Guest Room- A Chalkboard Accent Wall

Our guest room is now complete, so I'm ready to post some pictures of the space.

But before the reveal, here is how the room looked before adding the chalkboard wall.

A few months ago, I had gone ahead and added some wrapping paper to the back wall- which wasn't a bad idea originally, but I didn't like how the overall pattern created this business to a very small space that just didn't work. So I decided to take down the wrapping paper and save it for it's original use (yes, wrapping things). Go figure. :)

After making the decision to use chalkboard paint on the back wall, I went out and bought some and taped the sides of the wall that I didn't want painted (the prep work always seems to be the most tedious part about any project).

Then it was time to paint...I had to do 2 coats, but it didn't take too long since I was only doing one wall.

This wall isn't technically "finished" because the directions on the paint can say to cover the entire wall with chalk and then erase it before writing on it. Doing so keeps anything from becoming permanent on the background when you are ready to write, but I never did that yet...haha! I'm sure I will get to it soon, but I just really wanted to get this post up, so I quickly wrote down "Be Our Guest" for the photos just so I had something up on the wall. 

As an aside, this room was really hard to photograph because it's small and doesn't get much light from the one window we have, so the pictures might not be the best quality. Anyways, I think adding a darker accent wall to this smaller space helped create some drama and fun to an otherwise small and cramped space!

Doing Something A Little Different for the Guest Room

I don't think I have posted a lot about our guest room, but since we only have a few visitors each year, I haven't really done a whole lot to this space. It's gone through a couple of phases over the past couple of years, but now I think my vision for the space is finally coming together and is almost complete! It actually happened on a whim too!
Sometimes I think that is the best way to design/decorate...you don't always have to think too hard about it.

Here is a sneak peek of the room.

Hoping to have my girls help me finish the accent wall you see here and then I can start taking photos of the room!

 

Portabella and Kale Pizza with Garlic Sauce

Everyone loves pizza!

Okay, maybe not everybody, but a lot of people love it...and in our house, pizza is an all time favorite dish. 

This time around, however, I wanted to try a little something different instead of the usual go-to meal of pepperoni or sausage and mushroom pizza.

While searching for "vegetarian" pizza recipes online (I know, I know...some might read that and think I've become a vegetarian...but I haven't. I just wanted our family to try something different, remember?), I stumbled across this one. 

Here are the ingredients we used to make our pizza because it varies a bit from the original source- although it is just as delicious:

Ingredients

• a few garlic cloves (we used 3)
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 2-3 tablespoons of butter
• salt 
• 2 large portabella mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 3 cup torn kale leaves (not tightly packed!)
• About 10 oz. pizza dough, rolled into 13-inch circle (or less dough for a thinner crust, more for thicker)
• 1 cup of cheese (we used Murray's Robiola Bosina)

**Note about the cheese: A variety of cheeses would work for this recipe. We happened to be shopping at our grocery store for the ingredients the day before making our pizza and they had a few samples out of some cheeses to try. My girls fell in love with the Robiola Bosina (which I've never heard of before in my life) and it was half off, so we bought it and it worked quite well with the rest of the ingredients we used for this recipe. It's a type of brie cheese and I would recommend it- especially if it's on sale!!

To make the pizza, we followed the directions on the dough bag for how to roll and cook the dough. Just make sure to use a generous amount of flour. ;) 

My girls put some olive oil on the dough before putting the rest of the ingredients on the pizza.
I also used some of the olive oil along with the garlic to cook the mushrooms and the kale in a pan- and I added a couple table spoons of butter to the mix for some extra taste. Yum!!

We topped the pizza with some cheese squares and it was ready to bake!

And my youngest really loved eating the cooked kale. 

Who knew?! ;)

Once it was done baking, we ate it for dinner along with some fruit.

I have to say that we really enjoyed this pizza- making it and eating it. 

We will definitely be making one again!!!