I’ll admit I take the easy road to breakfast most weekday mornings with a bowl of cold cereal and a handful of raisins. This morning was a different story. I woke up craving something hot, filling and nutritious. I had an open package of Bob’s Red Mill 10 Grain Hot Cereal in my cabinet and a variety of frozen berries in the freezer. Just 10 minutes later I had a delicious bowl of fill-you-up, creamy hot grains. I topped them off with a delectable maple berry syrup and some fragrant toasted almonds. Yummm! Click below for the recipe. — Erica P.

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Two mastiffs, Seattle’s rainy season, and a yard already half-dead before our second dog moved in added up to a mud problem that I’ve alluded to before. So we finally went with a hideous yet gratifyingly effective solution: we covered the yard in straw.* We purchased four bales from a farm and feed store for $15 apiece and covered the yard to about an inch thick. (The remaining grass underneath it was already dead, trust me.) I’ve since watched the dogs play, run, and roll around for hours, and yet they’re tracking in just a tiny bit of straw and, amazingly, almost no mud at all. Once a week we’re using a rake to redistribute the straw evenly; we’ll mulch or compost it when we’re ready to work on the yard in the spring. And as an extra bonus, I really enjoyed the trip to the feed store. (Now I’m dreaming about keeping chickens!) –Mary T.

*Yes, it’s straw, not hay (as Karen in comments pointed out). But “straw” doesn’t rhyme with “hey,” so I took some editorial liberties.

Mrs. Blandings just made a confession: She once sold four vintage midcentury light fixtures for a mere $75 and replaced them with lights from Home Depot. I can’t think of anything I would regret quite as much, but I can admit that when I was in my early 20s, I literally had hotel art on my walls. A friend built hotels, and during a revamp he gave me some castoff “art.” So for a couple years I had a horrible mass-produced abstract kind of thingy that can be most accurately described as giant gold clothespins (yes, shiny gold, in a matching frame) marching on a field of mauve. So there’s my confession — what’s yours? –Mary T.

Image via James Lileks’ Interior Desecrations

I stumbled upon the site General Robots and I had so much fun browsing through all of the fun robot products. I recognized the much-loved Clocky, but the rest of the items were new to me. I got a pretty big kick out of this toilet paper dispenser. I’m not sure what the site has to say about it (I don’t speak German and the English text is still “coming soon” on select products) but I think the item itself is pretty self-explanatory. –Erica P.

Recently my old man cat found an empty bottom shelf in our kitchen and made it his own. In his younger days, he may have been tempted by this cozy looking bookshelf cubby space. I spotted it on moderncat, which has all sorts of appealing catware. All you need to is a little curtain on a rod and a soft blanket to attract them. These two fellas, Ben and Stu seem to be loving theirs. Would your felines rest on a shelf like that? — Angela M.

New year, new resolutions, new paint — new giveaway! Our friends at Color-Helper have generously donated FIVE Color-Helpers (a value of $189 each) for us to award to five lucky Shelterrific readers. What’s a Color-Helper? A nifty device that lets you scan in colors you love from almost anything — a wall, a magazine, a favorite pillow — then provides you with complementary paint colors in a range of spectrums. You get the actual paint brand names and numbers, so you can march straight to the hardware store knowing you’ll get a color that works. And so you can keep track of your color options, the Color-Helper also comes with hardware that lets you upload color data to your computer. Mary T has one herself, and has found it fun, easy, and incredibly useful!

Here’s how to enter:

Want to win a Color-Helper? Show us how badly you need one! That’s right, we want photos. Horrible wallpaper? Clashing paint colors? A case of the blands? Take a photo of your room that needs color help, and email jpegs to “mary at shelterrific dot com” (NOTE: Please put “Color-Helper” in the subject line) by Friday, January 30. Not only will the five best of the worst win a Color-Helper, we’ll feature your “after” story in an upcoming Shelterrific post. You’ll be famous! (Okay, not really — but you will be to us.) Learn more about the Color-Helper here, and then get entering today!

Top photo by Jenny Kennedy-Olsen.

Oh, yeah — it’s the annual New Year Sale at Velocity! Now through January 21, almost the entire store is 15% off, with some items even more discounted, and there’s free shipping on all orders over $50. We love: everything! But these Hip Haven Retro Bullet Planters are very, very nice (and a reminder that spring will come again). Visit Velocity now and start your decorating/organizing/lighting/fabulous-making resolutions.

1. Making your own soda is fun. As Cait says: “I just got a [soda maker] for Christmas and I am obsessed. I am a big seltzer drinker so this saves me trips to the store and cuts down majorly on waste. The bottles are much sturdier than I thought they would be.” Read more about how to make your own soda here.

2. Flatware is one of those things you should touch before you buy. Lorri says: “I’d be careful buying over the internet unless you’ve seen and handled the pieces in person. The trend for awhile was for everything to be oversized. The soup spoons were almost like serving spoons – too big for most people to use comfortably.” Read about our favorite flatware here.

3. Next time a recipe calls for ground veal, Ron says: “Try ground turkey instead. It has the lighter texture of the veal and the lighter flavor as well.” See an amazing spaghetti and meatballs recipe here.

4. We’ve discovered a not-new shelter magazine we love. Pencils wrote: “I love Atomic Ranch! I have years of them stacked up in case we end up in a midcentury house. I miss Cottage Living, though.” Read about this new favorite here.

5. Your New Year’s Resolutions reminds us of what ours should be: Sarah wrote: “Paint, paint and more paint. We’ve been in the house 8 years. Would it be easier to just move? : )” See more — and share your own! — here.

Again with the aprons — but rest assured we admire them far more than we wear them. Casa Sugar has some valuable advice on how to display vintage aprons.

And while we’re in vintage mode, Making It Lovely has a nice roundup of ways to incorporate a Real Good Chair into a “vintagey bathroom.”

By the way, what do you think of the Real Good Chair? Are you a fan?

Here’s a small kitchen with a lot to love at Poppytalk.

How green is that product or company, really? Tiny Choices can help with a guide to greenwashing.

Apartment Therapy has some info on pruning a popular but can-be-tricky tree, the Japanese Maple.

Swissmiss shares the Book Cover Archive. So cool!

Elements of Style has some before-and-after home shots that will have you happily wasting time for hours.

At Modish, you can enjoy the art of Valero Doval.

And at WebEcoist, see the Creative and Strange Artistic Recycling Projects.

Cooking.com clearance sale — up to 70% off till Friday. We love: Enameled Round Dutch Oven. Was $60, now $50.

Conran store — up to 70% online and in stores. We love: Pepe & Friends sugar shaker. Was $36, now $25.

Urban Outfitters home and decor sale. We love: Round doile rug. Was $48, now $30.

Dreamy Linens sale at Sin In Linen. We love: Their entire skull bedding collection!

DWR — Upholstery and Rug Sale through January 27, save 20-25%. We love: Ocean rug by Angela Adams. Was $900, now $720.

Crate and Barrel — up to 50% off furniture. We love: Maison rectangular table. Was $1200, now $500. (Pair it with modern chairs!)