Relocation

Our New Home

by Jessica on June 3, 2011

in House, Relocation

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I’m so excited to finally introduce you to our new home! After what felt like months of waiting, we’re finally in and buried in mountains of boxes and packing material. I guess I should tell you a bit about the place. Our home was built in 1948 in a subdivision adjacent to campus on its west side. Originally billed as a development for luxury homes, they also built some smaller ones to diversify the neighborhood. The streets are fully shaded by full grown trees and curve and wind through the development, creating lots of tiny pockets and plenty of peace and quiet and a feeling of ultimate privacy. So without further ado, a bit of a tour:

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When you walk in the front door, you are immediately in what will be our living room/TV Room. Most people would probably choose to make this a formal living room, but after sacrificing an entire room for that in our last place, we want each room to be useful in some way.

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It has an awesome fireplace that is unfortunately out of commission, and a great built-in whose future contents are thus far undetermined. I’m not good with this stuff…

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As you back up you find yourself in the formal dining room. I’ve never had one, so this is all new to me. It has a very nice vintage feature that I’m in love with:

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A sliding serving window! I love it! Most designers would say to open up the kitchen and make it “flow,” but I don’t know if I could given this window would become a fatality. It’s so perfect.

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Next stop and Clive’s favorite room, the kitchen! Through the pocket doors…

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Ta-Da! Okay, I know what you’re thinking, and the answer is most definitely yes, there is definitely too much blue. It was obvious to us from the first visit that the previous owner (of 45 years!) loved the color blue. It was everywhere, and nowhere more obvious than the kitchen. Counters and backsplash are definitely topping the to-do list.

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From the kitchen, you can access the garage, which is the entire basement level. This will be Neil’s realm, and whatever he chooses to do with it. Lots of upgrades and guy stuff to be sure.

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And finally, a 3-car garage! No more speeding to parking garages to spare the cars from hail and tornado warnings. If you follow us on Twitter, you know that was starting to get a bit old.

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Here’s a view of from the side of the house. The driveway is to the side and the garage is tucked under the house. It’s a little tricky getting out, but we’re learning.

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Back inside, I took kind of a boring picture of the master that really doesn’t do it justice. It’s twice the size of our old room, and I’m baffled how to arrange a room that doesn’t have to have furniture less than three feet from the bed.

Bathroom montage

Here’s a little montage of the master bathroom. Again, blue. But I like the floor tile, so if we can get a little knock-down of the all-over blue tile, we’ll be in better shape. Still, a little dated and needing work.

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Here is the second bedroom on the main level. This is the eventual kid room but for now it will be kind of an extra lounge room for when we entertain, since it’s right off the kitchen. It will have the two couches from the former formal living room and will be nice and cozy.

Now we can head upstairs!

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This is going to be our office! I’ve always loved lofts, and now we have one! All of our work will be done here, and I hope to add a reading nook in one of the corners.

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Here’s one of the nooks. There’s one in the office, and one in the guest bedroom. I’m thinking of putting a few plants up here.

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The guest room, with more blue of course. Why people choose strange carpet colors is beyond me.

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And finally, a vague shot of the guest bathroom. Love the sink!

So there you have it, a tour of the house before all our stuff landed in it. It’s pure chaos in there right now. On top of moving this past weekend, Neil and I have both been battling a flu bug and our terrible Internet ISP that made updating and unpacking much slower than it should. We’re feeling a lot better, and hope to have the place cleared up before the end of the weekend. Then it’s on to start making to-do lists and sharing our plans with you!

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Poor pup

Clive looks as if he’s pleading for you to take him away from us. I can’t say that I blame him. The boxes have completely taken over the house and it’s stressing poor Clive out. The cats on the other hand love it, and every box has dents in the middle where the cats have jumped and laid on them.

Felix is ready for Project Food Blog!

They also enjoy climbing into everything. Apparently Felix is ready for Project Food Blog 2011? I hope our moving help appreciate fur with their cold beverages.

Chaos

The only area that isn’t completely covered in boxes is the “office,” and it’s only because we’re working right until we have to carry the couch out. I feel like we’ve been trapped in this tiny pocket of the house, and it’s starting to get a little claustrophobic. Everything that isn’t getting packed is also collecting on the table and that’s not helping matters any.

Clutter

Here is the front room. The boxes were originally a lot higher, but it was freaking Clive out so we’ve moved most of them to the bedrooms for now. I really thought we were minimalists until I started packing. Now I’m not so sure. I feel like I should have done more purging, but I don’t know what else I would have gotten rid of?

White Bean and Garlic Dip

White Bean and Garlic Dip

Another easy weeknight meal we put together yesterday, Soup and bread with White Bean and Garlic Dip. We’ve been living mostly on our soup stock and had picked up a baguette on markdown from the grocery store. I came across this recipe a few days ago and knew that the ingredients were just hanging out in the pantry, waiting to be packed into boxes.

White Bean and Garlic Dip

It’s as easy as mashing the beans adding the other ingredients and stirring. As I’ve packed up nearly everything in the kitchen, I did it with a ladle. It’s super creamy and the perfect complement to toasty bread or crunchy veggies.

Tonight and tomorrow we’ll finish packing and tying up loose ends with work and then it’s off to move to our new (to us) home! I can’t wait to show you more pictures and I hope to post them before we lose internet for a day or two. Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

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Spring Veggie Stir Fried Soba Noodles

Spring Veggie Stir Fried Soba Noodles

There is always that point in moving where you begin to miss any resemblance of routine. Our rental house is covered in boxes, tape and misc. items to be packed and honestly, I’ve totally let cleaning fall by the way side. It’s getting a little gnarly around here. There are just too many boxes and junk to try to clean around and as we’re coming up on moving weekend, I’ve kind of given up knowing I’m going to have to do one last deep clean once everything is out and people are done tracking through the house.

Over the weekend, I prematurely packed almost all of our kitchen stuff, realizing only after I’d carefully wrapped and packed everything we’d probably still need to eat this week. You know, the whole staying alive thing. Needless to say we’ve been making due with some pretty simple meals and finishing up the rest of our freezer stock. Enter, Neil’s Spring Pork and Veggie Stir Fried Soba Noodles. Yum!

Ingredients:

For the pork/marinade:
1 pound boneless pork, cut into bite-sized chunks
2 tablespoons soy sauce
4 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

For the stir fry:
1 (9 1/2-ounce) package dried soba noodles
2-3 cups veggies of your choice. (We commonly use cabbage, carrots, snow peas, broccoli, peppers and tomatoes. You can literally use anything)
1/2 box of long noodles or 1 1/2 cups rice (whatever is enough to make 3-4 cups of finished pasta/rice)

For the stir fry sauce:
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 tablespoons sriraccha sauce
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1tblsp rice vinegar
chili flakes or sriracha to taste

Directions:

  1. Combine soy sauce, dark brown sugar, lime juice and olive oil. Stir until sugar dissolves.
  2. Place pork in large resealable plastic container or bag. Pour marinade over pork; seal bag/container. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours (we typically marinade overnight), shaking container or turning bag occasionally.
  3. Bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil. Add noodles and cook according to package directions. Drain and set aside.
  4. Assemble stir fry sauce ingredients on stovetop over medium heat and stir until brown sugar is dissolved. Do not burn.
  5. In a large, deep skillet or wok over medium-high, heat oil until shimmering. Add pork and sesame oil and sauté until cooked through and lightly browned, about 4 to 5 minutes.
  6. Add veggies and sauté until lightly tender, about 4 to 5 minutes longer.
  7. Stir in the stir fry sauce and noodles. Cook for another minute or until the noodles are hot. Sprinkle with additional sriraccha and red pepper flakes.

Stir fries are magical, magical dishes. You really can’t get faster or more convenient without getting gnarly fast food. Four dishes, two forks and done, although we could have gotten it down two had Neil not thought eating straight out of the wok was “weird” or “over the top.” We’ll see what he says this weekend when I tell him I’m too busy or tired to shower. Can you believe moving weekend is already here!? I snapped a few pics of the rental, wait till you see the haphazard squalor we’re living in…

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The Big Move and the Five W’s

May 19, 2011
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So I promised our moving news on Monday, and you should have known that in my world that would mean nearly the end of the week. Things are crazy around here. A good kind of crazy, but nonetheless we find ourselves flying by the seat of our pants yet again. It’s almost as if we [...]

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Deep Dish Pizza and Some Non-Pizza News

May 13, 2011
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Earlier this week the pendulum of our latest Thin Crust Pizza craze swung the other way and we decided to give deep dish a try. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had thick-crust pizza before, but never a pizza PIE so to speak, so we decided to give it a whirl. One of my great-grandma’s pie [...]

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Eating Fast but not Fast Food

April 19, 2011

We’ve been insanely busy the past two weeks so we’ve been eating a lot of quick dinners. Morningstar “Chik” Patties and homemade baked spicy fries are a go-to staple for us. I like my fries super skinny and “McDonald’s-style,” how about you? Picked up this awesome new bowl on Amazon. We’d been using an ancient [...]

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Ever Take a Cooking Hiatus?

February 17, 2011

Ever go on a cooking hiatus? We’ve been on a bit of an unexpected one this week. I’ve had yearly planning meetings at work, and what I thought would be the perfect amount of food (you know, based on those standard FDA portion sizes) ended up being wishful thinking. The portion sizes were HUGE, leaving [...]

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