The Steel City Garden — gardening with Doug Oster and a book giveaway!

Approaching winter, it’s hard to think about gardening. But it’s the time of year to plant and plan certain outdoor tasks (and clean up all those leaves before the snow falls). And I feel like we’re constantly making outdoor plans (and pinning… lots of pinning). Gardening is a year-round sport, what with our courtyard and community garden plot. Shade plants, potted flowers and herbs, veggies and fruit… for a novice gardener, it can be overwhelming.

I was not born with a green — or black-and-gold — thumb, which is why I was excited to receive a book specifically about gardening. Garden personality Doug Oster brings local pride into the garden with his recent book: The Steel City Garden: Creating a One-of-a-Kind Garden in Black and Gold.

Steel City Garden Jacket Image

Why black and gold? Pittsburgh is the only city in the United States where all of its major sports teams share the same colors (it’s a way of life). The Steel City Garden introduces readers to eye-catching vegetation, like black tulips and buttercup shrubs, and quirky garden décor that all fit into our prideful color scheme. My favorite black-and-gold flower? Sunflower.

black and gold veggies steel city garden

You don’t have to call Western Pennsylvania home to enjoy this book either — Pittsburgh natives all over the country can still be found cheering on their favorite black-and-gold teams, even in their outdoor spaces. This book is the perfect gift idea for any Yinzer or ex-Pittsburgher garden lover looking to embrace a whole new level of loyalty.

black and gold flowers steel city gard

Black tulips… how beautiful are those?!

“The Steel City Garden can be a tribute to a city, a way of life, your favorite sports team or just a beautiful place to sit and enjoy.” – Doug Oster, from the Introduction

The Steel City Garden includes a variety of flowers, fruits and vegetables along with planting advice, gardening tips and info on each: where it works best, pests and diseases, and plant partners to consider. I enjoyed the added personal garden stories and the decor section — and especially that the entire book is dedicated to organic gardening. I was EXTRA GEEKED after opening the book and seeing a photo of a Steel City Derby Demons t-shirt too!

photo (5)

Skater? Fan? Lover of black-and-gold gardening!

Giveaway UPDATED: Want to get your own copy of The Steel City Garden book? Leave a comment on this post, and I’ll select a random winner on December 1, 2013 December 7, 2013 (retail value: $17.95).

About the Author: 
Doug Oster is The Backyard Gardener for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. An Emmy Award-winning documentarian, he also won the Garden Writers Association (GWA) National Media Award in 2011 and 2013 for his work on “Digging with Doug,” a weekly video blog series through the Post-Gazette.

Steel City Flower image

Disclosure: I received a personal copy of The Steel City Garden book for review, and the publisher is sending one lucky winner his/her own copy. All opinions herein are my own. Read my disclosure policy for more info.

Weekend DIY: spray paint something!

I was looking for something tall to “anchor” my fireplace mantel.

So for my most recent (which seems already like so long ago) weekend DIY project, I spray painted a few branches. First, I let them dry out in the basement for a few days. Considering I saw these black branches at West Elm for $30/piece, this is one easy — and cheap! — decorating project for Fall. In this case, the branches fell onto my property AND I already had shiny black spray paint AND needed to fill this red vase.

Cost: FREE!

mantel

This DIY took me all of 20 minutes of my 30-something schedule. In all honesty, it took me longer to “style” the mantel.

Note: I had pictures of this project mid-spray paint, but apparently deleted them in my iPhone update purge (which I STILL haven’t been able to do). *groan* You get the idea. Now, to decorate my mantel FOR REAL for Fall. Need some Pinspiration

Picture found (lame haha):
spraypaint sticks

Update! Here’s my first step in updating my mantel for Fall (I was feeling motivated last night):

halloween mantel fireplace

I grabbed my raven bookends, some books with scary themes or covers, and a few Halloween-themed accessories. I also changed around the pictures displayed up there — took down the large black-and-white artwork that my boyfriend and I BOTH hate. Using a few framed and unframed pieces of art that have been left unhung since we painted the interior of the house (another to-do for another day), I added some height and different textures. I still think I need something round up there — maybe a bowl or something?

Did you work on any of your own Weekend DIY projects this past weekend?

The fireplace project: a weekend DIY, if you have three months of weekends to spare.

When we started talking about vacation to Costa Rica this year, we knew that a contracted project needed to be culled from our 2013 list. There was not a chance that either of us wanted the task of removing all that dirt and damaged wood from the deck project. Painting a three-story hallway was out of the question (especially for this particular blogger who is terrified of ladders). The fireplace was the next “big” project on the list — which included demolition (fun!), drywall and sanding (fuck that dust), tiling and trim… more painting, sealing off the chinney, and the biggie: finding an old mantel and installing to the wall and our uneven floor.

This is what the fireplace area looked like when we were house hunting:
Orange. ORANGE.
Yes. ORANGE.

After a fresh coat (or two) of paint:

sherwin williams paint gray living room
The color is Mink from Sherwin Williams

Unfortunately, I was out of town for the demolition. The boyfriend claimed that there were pieces of the old mantel behind the wall, but didn’t want to take the whole thing down just to see it (it wasn’t in any condition to recover anyway).
This is the picture he sent me:
fireplace demo

So. much. work. You can kind of see here what we were dealing with: an original firebox that is NOT centered in the wall. And yes, we decided early on to have the fireplace be decorative, not functioning (not in the budget. maybe some day).

Trim taken down and new drywall (oh, so much dust… so. much. dust):
fireplace demo

Craigslist find — only $250:

Parts!
Parts!

New tiled hearth (marble tile from The Tile Shop) and more paint!
new tiled hearth

When all said-and-done, we DID hire a contractor for sealing off the chimney and removing the pipe from the oven. This would also be the first hire that DIDN’T COST A PENNY. In fact, we made money, which happens… never (the contractor bought the old cast iron stove from us). Bizarro world, this project.

Now you see the pipe:
mantel up

Now you don’t!
black slate mantel fireplace living room

AND THERE’S STILL MORE: the inside brick needs to be painted (we’re going with black), and there’s some baseboard that I want removed to “balance” out the wall better. Also, the boyfriend forgot wood caulk to finish up the trim. We can’t do much about our old house being mostly non-square and uneven (basically everywhere), so there are some parts of the mantel that are not perfect. But we are both just SO PLEASED with how it turned out. Not only that, but the addition of a mantel added character back INTO the house — and that’s what renovating an old house is all about.

Kind of a finished living room angle (before the trim was placed. and before the piano messed up my decorating):
living room with fireplace

Overall, the project cost us around $800 (mantel, tile, materials; we already had the paint. borrowing of neighbor help and supplies, not included). If we had hired a contractor for the entire project, we were estimated around $3,500 (not including the price of the mantel). Who knows what that really would have included at the end of the day; but we also had two different contractors come for estimates and NEVER RETURN OUR CALLS. One of the guys even broke a hole in the wall to give us an estimate and basically dropped off the face of the earth.

Whew. What a project to complete. But… DONE.
Also, yes, I’ve totally rearranged the mantel decorations like 832 times!

Weekend DIY: paint a tray with chalkboard paint

Since I’ve been attempting to control the clutter in my basement — and catch up on unpacking a few boxes stored down there from TWO YEARS AGO — I came across a pair of these breakfast trays that we’ve used, probably, never. BUT they’re in never-used condition, and I needed something to fill That Annoying Space above the cabinets in my kitchen (which is its own ongoing decorating project).

breakfast tray DIY chalkboard paint

Chalkboard paint is SUPER easy to accomplish in an afternoon (so long as you can keep the cats away from the kitchen table long enough). I like to paint with sponge brushes for these types of small projects.

I didn’t bother priming because a) it’s chalkboard paint and b) it’s a small surface and c) AIN’T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT. See: it was only going to be for decoration and no functional use. Also see: dramatic foreshadowing.

photo 2

The surface of the trays is similar to some kind of whiteboard material — super shiny — and no, I did not want to use as whiteboards. The corners were a pain in my ass, so after wiping excess paint off the wood 18 million times, I went back and taped the edges.

Said tape pulled up the paint when I removed it, which means I left it to dry too long.

These babies only needed two coats, and the chalkboard paint is REALLY forgiving, so you don’t need to worry about any streaking. Until the edge tape pulls the paint off the edges, and you have to go back and fix with a tiny brush. But what would a quickie-DIY project be without unexpected annoyances!

photo 4

We were hosting a neighborhood “stoop” party, so I replicated a fun illustration from a set of greeting cards welcoming our guests.

And there you have it: one simple weekend DIY project!

We’ve used chalkboard paint in two different kitchen projects (the first was a cabinet door above the keg fridge), and it’s so easy to use and to create something unique. Plus, the ongoing art therapy of drawing with chalk gives this 30-something warm memories of sidewalk chalk masterpieces.

Have any fun weekend DIY projects? Leave them in the comments!

Don’t freak out…

You know how this conversation starts — or ends, rather. With a FREAK OUT.

That was the boyfriend’s conversation to me after work on Sunday: Don’t. Freak. Out.

These are the kind of talks one never wants to have in a relationship. Don’t Freak Out. Don’t Get Mad. We Need to Talk. It’s Not You…

Said Freak Out has to do with our home renovations, thankfully (weird that’s a positive in this stage of life), and nothing to do with our partnership (thank the Ceiling Cat). We already discussed what we intended to do with the “fun money” this year as far as the house was concerned, but not-so-much about timeline.

Sadly, the house money did not include doing anything about this:

There’s always next year…

In conversation with others, we laugh it off as our “swingers” tub. If only our 1800s house had such a history, and not just that it hasn’t been renovated in 30 years. Also: yes, this is where our cats prefer their water reservoir.

We *are* decorating around that bathroom, however (with a helluva lot of paint and cheap-ish fixes). We’re also painting the entire first floor and entry. And painting the second floor and hallway. And breaking open the tiled-in fireplace to see what’s behind it, and what choices we have to renovate it…

Starting on Friday.

FRIDAY.

This Friday, if I wasn’t specific.

So, by this time next week, I’ll be waking up to beautiful grays and blues and bright white trim… instead of Stuck-in-the-80s-shopping-at-the-County-Seat colors (tell me I’m not the only 30-something who remembers that mall store!). The direction of the fireplace and firebox replacement will have to do with… well, what’s behind all that ugly tile.

In addition to the projects still-yet-unplanned, we have new tile in the entryway in the budget, some new furniture, updated light fixtures and a new deck. But that magenta platform tub will remain when all the dust clears. Oh boy, is it a conversation piece, but based on our home budget, it will remain for another year.

Home Decorating: A kitchen inspired by Pinterest

I was so excited to see this Pin of a coffee station that I recreated it for my own. I’m not usually that much of a copycat, but it was just TOO perfect for the empty space in my kitchen.

And the result finally gave me the ideas on how to decorate the rest of the kitchen! MORE WIRE CAGES! {bonus points if you used your Mommy Dearest voice}

The small buffet is from an online store that shall not be named because, well… they sold me a piece of shit. The cabinet was on sale for $160 and ended being REALLY cheaply made and cannot be moved, for fear of falling apart. In the past, I’ve purchased VERY well-built furniture from stores like West Elm for the same price range and those pieces have really held up – I’ll stick to what I know in the future. Thankfully, the boyfriend could reinforce the structure, making it a bit stronger (can you believe they didn’t even include screws that were the proper depth? I suppose you can…). I won’t make the same mistake in purchasing a sideboard for the dining room.

Shelf Unit is from Hobby Lobby (make sure you use the online coupon to save 40% on one item!)
I love you, blogs & coffee print is from etsy {I won from another blogger last year}
We received the Polish soup mugs from the boyfriend’s aunt for Christmas. They were just too beautiful to be hiding in the cupboards!

This set-up has already changed at least 6 times since we’ve put it together (as far as decorating goes). But it’s such a cozy, intimate little space that is helping me love our kitchen. Even if I think the floor still needs to GO.

{From the Vintage Wren – source of some awesome DIY and decorating ideas}

Happy Anniversary to our Home!

Yep, we moved into our new house one year ago today… on Halloween. Barely getting the movers out before the trick-or-treaters started to show.

Sold!

Of COURSE, we had candy ready and pillows on the couch the first night. The real treat for us was grilling out, considering the years we lived downtown and couldn’t have a gas grill.

The place looks a little different and certainly feels lived in and cozy. The cats seemingly love the three stories and all of the stairs. True story: I had sore calf muscles for the first three months getting adjusted to all of the steps. I’m STILL getting used to those damn etched glass doors. It’s been quite the year. I mean, the kitchen took nearly 4 months to finish. [ed note: still not finished]

Even with the small renovations that we were able to accomplish this year, the list of things we still need/want to do seems overwhelming. That bathroom will get a facelift this year if I have to get a third job to do it!

I’ll certainly share more pictures soon.

It’s good to be home.