Bedroom Furniture!

Last month I blogged about the update in our bathroom. Adam has continued to work on the bathroom since then. This weekend, however, it got put on hold because we realized since I am hosting my future sister-in-law's shower here next month, we should get the downstairs bathroom completed. 


We'd been on a hunt for bedroom furniture for our master bedroom as well. We've been sleeping in our spare bedroom on my full size bed from college!


I REALLY (REALLY) wanted a sleigh bed. I don't know why. I just love how they look. We looked hardcore for a while, but then gave up every time because of the cost. One day a month or so ago my mom called and asked if we'd been to Costco. They had a new bedroom set and it had a beautiful sleigh bed that was just right! Not too light. Not too intricate. It was just right! We bought the set (in a couple stages because we needed to borrow other people's cars!). They sat in our foyer and dining room for a couple weeks until the master bedroom was cleaned out enough (from construction stuff). 


Adam started getting really worried about getting these big pieces of furniture upstairs since the turn is really tight. But they all made it!

Getting the furniture up the stairs.

Piles of packaging all over the place. That is really good cardboard! I hate to throw it out!

  

The stuff all over the bedroom. The wall in the bottom photo is going to be striped with thick matte and glossy stripes...eventually. After the bathroom downstairs is completed.

  

The bathroom is SO CLOSE to being done. The bottom picture shows the last part that needs to be tiled. And then it all needs to be grouted. Then we will have our master bathroom!

Now we just need to find a mattress to go with the bedroom set. Buying a mattress always freaks me out. It is such a big decision! 

Goodbye Water Heater

A couple Sundays ago, I woke up in the morning (as crabby as I always am in the morning) and got in the shower before church. The water was ice cold. It didn't heat up at all. 

I knew. 

I just knew that our hot water was all over the cellar. 

"Adam.......?"

I woke him up to go check (because I don't like the cellar) and I was right. The hot water was no longer in the heater, but on the cellar floor. So I had to go to church greasy (not greasy because I was trying to fix it but greasy because I couldn't shower).

The water

The culprit

We really cannot complain too much, because the picture below will show you when this hot water heater was installed! It was a bit frustrating because it broke THE DAY we bought our tickets to Cairo for my sister's wedding ($$$$) but that's Murphy's law for you!

My dad and Adam's dad came over that afternoon. Adam's dad helped in the bedroom (that was the original plan for the day!) and my dad and Adam worked on the hot water heater.

It wasn't an easy replacement because the old one was SO old the new one didn't match up. They had to run new pipes to make them line up. Weird side note: My parents hot water heater broke a week to the day later. Same thing. They went down to the basement and found water everywhere. Luckily my dad was an expert by then!

Our new very hot hot water heater!

Here you can see the top of new one!

And the old one! I guess it really wasn't long for this world!

Oh the joys of this old house!

Dr. Pepper Birthday Cupcakes

For Adam's birthday (and my father-in-law's) this weekend, I decided to try out an idea I saw on Pinterest. I pinned these adorable Dr. Pepper cupcakes a while ago and decided to have a go at them this weekend. They did end up being a bit more work than I expected, but they turned out fantastic!

I followed the recipe on this blog. 

Her recipe:

Dr. Pepper Cupcake Recipe 

List of Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter

2 1/2 cups brown sugar

3 eggs

3 oz unsweetened baking chocolate, melted

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

2 1/2 cups cake flour

2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup boiling Dr. Pepper

How to:

Cream the butter and add the brown sugar.

When well blended, add the eggs one at a time, beating well.

Add the chocolate, slightly cooled

In a small bowl, add one teaspoon of the baking soda to the buttermilk.

Mix the remaining dry ingredients in another bowl.

Add the flour mixture and the buttermilk mixture to the butter mixture alternatively.  

Add the vanilla.  Finally add in the Dr. Pepper.

Pour into cupcake molds and bake at 375-degrees for 20-25 minutes.

Frosting:

1/3 C soft butter

3 C confectioner's sugar

1/2 C dark cocoa

4 Tbs heavy cream

1 tsp freshly grated ginger

1 can cherries in syrup (or in liqueur)

Cream the butter, cocoa and sugar together and stir in the cream.  Add the ginger and enough cherry syrup to create the desired consistency.  Refrigerate if necessary, and spread over the cupcakes when they have cooled.  Top each cupcake with half a cherry.

Adam was TOTALLY freaked out about me cutting apart pop cans. He was SURE I was going to "get shrapnel" in our food. But I didn't!

I found it was easier to do a rough cut around (because the DP logo is in the middle of the can). Then I went back and used the scissors to make a smooth cut. The edges were not ragged at all the way I cut. Also, I used regular DP cans because we (Adam) save them to bring to recycle for $ so there were bags in the cellar. I didn't drink all these this week!

Final product!

My father-in-law and Adam

My nephew pretending to drink out of one!

My notes:

-The batter was REALLY liquidy and I was a little nervous when I put them in the oven. But they turned out great! Nice and fluffy. 

-They made about 36 cupcakes. 

-The frosting recipe only iced about half the cupcakes. I would double it next time.

-Instead of buying buttermilk, I made it by combining lemon juice and milk. I got the idea from that blog, and then read more about it on Google. The best way is to add 1 TB lemon juice to a measuring cup. Fill the rest of the way with milk. Let sit 10 minutes. Saves money on buying a bunch of buttermilk you won't really use!
-These were a big hit! Adorable and tasty!