Keeping Busy During Quarantine - Vol. 1

In place of our Wednesday Five posts, we’re pivoting to a “Keeping Busy During Quarantine” theme. I think we can all agree that busy minds are less restless. These posts will be focused on activities for us grown-ups with some sprinkles of kid-friendly ideas.

So, what exactly have Sonia and I been doing to keep ourselves busy during these homebound hours?

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Homemade Starbucks Salted Caramel Cold Foam Cold Brew

Sonia discovered a recipe to make herself salted caramel sauce…and thus she could make salted caramel cold foam cold brew coffee, her morning ritual/addiction. No Starbucks, no problem.

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Baking

I’ve been baking, and baking some more. Muffins seem to be my recipe of choice. First, I tried corn muffins. They were great, two dozen gone in about 2 days. The “quarantine appetite” is a real thing. Next, I found a recipe for banana oatmeal muffins (and threw in some chocolate chips). I think the best part of most muffin recipes is that you can substitute all sorts of ingredients without significantly altering the overall goodness. When you’re trying to use what you have, this is ideal.

I’ve also been baking some popcorn - aka making caramel corn. You may have seen this photo on our Instagram Story over the weekend.

via Creme de la crumb

Chocolate covered caramel popcorn (heavy on the sea salt) is my family’s favorite treat. I use the Zebra Popcorn recipe from Creme de la Crumb and skip the white chocolate. It’s quite the process, but, honestly, well worth it. :

1) pop the corn

2) make the caramel

3) carmelize the popcorn

4) melt the chocolate

5) drizzle the chocolate on the popcorn

6) wait for the chocolate to dry

7) Try not to eat it ALL in one sitting. Good luck.

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Taylor Swift v. Kim & Kanye Drama

We (ok…me) have been enjoying the distraction of the Taylor Swift v. Kim & Kanye saga that continues to unfold after 11 years. Here is the timeline (with links and a video) for your pop culture pleasure.

2009 - Taylor Swift wins a VMA and Kanye West jumps onstage, jacks the microphone and declares that Beyonce should have won. A feud is sparked.

2015 - Taylor and Kanye are spotted having dinner together in NYC. Feud finally and apparently over.

2016

Kanye releases Famous, a song in which he calls Taylor a b*tch and takes credit for her fame.

Taylor (through her publicist) publicly objects to the song’s “strong misogynistic message”.

Kim Kardashian releases a portion of a recorded call between Taylor and Kanye, alleging that Taylor knew about and approved the song/the lyric in advance.

Taylor more or less drops off the planet for a couple years.

2020

Miss Americana, a documentary about Taylor, releases on Netflix. Taylor addresses the feud as a pivotal moment in her career.

An unedited version of the recorded call between Taylor and Kanye is leaked that puts context to the prior released portion, negating the alleged approval.

Lots of back and forth between Taylor and Kim ensues.

Just reading all this took up a fair amount of your time, yes?

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Television (obviously)

We took a quick poll on our Instagram Stories and here are the result (along with some of our choices):

Blind Love (Netflix) - If you like the Bachelor franchise or any show on Bravo, this will be a homerun. People meet and fall in love without ever being able to see one another…until after they propose.

Parasite (On Demand) - It’s worth the Oscar hype. Awesome movie.

Ozark (Netflix) - The 3rd season just came out. With only 3 seasons so far, it’s an easy one to binge and catch up.

Homeland (Showtime) - The final season is underway and it’s a good one.

The Sopranos and The Wire and Breaking Bad - These shows top the list of most people (and critics) as the best television series of all time. Now is your chance to jump on the well-deserved bandwagons. I’ve seen all three, and I can’t decide which is my favorite…they’re all sooooo good. The Sopranos and The Wire are HBO, Breaking Bad is AMC.

Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu) - Many say this is currently the best show on TV. It’s has a dark, end-of-the-world-as-we-know it theme…which might be a little too on the nose at the moment. Or, maybe that’s exactly what you’re looking for. The book is also amazing, and it’s available on Amazon as an audio book…which you can listen to for free with a trial of Audible.

Atypical (Netflix) - I had never heard of this show before someone recommended it on our Instagram poll. But, it gets great reviews. Here is the wikipedia page for the cliff notes on what to expect. From what I gather, a high school boy with autism navigating the highs and lows of young adulthood.

Tiger King (Netflix) - Everyone is talking about this newly released docu-series about a man that owns hundreds of wild animals. There’s drugs, murder and lots of wild cats.

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Books

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty - This is my current book. I’m halfway through. I thought I knew how it would end after the first couple chapters…but now I’m not sure. Liane Moriarty also wrote Big Little Lies, which became a great HBO series (though I liked the book better).

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood - This is the sequel to Handmaid’s Tale. Sonia is going for it. She’s braver than I.

Meagan’s Book Club - This is an Instagram account we discovered that has some great book recommendations. Rather than googling lists or reading Amazon review after Amazon review, she does all the hard work for you.

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Master Class

Sonia and I are both taking some master classes! These are online courses by masters of their field. For example, Kelly Wearstler teaches interior design (Whoop! Whoop!), Wolfgang Puck teaches cooking and James Patterson teaches writing. Right now there is a discount on an annual membership AND you if you buy a membership you can gift someone else a free membership. Split the cost with a friend and go for it!

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Watercolor Workshop

Sarah C Nightingale has put together a free watercolor workshop through Instagram TV. We are obsessed with her work and love the idea of trying something new and interesting with this extra homebound time. This is a great opportunity to do school with your kids - they can get in on the Mo Willems fun and you can do your own art hour.

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It’s the start of week 3 of quarantine and you can do this! We can all do this. Stay strong, stay safe and stay home!!!

- Leah

*this post contains affiliate links*

Enos Project - Dining Room Reveal

Today’s project reveal is a little bit EXTRA. We’re sharing details on how we created the transformation for the dining room in our Enos Project. And, we’re giving you lots of ways to apply these ideas to your own home (including sourcing and links).

First, the dining room in our Enos Project is different from some of our projects because our clients already owned some of the key pieces of furniture: the dining room table with matching chairs and bench, a console table, and the light fixture. We are often asked during discovery calls with new clients as to whether we work with existing furniture - now you know, the answer is YES. The follow-up question is always, will it decrease the cost of our design fee? For that answer, I’m copying and pasting a section from our FAQs (where you can find the answers to lots of common questions about our process, our fee and more):

No. The truth is that it’s as difficult (if not more difficult) to design a room around existing furniture as it is to design with a blank canvas. Existing furniture limits the sizes, colors, textures (etc.) of the pieces we add, which can make sourcing more time consuming. While this additional time spent sourcing is offset by needing to source less pieces, it is generally a wash. However, your budget for materials WILL be less! You need less, so you’ll spend less on the furniture itself.

Back to our Enos Project Dining Room. Below are “before” photos.

BEFORE

BEFORE

Alongside the existing furniture, we added an area rug, window treatments (plantation shutters and drapes), new dining chairs, a buffet, a mirror and decor. We also picked pieces from our Client’s existing art collection and decided where to hang them. The difference is dramatic.

Let’s start with the rug. In this project, the existing dining table and chairs are very similar in color to the floor. If you scroll back up to the “before” photos you can see that the furniture was getting lost - it looked like a sea of medium/dark wood. The rug is key to creating contrast in this room. Its lighter blue and white palette, and pretty fringe, softens the more masculine tones and vibes of the rustic dining room set. On the function side, we chose an indoor/outdoor material with lots of varying color that will stand up to spills and traffic.

Next the window treatments. Wo-man do these make a difference. Plantation shutters on the lower half of a window are great for first floors where you want privacy from street traffic but still lots of natural light. The color blocked fabric with the dark lower third work so well with the dark wood dining table. In general, they also add to a cool, almost moody vibe. Dining rooms…like powder rooms…a great spaces to try something different than the standard “neutral and airy”.

The buffet is in a matte, gray painted finish. All other furniture in the room has a natural wood stain and we wanted to bring in a complimentary, but different, color and texture. The shade of gray is darker than the walls, but not nearly dark enough to compete with the dining table. We customized it with black knobs for a modern farmhouse feel. The finishing touch is this awesome, round, window pane mirror.

New dining chairs in a black stain (not paint) completely changed the vibe of the room. Talk about cool and moody. These beauties are awesome compliments to the existing set and elevate everything. One important note (as you consider these sorts of additions and changes in your own home) is that we chose chairs that were truly different from the existing chairs. They are different in color, style and proportion (shorter and wider). The mix feels (and, of course, is) very intentionally and results in a modern, eclectic style.

Last, but never least, we finished the room with some larger scale decor, mostly by way of greenery and plants. And, we chose art for the walls from our clients’ collection. The art was chose both for scale (size) and color. {Design Tip}: When you hang art, be sure to hang curtains first. They will drastically change the open wall space…which may lead to changes is the size of the art.

And now, we have a bunch of product round-ups for you to bring this look to your own home. All the links are below. And, you can also head to our Pinterest page to see them with prices written into the pin description for the chairs and mirrors (we didn’t include prices for the rugs because they vary by size). We will also add more to this Pinterest page as we find it, so be sure to check back in for more options.

Indoor/Outdoor Rugs

Starting at the top left and going clockwise (bottom rug is last):

1. gray/blue micro check

2. blue and white tribal stripe

3. light blue and white geometric stripe

4. blue and white modern trim

5. gray diamonds

6. blue/white chevron with navy border

7. blue diamonds

   Black Dining Chairs

Every single chair above is on sale right now. Starting at the top left and going clockwise (click on number): 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6

Round Mirrors

Starting at the top left and going clockwise (click on number): 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

Finally, on a real note - we hope you’re staying safe and healthy. Our mantra is “One Day at a Time”. Just breathe and repeat. And, sometimes, it’s “One Hour/Minute at a Time”. We’re trying our best to stay informed, but also unplugged when needed. We’re trying our best to indulge in the fun and happiness of this rare secluded time with our families, but also not deny the fear and anxiety that is inevitable at times. It’s all a very delicate balance. And we need to give ourselves the grace to do it better some days than others. Be easy on yourself - we’re all just doing our best.

In the words of Anna (it always comes back to Frozen), “Do the next right thing.” That’s all we can do. One foot in front of the other. We’ll get through this.

Be back soon.

- Leah

*This post contains affiliate links*

Homebound Kid Activities

As we all try to navigate the foreseeable future, one thing is clear: life is different. One of the biggest differences for so many families is children at home. So many of us are trying to teach our children, generally occupy our children in a productive way and, oh…right, work. Sonia and I are those people. We each have 3 children of vastly different ages.

So, with the help of our teacher friends, resources sent home from school and the interweb, we’ve created a list of ideas for educational and fun activities. Our plan is to create a volume 2 of this post with additional ideas that we crowd source from YOU. So, please, leave comments below, email us (hello@grayoakstudio.com), DM us on Instagram or leave a message on Facebook.

Take A Virtual Field Trip

We have an awesome list of virtual field trips. The list includes links to national zoos, farms, critter cams, museums and MUCH more. For example you can take a virtual tour of Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre museum in France. OR (a personal favorite), you can watch the Panda Cam at the Atlanta zoo.

Podcasts for Kids

Of the long list below, Story Pirates and Circle Round are personal favorites. We’ve been listening to both podcasts for years and years. Story Pirates is a podcast where kids submit stories to the podcast and the stories are made into songs and skits. It’s ingenious. The child authors are often interviewed on the show (which my kids love) and each episode includes a “story spark”, which gives your child an idea on a story they can write. Circle Round is a podcast where famous actors (seriously…you know these actors) perform skits about fables from all over the world.

The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel

The Past and the Curious

“This Podcast Has Fleas” 

Circle Round

Tumble

Story Pirates

Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmest

The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd

The Alien Adventures of Finn Caspian 

But Why

Wow in the World

Brains On!

KidNuz

Smash, Boom, Best

The Two Princes

Ear Snacks

Book Club for Kids

Story Time

What If World

Stories Podcast

Flyest Fables 

Young Ben Franklin

Earth Rangers

PINNA

Pinna is an online kids library of sorts - they have kids podcasts, audiobooks and music. It is a paid subscription service, BUT they are stepping up to the times and offering a free 60 day trial with the code PINNA4KIDS.

READ ALOUDS

Story Time from Space - Astronauts from the International Space Station read books. It’s amazing.

PRINTABLE ACTIVITIES

Learn in Color - This website has tons of home schooling resources for all different subjects. We particularly loves all the great printables

Gratitude Challenge - There are 7 day challenges for gratitude, mindfulness, mindset and more.

ART CLASSES

Mo Willems - Author and Illustrator Mo Willems (Gerald and Piggy series and so much more) has daily drawing classes at 1 pm (EST).

Studio JJK - Author and Illustrator JJK (Lunch Lady series and so much more) has daily drawing classes at 2 pm (EST).

YOGA

Cosmic Kids Yoga - These are 15-30 minute yoga classes for kids with awesome themes (Frozen, Harry Potter, etc.)

Go Noodle - This amazing website has yoga, free movement and a lot more ways to guide your kids on getting up and moving during the bad weather days.

We’ll be back soon. Promise.

- Leah