Great Indoors Granola

I've got a thing for yogurt, and I especially love yogurt with a little crunch.  About two years ago I started making my own granola, and I've never looked back.  The recipe I've included here is one that I've perfected over the past few months.  Hope you enjoy!

You'll need:

1/3 C vegetable oil

2 C old-fashioned oats

1/2 C raisins

2T brown sugar

1T honey

1T chocolate chips (I use semisweet)

2T Heath Milk Chocolate Toffee Bits

Locked and Loaded

Isn’t it great when a calm, relaxing weekend actually results in something productive?  Mr. Great Indoors and I had one of those this past weekend.  Time with friends and a good bike ride on Saturday, and then some house-related retail therapy on Sunday.

Our project this weekend was to replace the locks on our side and front doors.  I'd been having issues the past few weeks with my key (it wasn't catching the lock, so I had to stand in front of the door for five minutes every time jiggling it... annoying).  We were also not quite sure when the locks were replaced last and didn't really relish the idea of any former tenants attempting their old keys.  So we finally bit the bullet and set off to get new locks.  Unfortunately, the Lowe's right down the road didn't have many interesting locks in our price range (like this one... blah), and off we went to the Home Depot across town.  They had a slightly different selection, and we ended up deciding on a set by Defiant in Satin Nickel that came with two deadbolts, two handles, and four keys (unfortunately, I couldn't find the same product online).  Perfect for our front and side doors!  In addition to the lock set, we also bought a can of Rustoleum Satin Nickel to match the door guard to our fancy nickel knobs.  More about that in a minute.

Hosting an Awesome Party

We entertain on a regular basis by rotating weekly dinners with a group of close friends.  But there's nothing like having a party, and you can pick whatever occasion you like.  We've had two housewarming parties (one at our current house, and one at our old apartment), a New Year's celebration, an engagement party, a bridal shower, a few birthday parties, a fish fry, and even a pumpkin carving party.  And trust me when I say we'll be throwing many more parties in our lives.  So here are a few of my tips for throwing a good one.

Invite some people!
I've tried a few different forms of inviting, and I've found that the handiest is Evite.  Such cute invitations and incredibly customizable.  You can have people RSVP online (either by sending them an email or a Facebook message) and even sign up to bring things!

One of my favorite Evite invitations.  You can find the template here.

An Impromptu Trip to Savannah

Mr. Great Indoors had a little business in Savannah last week, so I tagged along and took a short walking tour through downtown.  Like most of the rest of the U.S. last week, Savannah was pretty hot and super humid.  Normally I'm not a wimp about heat (I have lived in Georgia my entire life, after all), but I was literally melting; my camera even refused to work the second day we were there (air conditioning + super duper humidity = foggy lens).  Nonetheless, the heat didn't make the architecture any less swoonworthy.

Independent Presbyterian Church on Bull Street

Bike parking on the street!  Don't see that very often.  Between the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) students and the regular commuters, there were a ton of bike racks and a ton of bikers!

Houseiversary!

Okay, so I totally made up that post title.  But what it means is that this past Sunday we celebrated our second anniversary of closing on the house!  I can't believe it's already been two years since we signed our lives away mounds of paperwork and Mr. Great Indoors carried me across the threshold.

Mr. GI's first official act as a homeowner was to rip down the vertical blinds in the dining room.  They were janky and gross (with floral imprints... whoa '80s).

We brought with us our very first moving box, which Mr. GI proudly carried in the side door.

We used the very same box that evening as a dinner table to  enjoy an Arby's picnic on the floor of the living room.  Just because we could.

A week later, we had tons of help from family and friends to move us from our apartment to the new digs.  The ride was only 2.5 miles, thank goodness, because we moved at least two loads in our rental truck, and lots of smaller stuff in people's cars.  Somehow I didn't get any pictures of the move, but imagine a lot of very sweaty people (it was definitely July in Georgia).  At the end of the day we made burgers for all our movers and cracked open a few beers to celebrate a successful move.

And at the end of August, we crammed 30 people in our house hosted a housewarming party.  This was the first of many parties to be held in our little place, and thankfully we've had great weather for all of them.  I'll be posting next week about how to host an awesome party.  I hear that ours are pretty fun.  :-)

Around the House: Master Suite

We've reached the end of the house tour!  I feel so fancy calling it the master "suite," but I guess it really is.  Our bedroom somehow fits a King bed (technically a California King), a dresser, a chest of drawers, and two side tables.  We were lucky enough to get an antique bedroom suite from Mr. Great Indoors' family; from what we've heard it's been around since the 1910s or so.

Let's get a close-up on that monogrammed artwork, shall we?  This was a DIY of mine about a year ago.  I had some floral art that didn't quite match anything in our house, so I pulled that out and used some white paintable wallpaper with our monogram printed on regular paper.  The tan lines tie it so well to our new comforter.

The closet in our last place was tiiiiny, so this master closet was a breath of fresh air.  It's actually so big that we stuffed a chest of drawers inside.

While the closet might not be tiny by closet standards, the bathroom is.

We love our wall nook, which Mr. GI built last summer.  I'll have to devote a post to it soon.

My favorite thing about our bathroom is that we have an awesome view of the garden.  Some day we'll change out the blue counter top (even though it doesn't match our current shower curtain, at least the inside of the wall nook matches!).  And we're always fighting a moisture problem in the bathroom, which we thought we fixed last summer but still seems to be an issue.  Ah, the joys of being a homeowner.  The bedroom doesn't need quite as much work thankfully, although it definitely needs a coat of paint and new carpet.


That's the end of the house tour!  Hope you enjoyed it.  We certainly have some things to do around this little place of ours, but we'll love doing all of it.  I can't wait!

Around the House: Dreams of Our Guest Bedroom and Bathroom

I've got lots of dreams for the guest bedroom, and only time will tell what actually happens.

+ A headboard.  Our current "headboard" is a mirror hung sideways on the wall.  It bounces light around a little, which is nice, but I need something with a little more oomph in here that doesn't make the pillows look homeless.

Around the House: Guest Bedroom Closet Office

My favorite part of the guest bedroom and probably my favorite DIY to date is the closet office Mr. GI and I rigged up about a year ago.  I wanted a place for my crafting supplies and other random stuff, and I loved all the office closets I’d seen around the blogosphere.  So with Mr. GI’s help, we made it happen!

Here it is before.  What a mess!  I had already yanked down the bifold doors to the closet.  Personal vendetta?  Maybe.