Recently in home base Category

Here's what our fridge looked like at the end of the first week of Operation Mother Hubbard. More photos on Flickr. 

We ate leftovers a LOT this week. Leftover veggie lasagna, leftover Irish stew from our favorite pub, leftover burrito filling, leftover dilly bean potato soup, and more.

But I also made several dishes from scratch with ingredients on hand, and we're still eating the leftovers from those:

• Pumpkin Enchiladas. These have been a staple in our kitchen for a few months now. I add black beans and wilted spinach for some more protein and vitamins. Also because the idea of a tortilla filled only with warm canned pumpkin is pretty unappealing to me. With this recipe, I used up some jarred taco sauce, two cans of pumpkin, a can of black beans, an enormous can of enchilada sauce, and assorted produce.
• Maple Parsnip Soup. Taken from the Mennonite Central Committee's Simply in Season cookbook, this recipe seems like it wouldn't be very filling, but it is. Especially when served with Bisquick drop biscuits. I substituted cream for the evaporated milk because that's what we had on hand, and I added some carrots for color (and because some of my parsnips had gone bad). I also left some chunks in the soup rather than pureeing it totally smooth, which I think enhanced the heartiness factor. 

EDIT: Okay, so I spent some time reading on the web, and it seems like it's generally frowned upon to paint antique furniture with its finish in good condition. Which it is, on my Eastlake pieces, except for parts of the bed that were replaced with cheap modern wood and restained. We do know the value of the furniture and it's fairly significant, so I think I'm going to leave it alone. In light of that, what can I do to spruce up this room? In particular, can you point me to a modern desk that wouldn't totally clash with this style?

My sister-in-law and her husband recently bought their first house. Over the past few months, they've put a lot of elbow grease into transforming it from an over-wallpapered monstrosity to a beautiful, modern, calm space in which to raise their family and entertain.

It's been inspiring to witness (and occasionally take part in) their renovations. While we don't have the resources right now to do anything major - or minor, for that matter - the process has made me look critically at my own home and bookmark a few ideas to refresh our space.

In particular, our guest room is a mishmash of different styles and ideas, but not in a fun, eclectic way. No, the guest room has more of a "here's a bunch of stuff, ta-da" feel to it. I really like the colors we chose for the room - a deep teal and chocolate brown with white accents - and I love the antique Eastlake bed and dresser passed down through Nathan's family.

But I don't love the mint-green rickety farm table serving as a dumping ground for technology. The guest room is an out of the way place for our printer and all that jazz, but I hate how random and unfinished it makes the room appear. For ages, I've been trying to find an Eastlake desk on Craigslist, to no avail. I couldn't come up with a way to tie the room together.

I flipped through some of my old Domino magazines recently, though, and was reminded that it's okay to mix design eras, wood finishes, IKEA and Eastlake even, if you do it in an intentional fashion. So now I'm okay with putting a more utilitarian, modern desk in there. However, that usually requires updating the antique elements of your room.

As a result, I've been thinking about sanding and painting our Eastlake furniture, which is currently kind of an outdated (but very beautiful) honey oak. Sort of like this, only without the mind-blowing lemon. Maybe a muted white and chocolate?

Here's the furniture, for reference:

I'm not really worried about ruining the value of the furniture by altering it; since they're family heirlooms, we'll probably never get rid of them, and I'd rather transform them into interesting showpieces that fit our home. What do you think? Color suggestions? Dire don't-you-dare warnings?