The kids are in school, it’s still August – but I am ready for fall. And nothing says fall better than baked apple goodness. I have to start with my newest apple crush, Apple-Cheddar Muffins. They are savory, but with a subtle, sweet, apple flavor. Even my child who hates having chunks of fruit in pancakes, muffins etc. still loved these. They were a win win at our house.
I doubled the recipe and used half white, half wheat. It also called for a half cup of oats so it is off to a great start in fiber. According to Eat This Much that’s a total of 6 grams of fiber and with only 2 Tbls sugar I don’t have to worry about my kids having seconds. 😊
For the apples I used tart Granny Smith and this awesome apple peeler which cores and peels them. My kids also love to peel apples with this peeler so it’s a win win. I was able to find mine at a yard sale, hopefully you can be as lucky or get one here. This peeler, cores and peels the apples into nice little accordion style balls. If you love baking with apples this is definitely worth the storage space. I think I baked Apple Dumplings for like 5 years before I bought it (I’m a slow adopter) and I wish I had bought one sooner. I held off not being sure it was worth storing all year to pull out in the fall — but it’s worth it.
Cheddar Apple Muffins taste the best (in my opinion) with fresh butter and a warm soup. The ingredients are flour, oats, sugar, baking soda, salt, cheddar, apples, oil, milk and eggs. I have found they are best when cooked for 16 minutes in my oven. Though the Better Homes cookbook suggested 20. You have to play it by ear with how your oven cooks. I have found muffins are definitely better when they are cooked just to the point of no gooey center, if you go over it won’t be black, but it will be dry. I also keep my baked goods in our glass cake dome. Something about the heavy glass keeps fresh baked items soft and tasty longer.
Apple Cheddar Muffins 400° Bake 15-18 minutes
(this is the doubled recipe, you can easily cut it in half)
1 1/2 cups whole ground wheat flour
1 1/2 cups all -purpose flour
1 cup shredded cheese (plus more for sprinkling on top)
2/3 cup rolled oats
2 Tbs sugar
5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 beaten eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
2/3 cup cooking oil
1 1/2 cups finely chopped, peeled cooking apples ( I used Granny Smith)
Grease 12 cup muffin tin set aside. In a medium mixing bowl combine flour, cheese, oats, sugar and baking powder and salt. Mix well then add apples and coat well with dry ingredients. Create a well in the center and set aside.
In another medium bowl combine eggs, milk and oil. Mix well then add all at once to the dry ingredients. stir just till moistened, batter should be lumpy.
Spoon into the prepared muffin tins, I use an ice cream scoop because it is the perfect size for my tins. Sprinkle with shredded cheddar cheese. Bake in a 400° oven for 15-18 minutes or until golden brown. Makes 24 small muffins or 18 medium muffins.
Nutrition facts per muffin: 162 cal. 9 g total far (2 g sat. fat), 24 mg chol., 162 sodium, 17 g carb, 6 g fiber 4 g pro. Daily Values: 3% vit. A, 0% vit C, 10% calcium, 6% iron.
You know back when chalk boards were all the rage and they were being painted everywhere? It looks like the style is starting slow and now ease out of the kitchen, I think because they were often big and black and well…permanent.
It’s hard to commit to something like that. I never painted my wall black (though I did try magnetic paint at one point, that’s another story), deep down inside I kind of wanted to know what it would be like to have a chalkboard that could have cute things drawn on it, still it was so permanent. My husband had reviewed these awesome chalk markers and I had no place to use them.
until now….
The day came while we were at a city festival and one of the booths was giving away blackboard wall decals – basically removable chalk board walls. I had to try it and since I am trying it, why not tell you about it.
This removable chalkboard is a plastic like paper applied just like contact paper. It also works just like a chalk board as well except it is easily removable. I used it in the play space in our basement and on my antique Hoosier cabinet. Since it is removes easily, I didn’t have to worry about it changing the look or ruining the surface.
You will need the Blackboard Wall Decals by Colore, a level, tape measure, scissors and a pencil. There are several options from different companies for contact blackboard paper, but as of this post Colore was actually the cheapest and it worked well.
I used the tape measurer to decide how high to place it on the wall. Then I used the level to make sure both my corners would start at the same height. A square edge at the corners made sure I had the chalkboard decal going up at the correct angle.
Start in one corner and smooth it out with your hand as you pull the paper backing off. There are also handy cutting lines on the back to help you get a nice straight edge.
And Voila! You’ve got yourself a temporary chalkboard that works and can be taken down whenever you feel the need. Be warned that the chalk markers are much harder to get off than traditional chalk. I really like the look of the chalk markers, but tried to draw things with the chalk marker that I wanted to stay longer and let the kids draw with the regular chalk for easy clean up.
The chalkboard below was made with one and a half of the Colore box sets and I used the left over portions to change up my Hoosier Cabinet a bit. Hope you enjoyed the demo. I’ll keep you posted on my next adventure.
At no other time in my life had I been as cold as I was then, living in the northern state of Wisconsin. The wind pushed the damp cold right to my bones and no wind breaker or down coat could keep me warm. On top of finding myself in this extreme cold, we were also living in a 40 year old house with old drafty windows and cold (but beautiful) hardwood floors. The heating bill was much higher than other homes our size and yet we weren’t any warmer.
To say I was motivated to tackle home improvements was an understatement. There were only two things on my mind, I was cold and how could I fix it.
Little did I know that within three years, this first time home re-modeler would not only be warmer, but would have cut the energy use in half – not of what we were using, but in half of what other homes our size were using. We actually cut it by more than half. (I know because our charming little town sent letters regularly telling us where we stacked up). Our water bill was also cut by more than half – but that is a post for another day.
How did we do it, an average couple, fresh out of grad school, with no nest egg of backup money? The truth is even more affordable and possible than you would think. We learned to increase comfort and save money through securing leaks in windows, doors, ceilings, floors and outlets all for $10 or less. There are more expensive options, but these work and you can be warm now and have a lower electric bill. If you want to do the environment a solid you can, by using less energy for equal (or increased) comfort. You don’t always have to invest in $10,000 improvements to be environmentally wise.
The first big issue for us and for more than 25% of American households, was leaky, inefficient windows. The image below is infrared, the red shows where heat is escaping this house. The average home loses up to 30% of its heated and cooled air through the windows. At this point almost every other site will tell you to get new windows. Which would be great if you have a huge amount of money waiting to be spent. The cost varies, a single story home with 10 windows can cost anywhere from $3,000-7,000.
The truth is, we did have a bit of money, but that was for the whole house, not just the windows. It is possible to increase the performance of your old windows now and one day get new ones, but be warm now.
There are three things you can do for windows each costing $5-10. First caulk the outside of your windows, filling in any crevices or cracks that have been developing over the years. This will help keep out cold in the winter and heat in the summer. It will also keep out bugs. Choose a caulk that is labeled for outdoor windows and trim with a silicone base. These are often not paintable, but I just get the clear color and don’t paint it. Dap is a great brand because you can count on it holding up. It can cost $5 more than the cheapest brand, but it is worth it. You will make up the money in energy savings and effort.
After you’ve sealed the outside, seal the inside crevices with this awesome caulking cord. Because it is in thin cords packaged in a wide row, you can fill small spaces or large. This is very useful for old windows that may have large gaps. It never cracks and remains mold-able and seals completely. I always use this in my daughters room because of her asthma. It seals out most allergens from outside and helps her sleep more comfortably.
The third window treatment is your classic shrink wrapped window – on top of doing the other two things. Shrinking plastic to your windows is easy to do and can be done in a way that is almost hard to tell it’s there. Follow directions for shrinking it. I like to try and put it on metal around the window versus painted walls or wood – it can pull paint and varnish off. Windows may be old, but with these three meathods they will not leak.
Your next big energy loss is heat rising through the roof. In fact for many homes, 25% of the heat produced by your boiler escapes through the roof. There are a few things you can do. First, you want to make sure the ceiling joists are covered. Chances are, if you have an old house, the insulation has compacted over time, or didn’t have enough to begin with.
A tell tale sign that you are losing heat through the roof is if on a snowy day you can see your roof beams through the snow. Once you begin to notice this you will see how common roof heat loss is.
It took me a while to clue into this. I noticed there was a draft in our kitchen. In fact when I opened the corner cabinet cold air would rush out. This was in a large part due to the fact that the first electrician we hired to install fire alarms moved the insulation around the ceiling joists in the attic and never put it back.
In a way it was a blessing (though I was totally annoyed with him) because I finally got up the nerve to climb into the attic. Not only did I find all he had done, but also found that ALL of our joists were showing. We got a quote to have more insulation blown in and they quoted us $4000! It turns out that the average price is around $1200 and this company offered all kinds of extras we couldn’t afford. It wasn’t that we didn’t want insulation or didn’t see the value – we simply didn’t have the money.
So this is where you save money and stay warm. Wear a dust mask, long sleeves, pants and gloves. This is to protect yourself from fiberglass in the insulation, especially your lungs. I then took a broom, swept a section of insulation into a pile towards me, pulled it apart, fluffed it back up and placed it gently back in place. I was able to re-cover most of the joists completely. For one 10 square foot section I had to buy more insulation, but the cold draft was gone and we were much warmer.
One note, it is very important that the roof has circulation or you will have condensation, which will breed mold and ice jams. Make sure you do not cover attic vents and that no insulation touches the roof. Think of attic insulation as a big blanket keeping warmth in. It’s ok if your attic is cold – you want it cold, but you don’t want the level below it to be cold.
Cold air also travels into your home through poorly insulated outlets. You can tell if an outlet is leaking cold air by licking your finger and placing it near the outlet opening. If you feel cold air moving past your finger you want to insulate the box. If this is a new build or basement,you can use spray foam to insulate behind outlet boxes.
If the home is built and walls are up, place outlet insulators behind all outlet covers and light switches that are found on the inside along exterior walls.
Replace weatherstripping around your exterior doors. The link here is for convenience from amazon – note it is not $10. But if you go to a local hardware store you can find many options.
Floor – insulate floor joists from the basement. Cold air transfers from outside walls, travels along your floor joists and settles in your basement. If you have an unfinished basement this is a very easy, slightly annoying job.
One option is to hire a professional to come in and spray all floor joists with a special insulating foam. It guarantees energy savings. It also cost several thousand dollars. Meaning it would take along time to regain your cost of installing.
Instead I bought 8 cans of spray foam. Sprayed along all crevices where joists meet support boards.Then placed blanket insulation in the space for further cold air protection. I am sure the professionals would have sealed it better, but my version cost about $30 and with all of our affordable energy improvements we cut our usage by more than half. I know it works and it doesn’t have to cost thousands. *while I was researching products I’ve used, I came across a DIY version you can buy for about $800 and possibly get close to professional coverage if you want to check it out.
And that is my quick and easy 5 ways to get warm for less than $10 a project.
I wish you the best in your energy efficient DIYs. I would love to answer any questions you might have on other projects.
Until next time, stay warm, for as little as possible. 😊
A few months ago, while visiting my parents, I spent the night in my childhood room. Many things had changed since I was young, but there was one piece of furniture I remembered. A little dresser leaning against the wall. A bit unassuming, it probably wouldn’t stick out to the average person, but as I looked memories came flooding back. Things I had cherished, things I had worried about and friendships I’d made.
The little dresser had gone through many hands since I had last used it and the years were showing. Someone (perhaps me) had colored in the crevices with a green crayon. One wheel had fallen off the bottom and it now sagged on the floor. The sides had been roughed up by (not me, I would never do that 😉).
Suddenly, I wanted to fix it up and bring it back to where it once was. I asked my mom if I could take it and she said, “yes”!
Family Ancestry and a Water Stand
This dresser (or more accurately the water stand-now-used-as-a dresser) not only belonged to me as a child, it had also belonged to my mother and her mother when they were children. As I began to get it ready for refinishing I couldn’t help but wonder about who built it. With the detailed curved joints and routed edges. This piece, dating back to about 1910, had to have been done by hand, as many electric tools weren’t in mainstream use yet, but how was it done? The whole piece intrigued me.
Life Happened
My grandmother was a hard woman from what I remember as a child, and I never talked to her much growing up.
As an adult I learned more about her life and found she had gone through her share of heartache and pain, enduring a history I likely never would. The wear on this little dresser seemed to be speaking to all it had witnessed during the lives of its owners.
Becoming a US Citizen
My grandmother sailed to America with her parents when she was 7 years old. Her father had wanted to come sooner, but couldn’t convince his wife to travel on the ocean, she felt it wasn’t safe.
Then the Titanic sank.
Titanic Sinking
My great grandfather hid every newspaper he could find, afraid they would never make it to America if his wife heard the devastating news. As much as he tried, she still found out, it was too big of a story to hide. She surprised her husband by saying, “They will be safer now. We can go.” They sailed on the very next ship.
The Big Move
So the great trip began, with packing and buying tickets, preparing for a new life and saying goodbye to family they would leave behind. Within a year after arriving in the states, both of my grandmother’s parents contracted Typhoid Fever. Her father died at the age of 38 leaving his wife a widow at 32, with 6 children, in a new country. My grandmother was 8 years old.
It must have been a taxing life trying to bring in enough to care for a large family. They moved in with my grandmother’s aunt who had also moved to the states and somehow paid the bills. My grandmother quit school as soon as she was able to start bringing in an income and help with the family. At the age of 16 she started working as a switchboard operator for the telephone company. Which I understand to be a pretty prestigious job for the time.
A Relationship Match
The new job must have given her a little freedom. She enjoyed dressing up and spending time with her friends. She loved jewelry and even had a few fashion wigs that were all the rage. She married one of the young men in her group of friends. A local baseball hero who wanted to be with her more than with any other girl.
The Great Depression
The great depression hit two years before they got married. I sometimes wonder if they held off getting married, waiting for things to work out. As the lean times rolled on. Perhaps they decided to make the most of it and start their life together on faith.
The depression left a lasting impression.
When my grandmother died she had boxes of necklaces and earrings most of them shiny, colorful plastic. It was cost effective and added that splash of color to make an outfit complete. More telling were the piles of money stuffed in bureaus and under beds.
A huge storage of food in the basement, mostly expired, gave hope of no hungry days ahead. Never using the food, they always bought new food to eat from their pantry, but the basement was there as security.
The depression hit at such a pivotal time. They never quite recovered.
A Life of Poverty
Poverty does something to you, it changes how you see life and reality. Much like the scars on the dresser, you can fix it up and bring back the color, but some things will never be the same.
A different perspective isn’t necessarily to be mourned. Even though scars remain, that can’t be sanded out, it adds character and history. A meaningful story, that might not have otherwise come.
Alzheimer’s and Sacrifice
My grandmother lived to be 96 years old and spent the last 10 years of her life with Alzheimers and near complete deafness. There were times when I would look down the hall and see my mother helping her to the bathroom or helping her get dressed and wonder why God kept my grandmother here so long. She clearly wasn’t getting anything out of life. Maybe, I wondered, it was to give my mother the opportunity to show how angelic she was, for it took an angel to do the things she did. As I refinished her dresser and brought back the charm from its early days, I felt like I was reaching back into the beginning of my grandmother’s life.
and I remembered.
I remembered, that as my grandmother’s mind was being ravaged by the affects of Alzheimers and she would be thrown back and forth in time, reliving anywhere from five minutes to 90 years ago. There were times she would laugh and joke with me.
I began to wonder if maybe my grandmother hadn’t always been hardened and grumpy. I began to think maybe life had been hard and resulted in her currently, fleeting, hardened self.
So here I was thinking, as I sanded and glued and nailed pieces back together. Maybe my grandmother had lived that long so that I could also catch a glimpse of who she really had been. In a way, as the dresser began to take shape and show it’s true self, I began to see that my grandmother deserved the same respect.
The respect to regain and be remembered for who she had been.
A few months ago our family room was beginning to feel cramped, messy and boring. Though I had ways for my family to put away blankets and toys, they were not following my well thought out plan. The basket meant for folded blankets was crammed with toys or shoes kids didn’t want to put away and became just another object taking space. Our coffee table, while great for putting up our feet, lacked much use beyond that and stood in the middle of the room horrible and brown, so so brown.
A professor of mine once said, during his lecture on strengthening relationships, that if you have a problem with something your spouse is doing, you may see it as his/her problem, when in reality it is your problem. Your problem, because most likely your spouse doesn’t care or is blissfully unaware that something is an issue for you. This is how I was beginning to feel about our messy family room. It was my problem and if it was my problem I was in a position to fix it.
The professor went on to suggest there was a solution found in the way you chose to look at the problem. For example one husband dropped his dirty socks on the floor every day and no matter how much his wife asked him to put them in the laundry he continued to leave them on the floor. The husband, while truly wanting to please his wife constantly forgot because he was so anxious to get into the shower after his long day and the laundry basket was on the other side of the room. Once the wife understood more of the story she in turn decided change her approach, because in the end she just wanted the socks off the floor and he wanted to take a shower. She decided to move the laundry basket just outside the bathroom and with the ease of laundry access, never had socks on the floor again.
I constantly look back to this story when I am trying to solve a behavior, sometimes it is easier to move the basket than it is to convince someone to change what they value. In my case, my kids valued “cleaning” up the floor as quickly as possible, more than they valued actually putting the toys away. So I changed my approach. I began to search for a chest that could double as a coffee table, but had blanket storage. I placed the collect-all-basket in a hard to reach place and made room for a few puzzles and games inside our TV console. Before you know it, the family room was back and though toys and books and random shoes still made their way into the room, there is no easy place to stash them. Clean up has become much more straight forward.
Here is the journey of my storage chest that started out looking like a little girls fingernail polish station, guessing from the princess cards and bubblegum pink puddles on top…I could be wrong. 🙂 The change was exciting, adding a pop of color to this very brown room was just what was needed, I love propping my feet up and admiring the stencil work. In the end, it was my problem, but with a beautiful solution.
The chest was in rough shape, but it fit the qualifications of internal storage and I loved the wood work on the outside. I thought that with enough washing and sanding I would be able to remove the pink goo.
I was wrong. After dedicated sanding there was still a bit of a residue. I had wanted to have a wood tone on the top and add color to the bottom. I considered painting the whole thing, but I love to see a bit of wood grain. At this point I changed my design and decided I would stencil it, to draw attention away from the pink wood, if still visible after staining. I also roughed up the surface of the bottom portion to prep it for primer.
I like to prime pieces that I am going to paint for two reasons. One it really helps the paint stick to a roughed up lacquered surface and two…
… it helps you see the gaps between the wood joints. At this point, I let the primer dry and then come through with caulk and fill in all the edges and cracks. Caulk is the secret to transforming a piece from looking amateur to professional. That and a good quality paint to give a nice hard finish. Caulk is also not difficult to use correctly once you know a few tricks (I will be posting on that soon).
Apply the paint of your choice. I picked Glidden Satin from Home Depot, the original shade was True Turquoise. When painting furniture I like to get the paint samples. One or two sample sizes are often plenty to complete a piece and then I don’t have large amounts of random colors filling my space. I also feel more at ease with branching out to different colors or picking the shade that is just right for each item. This chest took less than one sample can.
In all honesty, I picked out the color and then worked on a different project. By the time I got back to finishing this I didn’t like the color any more –I know I was a bit shocked myself that I changed my mind so quickly. I added some trim paint ( Glidden, Satin, Raffia Cream) from our basement remodel and mixed until I had a shade I liked.
Here you have the finished piece and I guess I could have kept it this way (except for the pink stain on top that still showed through and the fact that this piece is totally boring! I knew I would be adding some character, but needed to let it dry.
Once the paint was dry, I sanded the edges of the feet and along the wood trim to give a little character. Then I came through with walnut stain and stained the wood so it would stick out a bit. If you ever go too far and don’t like the amount sanded off, simply repaint the section you want unroughed (that’s not a word, but you get the idea).
Stenciling furniture is much easier than stenciling a wall because it is smaller and in this case it was not on a wall with all the blood running from my arms. That was tough, I actually really liked this. It went fast and added great color and texture to my room. It also did a great job tricking the eye so you couldn’t really see the pink stain.
To keep the stencil in place while you work, spray with glue adhesive. I highly recommend Elmer’s glue because they are just better. I made the mistake of using the dollar store brand because I had run out of Elmer’s and I spent a long time scraping the horrible glue from the top of the storage chest. Just spray with Elmer’s spray let it dry a minute or two then lay down on the surface.
I like to use my trusty cheap brushes, they work really well for many jobs, including stenciling. Now the trick to getting a good stencil look and not many big blobs of paint on the other side is to keep very little paint on your brush at a time. Just enough paint to get the color on. Use a tapping motion and avoid strokes of paint as those pull the paint under the stencil.
And now for the moment of truth, how well did this section take? Wait a minute or two for the paint to dry just a bit to avoid a string of wet paint accidentally dripping in the wrong place.
It looks good, I’m happy.
Some sections didn’t fair as well. If you are a perfectionist like I am, a razor blade is an easy way to clean up any edges where the paint came through too thick. When stenciling a wall you can simply touch up with the contrasting wall color, no need to scrape it off.
When finished, I put on an outdoor/indoor lacquer to hold up to the wear and tear of a family all putting their feet up, after all, this is one of it’s jobs now. It has held of beautifully and protects from scratches as well and it holds a ton of blankets.
Until next time. Happy building, reusing, refinishing, recycling. Post below on your awesome home solutions and have a great week. Remember to subscribe for the latest projects at This Homemade Home or follow us on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram or Twitter – whatever you want. 🙂
Hi, I’m Natalie. I’m a mother of four, an artist, and a DIYer that loves to reuse, recycle, and refurbish. I like power tools and teaching others how to save money while improving their home.
For the apples I used tart Granny Smith and this awesome apple peeler which cores and peels them. My kids also love to peel apples with this peeler so it’s a win win. I was able to find mine at a yard sale, hopefully you can be as lucky or get one here. This peeler, cores and peels the apples into nice little accordion style balls. If you love baking with apples this is definitely worth the storage space. I think I baked Apple Dumplings for like 5 years before I bought it (I’m a slow adopter) and I wish I had bought one sooner. I held off not being sure it was worth storing all year to pull out in the fall — but it’s worth it.
There are three things you can do for windows each costing $5-10. First 
The third window treatment is your classic 
So this is where you save money and stay warm. Wear a
Replace 
Instead I bought 8 cans of 
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