Scheming

... for yet another project.



Now that we have the furniture pieces for the family room in place and the old sofa and loveseat have been moved and set-up in the loft, I am now ready to put some colours in the three rooms - kitchen, family room, and loft. I know, I know I've been playing "safe" with our colours in the home. And I am not to do any different in these 3 rooms as the colours will be mostly on the fabrics for the cushions and drapes and accent wall. The big pieces are still neutral a.k.a. beige-brown-white-grey-blah. But I think once these pops of colours will be used, it will not be as blah anymore. Let's see.

Updates on some of our latest renos:

• Shelves in our walk-in closet have been installed and I am loving it. I told MDH it feels like I'm shopping for clothes whenever I choose what to wear in the morning :). There are still a few items that we need to finish up like putting the baseboards back, putting up the mirror and wall hooks for my blings, and adding 2 shelves and racks. But overall it's close to being a finished labour-of-love reno ;).

• I found the perfect fireplace for our bedroom and will order it soon. In 2 weeks, we'll re-paint our bedroom with BM Stonington Grey (same paint colour that we used in our walk-in). 

• We've managed to amp-up a bit the coziness in the loft.  Just a tad bit. We removed the work table and the desktop computer as they aren't used since MDH, MDK, and I have each our own workspaces. The study for MDH, the guest-room-slash-mini-recording-studio for MDK, and the chef's desk for moi. The sofa and loveseat that used to be in the family room are now in the loft. MDH says it's a perfect spot for napping so we now call it "the napping station." He's even thinking of replacing the sofa with a sofa-bed. I said "NO" so that's the end of that discussion hahaha.

So how about you my darlings? Any new schemes?

Have a wonderful week ahead.

Today's a fab day...

I had a lovely day today. Firstly, I took a day off from work as we were expecting 2 deliveries, one's a furniture set which I ordered online and the other's a bunch of closet stuff for our walk-in. Secondly, MDK was at home and did a kind deed to the delivery guys.

The furniture pieces are now in our family room and everyone loves it. Even MDK, as usual I must say, was pleasantly surprised that they look quite nice and work well with the rest of our decor. I told him he should learn not to doubt my choices ;).

The next project that we have to tackle will be the walk-in closet. The closet shelves are all dark (similar colour to our ensuite cabs) and the paint, we'll paint it with BM's Stonington Grey. Walk-in reno is now first in MDH's honey-do list. Finally! I will post pics once reno is done, I guess.

For now, I'll share a pic of my lunch.

Lunch was celery sticks (with ranch dressing), grapes, crackers, wensleydale cheese with cranberries, and a glass of milk. To 'balance' it out, I had some leftover macs and would have loved to pair them with Moscato wine but there was none left so MDK and I had them with tea instead.


The macs above are from the last batch I did 2 weeks ago. I set aside a few pieces. MDH had requested that I made a batch for the retirement party of his former boss and mentor (and a very good friend I must add). The serving plates came back empty so I guess that was a good thing. Someone in the party had asked for the recipe. And because today is a fab day, I'm sharing the recipe.

French Macaron Recipe:

120g almond meal
200g powdered sugar
100g egg whites
30-35g granulated sugar
food colouring gel

1. Line rectangular baking sheets with silicone liners (silpat) or parchment paper. For this amount of ingredients, I use 3 baking sheets.

2. Prepare a piping bag with a round tip attached to it. I use #12.

3. Weigh the almond meal and powdered sugar and sift together to remove clumps.

4. Weigh the rest of the ingredients.

5. Beat the egg whites until the mixture becomes foamy. Begin adding the sugar and beat the meringue until it turns to stiff, glossy peaks.

6. Add the food colouring.

7. Then gradually add and fold the almond/sugar mixture.

8. Pour the batter into the piping bag and pipe rows of batter onto the baking sheets. Make sure to leave some space in between to allow the macs to spread.

9. Allow the macs to rest for approximately 30 minutes.

10. Preheat your oven between 275 to 310 degrees F. The 295 F setting in a convection oven works for me. You may have to do a bit of experimenting on this.

11. Bake the cookies for 16-20 minutes.

There is a caveat to the recipe above. The settings that work for me may or may not work for you. Just like most recipes, you may have to tweak this. But I've made this several times now and I've considered my first attempt and the next ones relatively successful. If you are used to baking goods that require meringue, you'll be fine. And just like anything you're set to learn, if and when the first attempt fails, try again until you succeed.