#dang it's not entirely monochromatic this time dang

[xenafar-art]

When I started drawing this one I didn’t realize until after I had already picked the colors that it’s basically a desaturated lesbian flag so I guess this picture says gay rights?

[cathrynstreich]

Upscale Your Home By Copying The Real Housewives

America is fascinated with The Real Housewives of Bravo.

They’re busy, bossy, and sometimes boozy, and boy, oh, boy, is it fun to watch them.

These women are no dummies, though. From journalists to restaurateurs to soap opera queens, they do a lot more than just flip tables and give away their rescue dogs.

They often have real jobs, and real lives, and really exquisite houses, too, and whether you love them or hate them, chances are good you’ll find these palatial estates downright drool-worthy.

Here’s some design advice from a few of your favorite Real Housewives—you can use this advice in your home even if you don’t have a billion dollar budget.

Mirror Bethenny’s Look

Bethenny Frankel’s living area features a massive wall of mirrors right behind the sofa, but it’s not because the star wants to watch herself as she watches TV. Rather, Bethenny’s designer Cheryl Eisen incorporated the mirrors in both Bethenny’s personal and investment properties. Like the old saying goes, if the signature look ain’t broke, why fix it?

Bring the Indoors Out

Don’t neglect your outdoor living spaces! Lisa Vanderpump knows this, so she decked out her deck (ok, it’s actually a covered patio) with full furniture and lighting. If you’re going to spend time there, you might as well be comfortable, right?

Mind Your Budget

OK, OK, so you might have champagne wishes and caviar dreams WITHOUT the Real Housewife cash reserves, but that’s ok. Spend on quality, and splurge only where it counts. When redoing her SoHo loft, Bethenny Frenkel knew she could break the bank on all new stuff, but she decided to only spend where it counted and instead of going hog-wild, she reused a lot of what was already in the space. You can, too.

Don’t Be Afraid Of A Do-over

Many people face design paralysis – they don’t know where to start because they’re afraid to mess up. Carole Radziwill ran into this problem and tackled it head on—she redid the whole dang room after reupholstering the couch. Life—and design!—is messy. Just dig in and get started and be okay with the possibility that you might have to call a Mulligan once or twice.

Personalize With Photos

There’s nothing more boring than a beautifully designed space that no one lives in. Personalize your place with the things that matter most – photos of yourself and your family. Lisa Van Der Pump loves to dot framed photos of her favorite people around the home—make like Lisa and print some photos already, will ya?

Monochromatic Can Be Beautiful

If you have trouble committing to a full on color palette, just go with one color and play it up with different shades. The Kemsley’s home takes this look on perfectly with a whole lot of black and white—this look is classy as can be and easy to replicate for yourself.

Go For A Colorful Surprise

Not into playing it safe? Then double down on the color! Cary Deuber picked an insanely colorful range for their kitchen, and it’s rumored to be the only one of its kind in all of Texas. Of course, you don’t HAVE to be so over the top about it—you can use an accent wall or even bold artwork to add a ton of color and character in your space.

Think Storage

One of the biggest problems people often complain about in their homes is a lack of storage. Look for places to add more closet, cabinet, and shelf space so you can keep all your stuff tucked away nicely. Lisa Vanderpump makes room for what matters most – you can see her ginormous handbag collection has a place for everything and everything in its place.

Focus On The Details

Merk Deuber recentered the entire entry to their home over a 1.5” offset. Maybe you don’t need to be THAT meticulous, but paying attention to the details is the difference between, “Eh, it’s ok,” and “I’m going to love this forever!”

Dedicate Space To Your Hobbies

When it comes time to renovate, think about how you’ll really USE the space. Maybe you don’t really need a guest room, but a personal would get used on the daily. The Kemsleys turned one room into a full-on theater, and if they can dedicate space to their hobbies, so can you.

Wait Until Life Calms Down

Renovation and redecoration can take a toll, as Carole Radziwill knows. Don’t start a new project in the middle of filming—or when you’re going through a stressful life change. Wait until you’ve got the mental bandwidth to see your project through to the end.

Reflect Your Personal Style

When it comes to picking out finishes, sure, it’s smart to play it safe, but you’ve got to add some personal style in there, too! Whether your style is laid back or drop-dead fabulous, find ways to incorporate it into your home. For example, Kyle Richards uses chandeliers in every room for extra sparkle.

Renovate and Decorate For YOU

Bethenny’s home features just two bedrooms – she’d rather have dressing rooms and bigger living quarters than places for guests to stay. And that’s perfectly ok! At the end of the day, you’re the one who has to live there, so don’t worry about what everyone else will think – it’s your home, so make yourself happy first.

Did you enjoy these Real Decor tips? Remember to Pin this post for your future design projects – or, better yet, just hit up Bravo and see all of the design decisions and shocking shenanigans for yourself!

The post Upscale Your Home By Copying The Real Housewives appeared first on Lighter Side of Real Estate.

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[lenady]

Sour Creamed Pot Roast (Vintage 1976 Recipe)

I have a confession to make:

Despite cooking for years, and working, before now I’ve never actually used a slow cooker.

Well, I’ve used one. Mostly just plugging the thing in and switching it to ‘warm’ after someone carries it in for a potluck.

So when I was finally able to bring home the slow-cooker I got for Christmas (having been stored in my parent’s basement since) I pulled out this cookbook and looked for something fit to christen my pretty new appliance.

And well, there were some interesting dishes for sure… but for the sake of my husband’s taste buds I decided to go with something a little safer.

Sour Creamed Pot Roast sounds like a good compromise.

So, here we go- pick some tunes, and spin your clocks back a couple of decades. Onwards to 1976.

Definitely more ingredients than I’ve been using in the last few recipes… here’s hoping this one turns out well.

We need:

2 sliced of bacon 1 3-lb beef chuck roast ¾ c. chopped onion 1 tsp salt 1 bay leaf ¼ tsp ground cumin 1/8 tsp pepper ½ c. dairy sour cream 3 T. all purpose flour 2 T. snipped parsley ½ tsp Kitchen Bouquet Hot cooked noodles

Okay… pausing things real quick, cause “Dairy sour cream”?  is there another sort? Running into parsley again this week, so I’m going to go with the Italian style parsley that I’ve got in the fridge, since that’s still pretty fresh. I’m assuming the hot cooked noodles are something like egg noodles, like what you’d use in stroganoff, which makes sense considering the sour cream I’m thinking…

But what in the heck is Kitchen Bouquet? Seriously, what is that?

Oh…

This is Kitchen bouquet.

 Evidently some vegetable based gravy darkener or something… wasn’t that hard to find at least, just look around in the supermarket’s gravy section.

Anyway, on with the recipe.

We start off with some bacon, which is always a good start. Seriously, more things should start off with bacon. We fry that up and set the meaty goodness off to the side, reserving the grease in the skillet.  

Turning to our beef roast, we trim off the fat and cut it in half; the recipe says in order to fit it into the slow cooker, but I’m assuming it will help it cook more easily also.

Okay, now taking that meat over to the bacon grease we brown the two roast halves in the pan…. Which I don’t think I actually did long enough…

I think maybe it was suppose to be more seared, and mine kind of just looks… not red. Oh well, moving on and putting the meat in the slow cooker.

Time for the seasonings. The onion gets chopped up and combined with salt, a bay leaf, the cumin, the pepper, and the ¼ c. of water that the ingredient list doesn’t mention.

Now after pouring that over the meat, set it and forget it for 8 to 10 hours.

Seriously, try to forget it. I dare you, if you’re at home. That was probably the hardest part of this recipe, because the smell of the cooking roast filled my house within the span of an hour and drove me and hubby crazy for the rest of the day. Figured out the additional reason why people use the slow-cooker at work, if they didn’t they’d lose their sanity bit by bit, cause the smell of slowly cooking food… oh my gosh.

Anyway, after like 9 hours we take the lid off and remove the bay leaf.

Isn’t that so pretty? Well, aside from that blue mark... blame my camera. Anyway, after moving the roast to a separate container, skim some fat off the top of the liquid. Now, we’ve got to move the liquid into a saucepan… Not that easy, I’ll say that right now. If you’re lucky you won’t have as much of it end up on your stovetop/countertop as I did.

 Okay, after putting our meat back into the slow cooker (gotta keep it good and warm) we start on our noodles and gravy/sauce. Here’s the ingredients for that specifically: the flour, sour cream, parsley, and kitchen bouquet.

We mix the sour cream in with the flour first before adding it to the liquid which… wow… that really works… no clumps. Nice. Okay, we stir that every now and then, making sure it doesn’t boil, and let it thicken. In the meantime we cook the noodles as directed.

Once the gravy/sauce/whatever-you-want-to-call-this stuff is thickened and everything else is ready to go we season to taste, and add in the Kitchen Bouquet and parsley.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of adding in the parsley too soon and it ended up just getting dark instead of adding a nice little green pop. Oh well. Everything’s ready to go anyway. The bacon we cooked at the beginning of all this comes into play here, as we’re supposed to use it as a garnish. A bacon garnish? Okay, I can go with that. Serve the roast with the gravy, over the noodles.

 Verdict:

Okay so the taste was worth all of that waiting. No overly strong flavors, other than the sour cream, which might have overpowered the sauce a little. Overall the flavors were pretty well balanced. The roast was nice and tender and it went well with the noodles and gravy. I was right. It’s really like a pot roast version of stroganoff, but without mushrooms. Appearance-wise, it’s pretty good too. Not certain about the bacon as a garnish, but it added a little something too the flavor. Would’ve looked a little less monochromatic if the parsley hadn’t been added it so late. I’ve already mentioned the scent. It had me primed for pot roast the entire time it was cooking.

4/4 My hubby doesn’t like pot roast and he liked this recipe. It wasn’t perfect, but it was dang good.