Monthly Archives: June 2012

patience pays off.. and so does instant gratification

I know that yesterday I said I would wait until today to pull the trigger on this rug, but I seriously couldn’t stop thinking about it. So during my lunch break I hopped on over to Tar-jay and grabbed the rug and a Snapple and was on my way [because you can never just buy one thing at Target, am I right?] I raced home and laid it out and gave it the ol’ bare foot test. It definitely passed with flying colors, no surprise there!

I just love how it really pulled the living room together. Since our living room and dining room share the same space, it really helps to make the living room feel more intimate and cozy.

So I usually try not to make instant purchases like this one. I wait a while and if I’m still thinking about it and regretting not getting it, I take the plunge [knowing I can always return it of course]. I mean I waited a day. That counts right?

Sometimes when I wait long enough, something I’ve been drooling over goes on sale. Like that cute little coral knit pouf you see in front of the wing back chair. I originally posted about it what back when, but didn’t really want to pay $80 for it. Well weeks went by and I always saw it still at full price [I go to Target about 4 times a week okay?] and then they disappeared along with 90% of the remaining Privet Home collection. I had a feeling that would happen, I mean why wouldn’t the masses gobble these little coral gems up? So I figured it wasn’t meant to be. They still had them online and they were marked down a little, but with shipping it wasn’t that great of a deal.

Then Monday night Derek and I made a random Target run to a location we hadn’t been to yet. It’s in a not so nice area of town, but it’s technically the closest location so we gave it a go. Well guess what? They had TONS of Privet Home items. Items I had only seen online. Including my coral poufs. They weren’t $80, or even $55.99.. they were $30! What?

Needless to say I squealed and marched around the store with my new pouf like it was a bag of a million dollars. I really am very dramatic when it comes to finding things I’ve loved on sale. It’s such a rush Sometimes patience really does pay off!

We’re obsessed. It doubles as an ottoman and extra seating for whenever we decide our place is presentable enough to have people over. Oh when will that be? So many projects, so little time. Since it’s about 104F everyday here, the only thing to do is stay inside so this weekend I hope to tackle a lot of projects, one big one being another button tufted headboard. Crossing my fingers Joann’s has enough button forms this time. What are you guys up to this weekend?

yet another rug excursion

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Ever since moving into our new apartment and having [gasp!] navy blue digusting berber carpet, I’ve been dying to slap down a huge area rug in the living room to break up the sea of blue. I originally planned to get this chevron rug:

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But that was back when I had planned to have gold metallic stripes on my dining room wall. It was a nice dramatic pattern on the floor to compliment the more tone on tone pattern happening on the wall. Well we all know that didn’t work out, and now I have a dramatic pattern on the wall, and need something more subdued on the floor. I’ve been searching high and low for the perfect rug that would be both light and refreshing to contrast with the hideous floors, yet organic in pattern so that it wouldn’t compete with everything happening on the wall about 3 feet away.

I also knew I didn’t want to really invest in this rug because this isn’t our forever home and more of a temporary fix for some not so pretty carpet. But I wanted something versatile enough to be used in a different room once we do live somewhere a little more permanent. In my search I came across some of these lovelies..

I don’t know what it is about this rug but I’ve been obsessed with it forever. You can’t tell in this photo but the dalmation spots are recessed a little bit giving it some great depth. I honestly see this in my future office, once I’m not sharing with a guy in the middle of his Architecture Masters. He get’s all design say in that room for now ;)

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I love the organic lines of this and the light colors, but it feels a little busy for an already super busy room.

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This guy is ~~a little~~ out of my price range, but I die for this rug. I mean look at those colors, it would look amazing against our coral living room wall. Alas, it’s too expensive.. and probably will never go with anything in our house ever again.

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I worry that this one is a little too feminine for Derek, but I love the tone on tone greys and the stripes are raised a bit which adds a lovely texture.

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This guy is also not in the budget, but oh so pretty right? I just love it. It reminds me of a mashrabiya.

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I know this isn’t organic at all, but I’ve always loved this rug ever since coming across Nate Berkus’ living room years ago, but it’s probably still too strong of a pattern for the space. Sigh. One day rug, one day!

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Fast forward to last night..

While hunting down some amazing faux sheepskin rugs at Target [more on that later] I came across the most amazing shag rug. It reminded me of this West Elm rug I’ve been swooning over for a year but could never pull the trigger because it’s just so dang expensive. But this one was at Target! Which means.. It’s [usually] not a million dollars.

And it wasn’t! It was only $179 for a 5′ x 7′ [!!!!], which is pretty great considering it’s 100% wool. Honestly this picture doesn’t even do this rug justice. You need to feel it! I’ve never been a huge fan of shag rugs. I mean how on earth do you clean them? Maybe it will just eat all of my crumbs? :) And also I worry about it getting crushed over time, or pilling, or looking super worn. But this baby is durable. Each tuft is felted wool and a little tough, you knot that sort of scratchy feeling wool has. Which means it will withstand some foot traffic. I just love the texture and dimension the colors have, there are about four different creams and tans mixed in there which makes it look less flat that your usual shag rug. Here is a better photo I found online to show the texture a little better:

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Yum. I didn’t buy it yet because let’s be honest, payday needs to roll around. But you bet your buttons I’ll be heading over to Target tomorrow to snag this guy up! I honestly don’t know 100% if it’s going to work in our living room, but that’s the great thing about most retail stores these days, you can always return it if it doesn’t work out. So rather than waiting and waiting to make your next decor purchase in fear of not knowing whether or not it will work out. Just try it! You can always take it back! As long as it isn’t marked final sale or anything.

I’ve never seen this rug at any other Target, but there was ONE left at my new secret Target I found, so hopefully it’s still there tomorrow or I will be ~~driving around to every Target until I find it~~ very sad. They also had this really cool “popcorn” wool rug which I was obsessed with, but it’s way too dark for our apartment, but maybe one of you can buy it and I’ll just live vicariously through you! [this means you, Fresh!]

I’m very proud of target these days. Usually their rug department is a little lame, but lately I’ve found a lot of great deals and amazing quality. Even that jute/wool blend to the right of this rug is gorgeous. Have you come across any of these rugs at your Target? Do you already own one? Does anyone have a shag rug and know how to successfully clean it without destroying your vacuum? Spill!

wedding wednesday: a north american honeymoon

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To conclude our Honeymoon search [if you missed last time we covered The Caribbean, then Mexico + South and Central America, then Hawaii + Pacific Islands, we’re expanding our horizons this week and covering the next region on our map.

This week: North America

Niagara Falls

Pros:

Cons: cold in Dec.

To do: hike, cruise, look at falls

Florida Keys

Pros: best temps in Dec.

Cons: expensive in Dec.

To do: swim with dolphins, snorkel, scuba

Vancouver, BC

Pros: cheap in Dec.

Cons: freezing in Dec.

To do: architecture, shopping, hiking

skiing at whistler mountain in british columbia, canada

Whistler, BC

Pros:

Cons: 18F in Dec.

To do: skiing, yummy food

Lake Tahoe

Pros: sunny 75% of the year

Cons: expensive in Dec., touristy

To do: skiing

Fort Lauderdale, FL

Pros: nice weather year round

Cons: expensive in Dec.

To do: water sports, spas

Aspen

Pros:

Cons: expensive in Dec.

To do: skiing, nightlife

Montreal

Pros: romantic

Cons: expensive in Dec., freezing in Dec.

To do: architecture, shopping

New York City

Pros: Christmas in NY!

Cons: Derek has been here

To do: architecture, shopping, sightseeing, yummy food, culture

San Francisco

Pros: 70F year round

Cons: very expensive, we’ve both been here

To do: shopping, sightseeing, architecture, yummy food

Napa and Sonoma Valley

Pros: very romantic and secluded, cheap in Dec.

Cons:

To do: wine tours, rent a car and drive around the vineyards, spas, hot springs, antiquing

New Orleans

Pros: less expensive in Dec.

Cons: Derek’s family is from here

To do: yummy food, music, French Quarter, architecture

Nantucket Island

Pros:

Cons: closed in Dec.

To do: whaling, explore city, not much in the wintertime

Miami

Pros: 85F year round

Cons: VERY toursity

To do: boutique hotels, water sports, shopping, nightlife

Mackinac Island, MI

Pros: no automobiles allowed, 100% eco-friendly, my family goes here every summer

Cons: closed in Dec. :(

To do: eat fudge, horse drawn carriages, architecture, stay at the Grand Hotel

Walt Disney World

Pros: best weather in Dec., cheaper in Dec.

Cons: we’ve both been here a lot, very crowded in Dec.

To do: be a kid, stay at a resort, hang out with mice

Las Vegas

Pros: best weather in Dec.

Cons: it’s Vegas….

To do: casinos, shows, drink, waste money

Chicago

Pros: less expensive in Dec.

Cons: horrible weather in Dec., I was just there

To do: architecture, shopping, explore, yummy food

Alaska

Pros:

Cons: freezing in Dec.

To do: skiing, snow sports

All images via The Knot

Have any of you been to any of these places? We’d love to hear what you think about them. After completing our research of every super awesome place to honeymoon in the world, we think we know where we want to go. So stay tuned!

getting the kitchen contained

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I have a love/hate relationship with the open shelving in our kitchen. On the left side above the stove it looks great. This is where we have all of our glasses, dishes, etc. that are all nicely arranged and somewhat cohesive. However, on the other side of our galley kitchen are some super high up shelves [for basketball players] that hold all of our pantry items. I arranged it this way so that when you’re sitting in the living room you get to look at our dishes and whatnot rather than the chaos of cereal, chocolate mint marshmallows, baking ingredients, you name it!

It grossed me out. I hate having different sized boxes and colors with brand names everywhere. Also, this photo was taken right after I moved in, so none of Derek’s crazy food is mixed in yet. So needless to say it looked even more chaotic. I wanted to find some canisters in several different sizes to put all of the dry foods in, but I didn’t want to spend a whole lot of money so I ended up grabbing two sets of these babies:

They come in a set of 17 for $3.99. Um hello, winning! So to get 34 sealed plastic containers for under $10 was a steal. I ended up sorting everything out by type/size. So all flours were in the large flat bins, all pasta would be in the large tall bins, etc. This helped me know where everything was, while looking a lot more organized.

I placed sticky notes on the lids of each container to remind me what was inside. I mean when you have 4 different types of flour, it gets pretty confusing. I wanted to make labels for each container so that I would easily know what was inside, but I also wanted the labels to be a little more versatile so that if I needed to change things up, I wouldn’t have to relabel everything. So I found these cute little chalkboard labels by Martha Stewart at Staples.

They come in large and small, but I knew I would be cutting them to size for each container so I ended up getting the large labels which were $5.99 for six and I picked up two packs just in case. When all was said and done I only ended up using about four sheets of one pack, but I’m so obsessed with these that I already have plans for the extras.

For my large flat bins I cut my labels in half horizontally, and for my taller large bins I cut them in half vertically. For the smaller bins I ended up cutting each label into thirds [either vertically or horizontally depending on the shape of the bin]. And since each label came with little notches, I had to freehand my own version on the opposite side to match.

I like this photo because you can really see the texture of these labels. I was very wary of them because I didn’t understand how the chalk would really be able to be wiped clean, but it definitely works. It’s basically an extremely fine sandpaper texture, and the actual label is relatively thin like a heavy card stock.

After cutting out all of my custom-sized labels I was ready to go!

I laughed that Martha Stewart sold her own chalk, but honestly I should have bought it because each piece was sharpened like a crayon, which would have made writing on such small labels, much easier. But I made do with with plain ol’ school chalk.

See how well it erases?

I’m not 100% happy with how chunky the chalk writing looks, but I found those cool ink chalk pens [like the ones they use at Starbucks] on Amazon, so I think I’ll order one of those to try it out. Overall though, we’re both very pleased with how much cleaner and put together our “pantry” looks. We still have a bunch of awkward soup cans, but I haven’t figured out how to make those look good. We shall see!

definitely on a roman shades kick

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As you may remember, last week I finished a no sew roman shade for a client, which turned out fabulous, so I decided to make a couple of my own for our super awkward living room windows.

We have these two super small windows that butt right up against the corners of the room meaning a few things: 1. negative sunlight, and 2. hanging drapery panels are almost impossible because we would block almost any glimmer of daylight we once had. Also, we hated those wood frames so in this post we livened everything up a bit with a fresh coat of white enamel.

It definitely brightened things up! But the windows were still naked and were still driving me crazy. So after following these instructions, I quickly fashioned two identical roman shades. I chose a white linen to allow as much light as possible, that had a tight enough weave to block the super harsh afternoon sun that makes watching TV impossible. [See glowing orb above]

This time I decided to trim everything out with this 1″ black trim. It gave it a bit more of a custom look, and make it look less blah.

To turn the corner with the trim I simply pulled the piece back up, made a 45 degree angle and then followed it to the right and glued it. Then for the other corner I did the same but turned the 45 degree angle up to finish it off.

Then it was time for the only annoying part of this super easy project: hanging the blinds. I don’t know who invented the mechanism to hang blinds, but they obviously hated the world and wanted revenge, one stripped screw at a time.

After a few harsh words, and a couple pep talks these suckers were hung and ready to go!

Needless to say, we are very pleased with how they turned out. I really just think they help the windows look more finished. Our living room is no where near completed, here’s what’s left on the agenda:

~~paint TV wall coral~~
~~paint window frames glossy white~~
~~remove vertical blinds and replace with linen drapery~~
DIY roman shades for two windows
get two new pillows for sofa [they've been ordered! Just waiting them to travel across the pond]
hang large black & white canvases on shared wall with dining room
order a new LARGE rug
find an ottoman for wingback chair [maybe a knit pouf?]

We’re halfway there! Tomorrow we have a fun project from the kitchen, and no it’s not food.