Laundry Love.

When we were working on our house plan we knew that we didn't want upstairs laundry. I feel like this is on everyone's wish list but it just doesn't work with our lifestyle. We had upstairs laundry in our old house and I knew it wasn't something I wanted in our forever home. It was convenient to have the laundry room just down the hall from our bedroom but for us that's where the positives ended.

In this house we wanted the laundry room to be closer to where we spend most of our time, aka the living spaces of the house. We put it just off the mudroom, close to the kitchen. In reality I spend about 99% of my time in the Family Room. Its where we work until the office is done and it's where we relax. But I am still close enough to the Laundry Room that I don't find it inconvenient to stop what I am doing for a few minutes to switch the laundry.

Aesthetically I knew I wanted a bright, and clean looking laundry room with lots of white. I think we succeeded.

Under the window on the left I eventually want to make a sorting station with different hampers for different loads but I haven't found any hampers or containers that will work how I want them to. 

I hang the majority of my clothes to dry so I wanted an open area, as opposed to a closet, where I could hang everything to dry.

I love how our laundry room turned out. I kind of wish that it wasn't a room that I had to go to work so I could enjoy it a bit more. Maybe I should put a recliner in the corner and a TV on the counter. My little wife getaway. The Husband seems to be allergic to doing laundry so he'd never find me! 

Make This. Now.

For Real.

Saturday was The Husband's birthday. I needed to make him a birthday cake. I of course headed over to Pinterest to see what I could find. I stumbled across this marvelous masterpiece. Oreo Brownie Cookie Dough Ice Cream Cake. His favourites are Oreo, brownies, and cookie dough it was the perfect recipe. I made a few tweaks from the original recipe and it turned out amazing. Seriously. The Husbnad is a lover of all things sweet and I was told that this is the best cake. Ever.

Ingredients:
1 Pkg Oreo Cookies
1/3 Cup butter melted
6 Cups cookie dough ice cream
Chocolate Fudge Sauce (you can use bought but I made my own. I think the homemade sauce really made this cake. I included the fudge sauce recipe at the bottom of this post)
1-9x13 pan of brownies ( I made a batch of two bite brownies, next time I think I am going to just buy them. I don't think it would change the end result at all.)
1 container of Cool Whip

Food Processor (or you could buy oreo crumbs instead of oreo cookies but I liked that I could make them coarser chopping them at home)
8x8 casserole dish (the original recipe called for a springform pan, but I don't have one of those. A casserole dish worked just fine though)

Instructions:
Crumble 2/3 pkg of oreos in food processor. Reserve about 6 Tablespoons of crumbs. I tried to save the bigger crumbs because I wanted a crunchier layer in the middle.

Mix remaining crumbs with the butter and press into the bottom of your pan. Freeze for 1 hour.

Soften ice cream and then spread 3 Cups ( I didn't actually measure this, I just made sure I had an even layer) on top of crub crust. Freeze for 1 more hour.

Top ice cream with reserved crumbs. Top crumbs with fudge sauce. I didn't measure this either, I just made sure I had a good even layer. Freeze for 1 more hour. (the original recipe mixed the crumbs and the fudge together. I liked the idea of them being seperate layers though).

Sofen ice cream and spread the remaining 3 cups on top of fudge sauce layer. Again I didn't measure this, just made sure I had a nice even layer keeping in mind that I still have 2 layer that I need to fit in the pan.

Cut up two bite brownies into halves and space out over the ice cream layer. I didn't end up with a solid brownie layer but that was my personal preference.

Smooth softened Cool Whip over brownie layer. Freeze over night.

Chocolate Fudge Sauce:

For the 8x8 pan I used:

1 Cup Cream
1 Cup brown sugar
1 1/2 Tablespoons of cocoa

Bring to a boil over medium-low heat stirring constantly. I let it boil for a few minutes while stirring. Remove from heat.

Stir in 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Let cool.

Enjoy! It will be gone before you know it.

Family Room Updates

On Black Friday Rugs USA had a 75% off sale. Seeing as how we need to buy about a million (okay maybe not a million) area rugs for our house I took advantage of the savings. We need a fairly large rug for our family room and I figured this was the perfect time to snatch one up. I had my eye on the Inspire rug in navy for awhile. It worked with our color scheme and I loved the pattern. It was a win win.

Before the Area Rug:


After:


Such a difference. It helps visually anchor the couch and it makes the space so cozy.  Plus the ottoman doesn't slide around when you put your feet up. Who wants a slidey Ottoman? Not me.

Remember our weird looking fireplace on the ugly white wall? Yeah, that silver box is a fireplace. We didn't bother to get the painters to paint it beacuse the plan was that we were going to put either stone or tile on that wall around the fireplace. We now realize that we are at least a year away (if not longer) from putting stone around the fireplace. It just isn't high on our priority list right now. The painters thought the plan was to tile it so they didn't paint the edges very neatly and the random whiteness was bothering the Husband and I.

So we decided to paint it.

 We went with Benjamin Moore Mellow Yellow. We had used that color on one of the chairs at the back of the room so we still had some extra paint kicing around. That means this update was free! We love the results. It ties in with the fun, colorful vibe we are going for in this room and it looks so much better than the ugly white wall.

So that's what our Family Room looks like now. We still have a lot of work to do in this room, like the handrail on the stairs, the TV Stand, whatever we end up doing in the back corner, and we need to hang something on the back wall. It's starting to come together though!