits and steamed some crab legs.  We were smart enough to eat that first and then go for a second course on the ribeye.  We were both pretty full and concentrated on some old crow, bubbles and chocolate instead.   crab legs, caper butter, pittsburgh, wholeysFritz is a poultry cat.  No interest in crab.  Just wanted to smell the flowers. He’s sitting on a piece we gave him.tulips, whole foods, russian blue, chartreux, cats, cat pictureAnd steak the next day. Blue goat cheese that we got from Family Farm Creameries and a sorta gross looking potato.  steak, blue potato, japanese potato, meat and potatoes,

Mid Century Chair Update

Mid Century Chair Update

I found a pair of Johannes Andersen chairs in the trash more than 10 years ago. One of two was damaged beyond repair and went back to the curb. The other has traveled with me through half a dozen other apartments since then.

Shortly after getting the chair, I stripped off several layers of bad reupholstery jobs (a stained and nubby mauve, a plastic floral) until I came to this citrus-y pleather. It was 2005 and it seemed charming at the time, so I let it slide. As we’ve arduously repainted room after room of noxious yellow in the new house, I decided it was time the chair finally got a facelift.

mid century, johannes andersen, mcm, side chair, dining chair, reupholstery

We found a role of salvaged naugahyde recently that fit the bill. With all of the chaos of the deli lately, it was refreshing to have an afternoon project that we could tear through within the hour.

mid century, johannes andersen, mcm, side chair, dining chair, reupholstery mid century, johannes andersen, mcm, side chair, dining chair, reupholstery

Meanwhile, Fritz got started on our next upholstery project — a tufted bench.

One month recap!

One month recap!

0807151146

As of yesterday, the deli has officially been open for business for one whole month! It has been super surreal to have the whole project go from a hypothetical party topic to real thing that forces us to get out of bed every morning (EVERY MORNING). It has also been terrifying, exhausting, and so so exciting. Now time to force ourselves to sit down and review the good, the bad, and hold ourselves accountable for our future goals.

THINGS THAT WENT WRONG

Day One:
Our first transaction was a crushing disaster. No exaggeration here — complete and utter failure. One of the moments when you’re scrambling to remain calm while silently cursing yourself for ever thinking this was a good idea. Our side dishes were in half finished pieces strewn across the counter, we blew a fuse, and our register refused to cooperate. All in all it took a good 28 minutes for us to make three sandwiches. Luckily, it was family and we make a mean grilled cheese. And everything got a lot easier from there.

Signage:
Initially we planned on writing our menus out in white paint marker on heavy black illustration board. We lucked out finding an overhead projector at Construction Junction, and put together our oh-so-clever set up to trace out the menus. The projector didn’t work. Nor did our paint markers. So we started our first day with an impossible to read menu. We decided to shift gears and replace the illustration board with felt letterboards that matched the vintage vibes in the rest of our buildout and ordered some that evening. Which never shipped. Nor did the second order. So 4 weeks in, we’re still receiving bits and pieces to complete our final menu.

The blindness of strangers:
We make all of our corned beef in house, brining the beef for 7-10 days and then cooking it for 10 hours in a combi oven. Up to this point, we’ve been putting the beef in the oven Friday night and pulling it early Saturday morning so we have a fresh batch for the weekend. This past weekend, we got to the kitchen a little after 8am to find the oven turned off, 14 lbs of cold corned beef tormenting us. We panicked, questioned everyone in sight (it’s a shared kitchen), and tried to quickly sort through manuals online hoping there was a history feature on the oven. Eventually, we realized there was no hope to cling to. We tossed the beef and crossed Reubens off the menu for the week. On a positive note, now we know true agony and that you should always always always leave a note.

0728151152

THINGS THAT WENT RIGHT
With everything that went wrong, this whole month has been an insane learning experience. In the months leading up to the opening, we had so many questions and only a foggy idea of what the expect. We’re still getting our act together, but its been a lot easier to map out our goals now that we have the space and the tools in front of us. Now we can focus on the smaller details with a clearer picture of what customers are responding to and also how our space is taking shape. Every day we’re able to make little improvements to the booth, tweak our recipes, and stock our shelves with new gifts we love.

We’ve also been really fortunate to get great feedback from customers.We’ve spent the last few years using friends and family as guinea pigs for our recipes, so it’s been doubly satisfying to hear a kind word from people that aren’t obligated to tell us everything we do is great. The public market environment isn’t always the most inviting for people eat and chat, so we’ve been grateful for those customer’s that opt to take a seat at our counter and share their stories with us.

Processed with VSCOcam with f2 preset Processed with VSCOcam with m5 preset

THINGS FOR THE FUTURE

While we’ve been figuring out scheduling and invoices and recipes and not cutting our fingers off, sometimes it’s hard to see the forest for the trees and remind ourselves why we started doing this to begin with. This week we’ve been forcing ourselves to get more creative and dig into to new projects. We have a 10lbs of tomatoes on order and are trying our hand at making mozzarella (!!!) to introduce a caprese sandwich special to the menu.

Processed with VSCOcam

ALSO!!! We got a new little cat buddy and he is the greatest in the entire world!

Pittsburgh Public Market, Steve's Deli, Booth design, signage,