More stuff for my living room!

I have the picture of what I want to do with the west wall at home, so I'll upload that later.

In the meantime...here is the north wall, again:


And here is what I'd like to do. I want to put two swing-arm plug-in wall lights on either side of the window. I want to stick with a base in the black family, as I think that's what will go best with the white window trim and the tan-ish wall color.

I have the following lamps (lampsplus.com, love love love) picked as inspiration:




I'd also like to do a rug that's bigger than the brown one there, because my furniture is bigger now and needs a rug to match, and also because there's enough brown - I need some color. (clicky pic for more views!)

The blue one would be nice. I may head over to a flooring place to see if they have any remnants of nice light-colored rugs that they can edge or whatever you call it and I can have for less than $800, TYVM.

I'd also like some pillows to add color to the couch.

Mmm, corduroys.

Living room help needed!

Ok, so I have new furniture in my living room (relatively new...got it earlier this year). I haven't put anything on the walls yet, except for 2 stars, because I'm deathly afraid of the walls falling down. They are plaster, and yes, have fallen before (half of the bathroom is drywall, part of one bedroom wall as well, and the ceiling almost fell on my mom so that went too!). **I fixed the pictures. Sorry about that.**

So, I think I know what I want it to look like, but I need some help. I currently have this:


↑This would be the west wall of the living room. See the wall? Bare. And the couch is low, so I need some stuff to put up there. Also, instead of the lamp and end table on the side, I want something else. I'd like to put a DVD shelf there, one that holds arond 200 because that's what we have now. It might need a lamp, obviously, but I'll figure that out after the DVD shelf.


↑Here's the front of the living room; north wall. See that floor lamp? Can't stand it there. I want wall lamps, and they have to be the plug-in type. I actually already have a portfolio at LampsPlus.com, which shows what I want. I just want to know which one to pick!



↓This would be the corner with the stars - I'd move a star for the wall light, duh.



SOOOOOOO...I'm trying to find a place where I can make polyvore-type boards for houses, so I can see what it all looks like together, with the lights I want, and the shelves I want from tar-jay, and the photo collages I want to put on the walls (hopefully without fallage). Any suggestions? Things that would go well? Anything?

Oh, and FYI, yes I did buy my dog a Snuggie.

Stuff the Hubs wants to throw out

We did a LOT of shopping this year, mainly for the house. We got new living room furniture, a new TV, TV stand, side table, hutch for the dining room... next up on the list: rug and end table for the living room. And Ikea curtains for the sunroom, and maybe some curtains for the upstairs, because I might be a little tired of running past the office naked because the neighbours might be pulling a Rear Window and watching me. Not that I've killed anyone in my house, mind you. But I do lots of interesting things... like run past the office naked.

But I digress. So after we got said new furniture, I gleefully started piling stuff into my new hutch. That was a fun day. Any day where I can organize stuff* is a good day. So I'm arranging my china and glass in my cabinet, and I decide I should probably make a note of what I have. I tried to take good pics, but the light in my dining room is not the best if it's after, oh, 8am.

here's my depression glass, it's square and red and I heart it way too much:



And here's my great-grandmother's china, it's way old and a little cracked, so it may come out just for show:



Pretty, no? It's a bit mixed-era right now, what with the china and red glass, but that's ok. So on to the instance referenced in the title: we were out to dinner with Hubs' parents and he starts talking about the hutch, asking why we don't put the regular dishes in there and why don't we throw out that old stuff and put things in there that we actually use?
I gave him a Look. I said, "that's my grandmother's family's china." I said, "that is depression glass." I also said, "how about we throw out some of those old things you have from your family and get some new stuff?" I'm not sure he got it, and I didn't want to go into a whole rant at dinner, even though his mom gave me a look that said even she didn't know where that came from.
Later on in the car, he asked me if his old stuff (several items in particular) bothered me, and I said no, that I just wanted to find a way to relate it to him so he'd understand what I meant when I said that we are NOT throwing anything in that hutch out. His mom also told him that hutches are mostly for displaying things, so that helped.

But seriously, hubs? THROW IT OUT? If we had been at home, I might have thrown something at him.

So the hutch is staying put, with all of its contents. If you're lucky, interwebs, later on I might give you a pic of my wedding china... that is, when I get around to putting it in the hutch, too. yes, yes, shoot me, I didn't finish my organizing...


*"organize stuff" does not mean clean the house and/or put away laundry.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Mmm, muffins. We were finally home together last night and decided to go all out for dinner. We had grilled salmon fillets, fresh green beans from the orchard, and a rice mix that we found at our local grocery. I think it has wild, brown, and long-grain.

So, obviously, I had to make something for dessert. Hubs isn't fond of pumpkin, but since he ate my bananas I couldn't make banana bread for him, so I pulled out a recipe I'd been wanting to try, healthy pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. I didn't know I had three cans of pumpkin in my cupboard so these will be made again, oh yes.

I was amazed at the amount of batter I had, but I'm not sure that my mini-muffin tin was actually 2 1/2 inches (looked more like 1 1/2) so I filled my 36-mini muffin tin and another regular tin of 12. Without further adieu, here's the recipe:

Healthy Pumpkin-Chocolate Chip Muffins
(courtesy Very Best Baking by way of lovestoeat's blog)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs, slightly beaten
2 cups granulated sugar
1 can (15 oz.) LIBBY’S® 100% Pure Pumpkin
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels (I only had one cup so I used one cup of milk choc chips to compensate)

Directions:
PREHEAT oven to 350° F. Grease thirty-six 2 1/2-inch muffin cups or line with paper bake cups.
COMBINE all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in medium bowl. Combine eggs and sugar in large bowl. Add pumpkin and oil; mix well. Stir in flour mixture until moistened. Stir in morsels. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
BAKE for 20 to 25 minutes or until top springs back when lightly touched. Cool in pans on wire racks for 5 minutes; remove from pans.

Here is my plethora of muffins:


And here is my lovely oven, complete with periwinkle (yes my kitchen is periwinkle) wall, green teapot, red toaster, and myriad salt shakers. Notice the weiner dog salt shakers.