Recipe: Apple Cream Pie (Apple Soup)

Today is my Birthday!! So I wanted to share a dessert recipe with you today. I know I'm usually all about home decor but the reason I wanted to call this blog Harmonized Home is because there is so much more than just decorating in our homes. I love making my house a home and as a busy mama of 4 kiddos, of course food will be involved! I shared this recipe for homemade granola and this homemade bread recipe back in the day.

This is my mom's recipe for apple cream pie and it is SUPER easy! You don't have to make a homemade crust or even a topping and it is still very delicious. 

We have a joke going around and call this pie "apple soup." Mostly because when my mom first started making it, there was 1 cup of cream in it and it was more like soup than a solid pie. We ate it with spoons and started eating it in a bowl haha! I have taken away a bit of the cream so it's not super "soupy" but it is still more soup-like then pie like. But oh sooooooo yummy!

Recipe:
* 3 cups chopped apples (I always just use what we have on hand. I take off the skin because we just prefer it that way)
* 1 cup brown sugar
* 1 tsp cinnamon
* 1/4 tsp salt
* 4 tsp flour
* 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream (you could try to reduce to 1/2 and see what happens)
* 1 pie crust (I use a pre made one from the cold section at the store)

1. Put uncooked pie crust on bottom of pie dish
2. Mix all the other ingredients together and pour into pie crust
3. Put in a 450 degree oven for 15 minutes. Then reduce the heat to 325 degrees and bake for 40 more minutes. 
    * Ovens will vary so I start keeping an eye on the pie at 30 minutes instead of 40. 

If you get a chance to make this, leave a comment and tell me how it was!!!

New Hour Tour: The Before Pictures

We just closed on our 4th home! After such a long year of many unknowns, it feels so good to be able to put down roots somewhere. It's been 7 months since we started the process of selling our last home, living with family, finally moving out of state, and to now finally have a place to call "home" is a wonderful feeling. 

I have soooooooo many plans for this house! So I thought it would be good to do a "before" post with all the pictures you can handle seeing (I need a funny face emoji here haha!). I took some pictures when we had our home inspection so I'll share those. 

Are you ready for picture overload?!!! Here we go:

Front of house. We plan to pull out all those over grown weeds and bushes this coming Spring/Summer. We also got a new roof a week before closing so that will look a lot better too. I can't wait to PAINT that front door!

The two windows on the right will be the kid's playroom. The two windows on the left will be an office room with my piano and some cozy chairs.

 When you walk in you see these stairs just slightly to your right. This is all open with a room on either side.

 Room to the right which will be the kids play area

Going up the stairs. Remember, I purchased new light fixtures! I can't wait to see them up there. 

This is the view from the play room to the front door

Kid's Playroom

The Office (to the left when you walk in the front door). I definitely have my work cut out for me in here!

 As you're standing at the front door you can see into the living room

Here's the view from the living room looking out into that hallway. The door to the right is a coat closet. The door on the left leads to the finished basement.

 Looking at the living room from the dining room. I think it will look so much bigger with 2 couches on either side of the room instead of a sectional.

Looking back into the dining room and kitchen while standing in the living room. That door to the right is the finished basement. The doors going straight back are the laundry room, garage, and a pantry/coat closet.

 Kitchen

 The kitchen is to the left of this picture. The playroom is to the right. The sliding door you see is currently a coat closet but I'm thinking about switching it to a pantry. 

Straight ahead is the laundry room.

To the right there is a door to the garage.

 Laundry room straight ahead.

Other door is the garage.

 Laundry room

 From the kitchen you can see the kid's playroom.

The door on the left is currently a pantry which I'm thinking of switching to a coat closet/kids back pack closet.

To the right there is a bathroom.

 Half bath on the main level

View looking down from upstairs. That chandelier has got to go!

Master Bedroom

 Master Bedroom

Carpet is being replaced on the whole second story

Master Bathroom. Carpet is being ripped out.

If you go out of the master bedroom and turn to the left you go into this bedroom. This will be our 4th child's bedroom. She still wakes up in the middle of the night and we need her close to us!

Lyra's Bedroom

Walk down the hallway and to the left will be my other daughter's bedroom. 

 Ayla's Bedroom

 Across the hall from Ayla's bedroom will be the boy's room.

 Basement. I just.... ummm... We are replacing the carpet before we move in. My husband actually just took out that wood bar. One side of this will be my workout area/TV  area. The other side will be the kid's play area. We also hope to put a sleeper sofa down here for when guests come.

Paint is going to completely change this room!

Back of the House

Oh yes, we also got the hot tub!!! I can't wait to use this thing!

I'm so excited to take you on this journey with me. As I transform each room, I'll be posting the changes I am making. Before we move in we are replacing the carpet in the basement and on the second floor. We are also replacing the floors in the upstairs bathrooms. New light fixtures and paint will happen this week or right after we move in. Stay tuned!!!

Whole House Color Inspiration And How The Sun Plays A Part

Tomorrow is closing day for our new house and I've been busy these past few weeks narrowing down my color choices. I really want to do the main floor and hallway leading upstairs all the same color. This can be SUPER tricky because the light in one room will be different than the light in the other rooms.

The direction your house faces plays a part. You may get direct sunlight in one room and then on the other side of the house not get any sunlight. Of course we can't forget how the lights you use in your home can affect paint color as well.

Our last house faced North and South with the front facing South and back facing North. I never had any direct sunlight in the back of the house and I really hated it. That's pretty much where we lived all day long. And there was only 1 small window in the front of the house so natural sunlight was super minimal. There were many windows in the back so that helped keep it not so dreary but I missed that sunlight! 

The window to the left was the only good window facing the South and the only one that let in direct sunlight. Wall Color: Sherwin Williams Wordly Gray

Our new house faces North (2 front rooms and 2 bedrooms will face North), with the back facing South (living room, dining room, kitchen, and 2 more bedrooms). So we will have more sun in the back of the home where I will be spending a majority of my day (aka the Kitchen of course).

It's important to keep in mind that paint colors also change tone during different times of day. In the morning it's bright and airy. In the evening the color will look different. And here in the midwest, the winter months are overcast and dreary and will also change the color of paint. 

Basically all this to say, you can paint your whole house one color but keep in mind, every room may look different just because the sun, dreary weather, lighting, and time of day all play a factor.

In my last house I chose to do a medium color, a greige called Worldly Gray by Sherwin Williams. I chose this color because we had off-white IKEA kitchen cabinets. The darker color of the wall helped to "lighten" the creamy color of the cabinets and tricked your eye into thinking they were white.

In these 2 pictures you can see how the darker walls really make the cabinets POP and you can't even tell they're more of a creamy color.

The wall to the left and the wall to the right are painted the EXACT same color. The left gets a lot of natural light from a huge window while the right wall is a hallway and is darker. The paint color looks completely different in both spaces even though it's the same. 

What's on trend now for houses is a very light, almost non existent color. Some people even opt for an all white interior to give it that modern, minimalist vibe. I am really hoping to have a super light gray/greige color that's warm and inviting but you're almost asking yourself if there's actually color on the walls. Here are some examples of what I'm crushing on.

 Source: Google

 Source: Google

Source: Google

Source: Google

Source: Google

This coming week we will be installing new lights in our house and I will be putting color samples up on the walls. I will keep you updated and give you a step by step guide to choosing the perfect paint color!

So, Where Are We Now?

Life is funny. One minute you think you have it all figured out and the next you're in a whirlwind trying to figure out how you got here! 

Back story: My husband and I both grew up in Michigan. We really never considered the possibility of living anywhere else. Of course our kids would grow up there and raise their families there, right?! 5 years ago we ended up living in my hometown where pretty much all of my family is and it's fairly small. Only about 20,000 people. It's surrounded by corn fields and the nearest Target is 45 minutes away! So when my husband lost his job in March, it was hard to figure out where we wanted to be. We didn't want to leave family but finding a good paying job in our small town was going to be impossible. We started looking on the West side of the state where my sister lives. My husband had an interview or two but it wasn't promising. 

Fast forward to the end of May, I was getting desperate. We had 4 small kids to feed and it had been 2 months without a job. We knew we needed to do something and soon. I googled "best cities to raise a family in." Out of the top 10 places, only one was within driving distance to our families in Michigan. It was an amazing town called Fishers in Indiana. We decided to take a little family vacation in early June to visit Fishers as well as Indianapolis. Indy has an amazing children's museum and we just fell in love with Fishers. Everything about it felt right.

We sold our house in June and moved out in early July. That was a hard pill to swallow but we were excited for bigger and better things for our family. My kids and I spent July living with my dad while my husband basically lived in Indianapolis looking for work. After 5 weeks apart we just couldn't do it anymore. We needed to be together as a family. We rented a house and moved to Indiana in August. My older two kids started school - first grade and kindergarten and my husband kept on networking in hopes of finding a job soon. It was October when he finally got his first job offer and he accepted! 

In our rental house

My husband and I love spending time together, so having those almost 8 months (minus the 5 weeks in the summer apart) together was nice. Although there was always this cloud over our heads of "i need to find a job" and honestly that robbed us of a lot of happiness. So many highs and lows were had during those months. During that time I had to get over anger, grief, sadness, and anxiety over what our circumstances were. But I am definitely a better person after everything that has happened. And for the first time ever in my life I can say that I love the city I live in! 

my youngest helping me clean our rental house

God definitely kept us on our toes but was also watching out for us this past year. I trust Him now more than ever because He got us through this difficult time.

I'd still like to share our big renovation in our last house because that was a huge process and also a dream come true for me. Hopefully it will help some of you if you're planning a renovation in the near future. And here we are, about to buy house #4! So you can only imagine the excitement I have and want to take you along for that ride too. Exciting things to come and we're just getting started.

P.S. Only 2 days until we close on our house! I'm hoping to have a post up with this weekend with all the fun Before Pictures!

Neutral vs Color: Where to Spend Your Money

I was talking to a friend the other day about decorating stuff and she asked me a question, which inspired this post. She was showing me some bedding and asked which one I thought was best. Both were great and fairly neutral. One was gray and the other was tan/white striped with some fringe on it. I told her this one thing that I want all of you to know... on the big purchases in your home - a couch, beds, chairs, end tables - buy neutral colors. Then add in pops of color in the smaller things - art on the walls, flowers in pink vases, blankets, or you could even add in a fun colored accent wall with either paint or wallpaper.

I have found that my design choices have evolved over the years. For a while i liked lots of color in my home. A few years ago I bought a blue and white chair and while it was on clearance, it still cost $180. For the past 2 years I've been wondering how much it would cost to buy a neutral colored slip cover for it! My style is changing for our new home and I'm leaning towards a lot of neutral colors. I am very glad that our bigger purchases are neutral so that I won't have to go buy new.

Source: Google

Source: Google

I would recommend that anything you want to keep long term, buy neutral. These items are usually expensive and not something you'd want to change out once a year. I like to buy white curtains for my main living space, wood or metal end tables, my bedding is white with black trim, my couches are beige or gray, white cozy chairs, my dining room table is black, dining chairs are a light gray, my rugs are also neutral because they are usually not cheap. 

Source: Google

For items that are easy to change out, buy those things in fun pops of color. These items are usually cheaper and more budget friendly when you want to change them. Wall art is a cheap thing to change. Buy a neutral frame and then you can find free images online to print out and swap a few times a year. You could add color in with blankets and pillows on your couch. Vases are also a great item to buy in color. You can even spray paint them down the road if you get tired of the color. 

Source: Google

Source: Google

I hope this helps when you're out shopping for items for your home!