Thank you!

September 2, 2016

It’s been around six months since I seriously started this blog and I am overwhelmed with the response from my readers. You guys are simply the best.

Thank you for all the comments, shares, and likes on the site, Facebook, & Twitter. I also love how some of you phone me after I post something to give me your opinion, or share a recipe that you think I might like. One brave reader even made the quiche and sent me a picture.

Thanks also to my Mom, who sacrificed her garden all summer for all my floral arrangements. To Jocelyn for the fairy garden supplies & chalk markers. To Cheryl for being my most faithful commenter. To Stacey for being the first person to subscribe other than my Mom. To all of my friends who’ve listened to me bounce off ideas for the blog over coffee. You are much appreciated.

Zucchini week (ish) is still not quite over. I have one more post for you after I re-bake said items for the blog.

Once the madness of setting my music teaching schedule is over, I hope to seriously resume the rest of the renovations. I originally intended this blog to be just about renovations, but it’s become so much more. Thanks for joining me on this journey!!

Kristen Raney

Kristen is a former farm kid turned urban gardener who owns the popular gardening website, Shifting Roots. She is obsessed with growing flowers and pushing the limits of what can be grown in her zone 3b garden. She also loves to grow tomatoes, but oddly enough, dislikes eating them raw.

www.shiftingroots.com

How to Make the Perfect Iced Coffee

August 16, 2016

This post is sponsored by Dusty Plains Coffee Co. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

It’s sweltering outside and the lady at Tim Horton’s knows me and my order by name: medium iced coffee. While I love going to Tim’s like any self-respecting Canadian, I wanted to try and make my own. I experimented with using leftover coffee from my coffee maker, but let’s be honest, it was passable at best.

One day at the Farmers Market I saw that there was someone selling a cold brew coffee concentrate that would be perfect for my at home coffee experiments. It was locally roasted and brewed, locally owned, and tasted amazing. Win, win, win.

Sorry Timmies.

Perfect Iced Coffees Need Perfect Creamers

If I was going to make the perfect iced coffee, I needed a good quality creamer. With coffee this good, you don’t want to be using those chemical laden things from the grocery store.

I made a simple creamer using 1 cup half and half cream, 1 tsp vanilla, and 1 can (approximately 1 cup) of sweetened condensed milk. Whisk together until combined and voila!

Amazing tasting coffee creamer.

You can easily customize it to your tastes by adding in cinnamon, nutmeg, cocoa powder, almond extract, mint extract, or really, any flavour you want in your iced coffee.

Check out my favourite variation of the perfect coffee creamer!

Assemble your Iced Coffee

Grab your favourite glass and fill with ice. Pour in creamer about a 1/4 of the way. Add Dusty Plains Cold Brew Coffee and voila! The perfect iced coffee right from the comfort of your home.

The Perfect Iced Coffee

Serves 1
Ingredients:
1 cup Half and Half Cream,
1 cup sweetened condensed milk,
1 tsp vanilla,

Dusty Plains Cold Brew Concentrate,
ice.
Instructions:

Whisk cream, sweetened condensed milk, and vanilla together in a bowl. Store extra in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Fill a glass with ice and add homemade creamer and Dusty Plains cold brew coffee. Enjoy!

Pin me for later!

Want your own bottle of Dusty Plains? Order online through their website, catch them every Saturday at the Saskatoon Farmers Market, or hit them up on Instagram for all the latest updates.

Kristen Raney

www.shiftingroots.com

Dining Room Progress

August 15, 2016

This photo pretty much sums up the dining room before:

More wallpaper and kind of boring. We’ve been using the grey, white, and yellow scheme in the house, and thought the dining room was a good place to take some design risks. Enter in some grey paint and crazy yellow accents and voila:

Lately I’ve been seeing designers use strong colours on the trim of the focal window, so I thought I would give it a try. I’m not sure I’m 100% happy with the look, but I’ll live with it for awhile and if I really regret it I can always paint it back to white.

One of the features we love most about this dining room is the swinging door pictured here. We were originally going to take out the wall between the dining room and the kitchen, but later decided against it because we loved the door so much. You can also lock it in place both ways, which is pretty cool!

We also really love the two built in cabinets, although they don’t conveniently hold modern sized plates. We just barely squeezed in the Royal Albert.

I experimented with chalk paint like its actually meant to be used on the hutch. More on that in the next post. I also painted the mirror white because it didn’t seem to really fit in anywhere else in the house. The painting is a $7 find from value village.

It was pretty fun an easy to distress the hutch. I’ll definitely be trying more of it with the bookshelves in the living room.

I’m still not 100% happy with the way things look, but having an actual dining set would help immensely. This grey is also pretty deceiving. In some lights it is bluer than I wanted, so either it or the shade of yellow will change, unless I can magically find some piece of cheap artwork to tie things in better.

What do you think? Is the window frame too bold or just right? Would you switch out the grey? Maybe go with all white and paint our future dining table grey? Or should I stop obsessing and just be happy?

Kristen Raney

www.shiftingroots.com

Diary of a Reno: day 1

February 16, 2016

What really happens on that first day of work.

9:00am: Wake up. It feels like Christmas! After weeks of waiting I finally get 5 whole days to beat this house into submission!! Life is great! I’m going to get so much done!!

9:30am: Drop Dominic off at daycare. Discover there is no daycare today. Crap. Oh well, I will make lemonade out of lemons, I can do this!!

10:00am: First trip to Home Depot. Buy all the things. Try and convince Dominic that wall decals are not toys.

11:00am: How is it 11 already!?! Start power sanding. Feel like a boss because things are finally getting done.

11:15am: Realize that maybe all that dust isn’t good for a toddler. Get grumpy. Regroup.

12:00pm: Eat some lunch and try to brainstorm what can be done with a toddler in the house. Hmm…

1:00pm: Hermit tries to make me feel better by attempting the plumbing problems. Realize we are in over our heads with this one. Resolve to call plumber tomorrow when it’s not a stat holiday.

2:00pm: Hermit sends me on an errand to get out of the house and cheer up. Buy mug that says “think happy to be happy.” Realize mug is cracked after having inaugural cup of tea from it.

4:00pm: Do dishes and start supper, because what else are you going to do?

4:30pm: Secretly curse HGTV for making it seem so easy. Go scrape some more wallpaper in the living room. Tomorrow is another day!!

Kristen Raney

www.shiftingroots.com