Blog Posts

All About Pumpkins

This post is all about pumpkins! The Liv Northgate Apartments Blog is excited for the start of fall! We are heading over to the pumpkin patch to find our perfect pumpkin. We will be featuring tips on picking your perfect pumpkin, decorating ideas, and where to find your pumpkin in this post. We hope that you get the chance to head over to the pumpkin patch sometime this month. There are plenty of places to pick pumpkins in and around Gilbert. Right here in Gilbert, AZ is Mother Nature’s Farm . Mother Nature’s Farm has its own Halloween pumpkin patch, where visitors can find pumpkins of every size. Vertuccio Farms ’ Corn Maze & Fall Festival features a pumpkin patch, a corn maze, a hay maze, and much more. Schnepf Farms doesn’t just have a pumpkin patch — it holds its own Pumpkin & Chili Party. Celebrate the fall by visiting one of these pumpkin patches this month! Once you’ve picked your pumpkin patch, it’s time to pick your pumpkin! When you’re picking your pumpkin, it’s important to keep your purpose in mind. If you want to carve a pumpkin, it’s important to make sure that your pumpkin is the right shape and size for what you want to carve. If you want to cook or bake a pumpkin, it’s important that you pick the right type of pumpkin. All About Pumpkins has a great guide to all the different kinds of pumpkins you can pick, and the Pumpkin Nook has several different tips on picking the “Perfect Pumpkin.” Once you’ve got your pumpkin, it’s time to decorate! There are many different to decorate pumpkins, from painting to carving to adding flowers to your pumpkin. Better Homes and Gardens has a great guide to decorating pumpkins, as does Country Living and Livingly . Feel free to use one of their ideas or to come up with your own unique, creative way to decorate your pumpkin! We hope that you’ve enjoyed learning a little more about pumpkins this month. Where are your favorite places to pick pumpkins in Gilbert, AZ? Are there any other fall events we should know about? Leave us a comment and let us know! Thanks for reading!

Decorate Your Apartment

This week the Liv Northgate Blog is featuring four fun and easy ways to help you decorate your apartment space. Decorating an apartment space can be difficult. Often, you have to heed your rental agreement. Your rental agreement may have restrictions on what you can and can’t paint, hardware installation, nails in the walls, and many other things. This week we have fun and safe ways to decorate your apartment home (and make it really feel like home) without doing any damage to the space. Tapestries Want an ocean view? You can get one with the right tapestry. Tapestries portray all sorts of different scenes, come in beautiful patterns, and are a great way to add color to your walls without breaking the budget (or your rental agreement). You could even paint or dye your own tapestry for a personal touch. Washi Tape Washi tape can transform your home by letting you put your artistic skills to good use! Use washi tape to put geometric designs, pictures, and portraits up on your walls. The best thing about washi tape is that it comes off the walls easily, doesn’t do any damage, and is easy to change. With washi tape, you could change the look of your apartment every week, if you wanted to. Curtains Curtains are a fun and easy way to express your personality. Pick curtains to fit your whole apartment, themed curtains, or use different curtains in each room to express different aspects of your personality. Rugs We’ve focused on the walls...but what about the floors? Rugs add instant warmth to a room and make any space feel automatically homier. Retailers offer plenty of cheap and fun options for your apartment space. Investing in a good rug will help tie together the entire look of your home. We recommend using your rug as a “finishing touch” to your home. We have a couple of other tips — plants liven up any room, and sticky tack is a great and safe way to hang things up on your walls. Do you have any decorating tips for us? Where do you get your decorating inspiration? Let us know in the comments section. Thanks for reading!

Organize Your Apartment

This month the Liv Northgate Blog has a few tips and tricks to help you clean out your apartment before winter arrives. Conducting an annual spring cleaning is pretty standard, but we really like the idea of fall cleaning, as well. Stuff tends to pile up over the summer, as you attend various functions, buy floaties for the pool, and collect a number of T-shirts from races and souvenirs from trips. While saving some of those things is a great idea, by the end of the summer your apartment can start to feel pretty cluttered. Holding a fall cleaning will help you declutter and recenter your apartment home before winter begins and you accumulate, yes, even more stuff. This month were focusing on organizing and decluttering your apartment. Our favorite way to organize is to pick a room of the house and slowly work through it. Come up with a schedule for how you will clean and organize your home. Pick one room and focus on that room (or even just a part of the room) for an afternoon or a weekend. After picking the area you wish to clean, clear everything out. Move the furniture, pull all of your stuff out, and then deep clean the now-empty space. Once your space is spick and span, go through the things in the room what is still useful? What is worn out? What do you love? What do you feel indifferent towards? Use these questions to help guide you as you decide what to keep, what to donate, and what to throw away. Once everything is sorted, things get easier. Sort your items in whatever way makes most sense to you, using baskets, bins, and other storage options from your local, Gilbert home goods store. Make sure everything looks neat and tidy and then move on to the next room/space. This is just our favorite way to organize. Whats your favorite way to organize your apartment? Do you have any tips or tricks for us? Leave us a comment and let us know. Thanks for reading!

Fall Desserts

In our last post, we featured five different fall recipes to help bridge the gap between summer and fall. This week we’ve got five fall desserts to satisfy your sweet tooth as the weather begins to cool down. How to Make Pumpkin Spice Truffles from Sally’s Baking Addiction These pumpkin spice truffles take a little patience, but it’s all worth it. Sally’s Baking Addiction recommends waiting a little while before enjoying this dessert — the pumpkin flavor becomes stronger with a little bit of age. No Bake Oreo and Pumpkin Cheesecake Parfaits from Garnish with Lemon No bake oreo and pumpkin cheesecake parfaits are a great dessert option for a small dinner party with friends. Not only are they easy to make, they also are the perfect combination of flavors and textures. We didn’t know oreos and pumpkin could taste this good. Three Layer Pumpkin Brownies from Back to Her Roots This is definitely the sweetest treat on our list. If you love chocolate and pumpkin, this is the treat for you. You’ll love how sweet and fudgy this recipe is. The real star of the show is the pumpkin middle of these brownies — it’s just like pumpkin pie...only creamier. Cinnamon Roll Sugar Cookies Recipe from Chef in Training These cinnamon roll sugar cookies disappear quickly, so make sure you make enough for you and all of your friends! While traditional cinnamon rolls are delicious, they are also time consuming. Cut down on cook time with this untraditional take on a classic recipe. Caramel Apple Cream Cheese Spread from She Wears Many Hats For a side dip at any party, sports game, or function, bring this caramel apple cheese spread. It’s delicious, and it takes no time at all to make. If you want to go a little fancier, She Wears Many Hats recommends making your caramel from scratch using this recipe instead of using a store bought option. What are your favorite fall desserts? What desserts do you make every year? Where are your favorite places to get dessert in Gilbert, AZ? Leave a comment and let us know! Thanks for reading!

Fall Dinners

While the weather hasn’t quite caught up with the season, Fall is almost here in Gilbert, AZ! September 22 marks the beginning of a brand new season, and we couldn’t be more excited! This month the Liv Northgate Blog has five recipes for you to enjoy this month. While the weather might be hanging onto summer, we think it’s time to start incorporating fall flavors into your diet. One Pan Autumn Chicken Dinner Introduce Fall into your diet with this healthy (and tasty) recipe. This one pan autumn chicken dinner combines our favorite fall ingredients for a meal bursting with flavor. Replace the vegetables she uses for your favorites for a unique and tasty dish. Chicken Noodle Casserole from Life in the Lofthouse Who doesn’t love chicken noodle soup? This chicken noodle casserole is easy to put together. If you’re someone who likes to make a meal and then eat off it for the next couple of days, this is the dish for you. This recipe is the ultimate in “comfort food.” Parmesan-Roasted Cauliflower from Bon Appetit This is maybe the easiest recipe on this list. This quick recipe is a great throw-together side to put together after work or before a big party. Parmesan-roasted cauliflower tastes great, goes great with many different main dishes, and is definitely seasonally appropriate. Roasted Vegetables Recipe from Natasha’s Kitchen Summer is all about fresh fruit. Fall is all about roasted vegetables. This recipe from Natasha’s Kitchen gives you practical tips on choosing and chopping your favorite fall vegetable, Butternut Squash, before revealing just how she seasons and prepares this fall dish. Chicken, Wild Rice & Mushroom Soup from Simply Stacie This soup is definitely a special occasion meal. It’s comforting, warm, and the perfect blend of textures and flavors. We recommend serving this dish to anyone you want to impress. It’s time intensive and a few of the ingredients might be a little harder to find, but the end product is well worth it. What are your favorite fall recipes? Leave us a recipe in the comments, and we’ll check it out. Thanks for reading!

Check It Out Western Spirit

In this post, the Liv Northgate Apartments Blog is featuring Western Spirit: Scottsdale's Museum of the West. The Western Spirit Museum is just a thirty-minute drive from the Liv Northgate Apartments. Here are seven exhibits that the museum is currently putting on: Lone Wolf (Hart M. Schultz): Cowboy, Actor, & Artist June 21, 2016-August 31, 2016 From the website: “This retrospective highlights the compelling career of artist Lone Wolf (aka Hart Merriam Schultz, 1883-1970), whose artwork bridged the diverse cultures of the Old and New West. Through both paint and bronze, Schultz’s artwork creatively depicts his personal knowledge of his tribe, his firsthand acquaintance with the American West and the stories of his Blackfeet elders.” Inspirational Journey: The Story of Lewis and Clark January 15, 2015-October 31, 2016 From the website: “Charles Fritz chronicled the historic early 19th-century expedition of Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.” The A.P. Hays Spirit of the West Collection Ongoing From the website: “A selection of saddles, spurs, and other quintessentially western items from the collection of Scottsdale gallerist Abe Hays.” Will James: Cowboy Artist and Author Ongoing From the website: “Paintings, drawings, etchings, books, and ephemera illuminate the life and work of the prolific western American writer and painter.” Courage and Crossroads: A Visual Journey through the Early American West Ongoing From the website: “The story of America’s West in the 19th and early 20th centuries.” Confluence of Cultures in the American West: A Selection of Contemporary Artists Ongoing From the website: “The stories of friendship, tension, and conflict that arose during cultural contact in the history of the American West are explored through artwork that depicts mountain men, American Indians, buffalo, cavalry, and settlers.” Heritage Hall Ongoing From the website: “Inspiring images of people, past and present, who have made contributions to the American West, together with biographical data that guests can explore.” Have you ever been to the Western Spirit Museum? What was your favorite exhibit? Let us know in the comments!