moving update and what's new

i believe this will be the start of a new style to my blog. let's not pretend i'll have the time or the money to make my apartment the cozy little haven that i wish it could be. my mission is still to live a stylish, exciting life on a budget... but this blog has now become my outlet for current obsessions, crazy adventures, and lonely late-night rantings due to a bf immersed in law books.

there are so many things that are on my mind - i think i've sifted through the emotional bs that's been torturing me and now i'm at a point where i feel comfortable with my situation and embrace the changes. move is happening soon - almost too soon... i'll update when we get settled.

The Move

Well the move is definitely happening - and soon! In July, A and I will be residents of Maryland :)

I haven't been thinking about anything regarding the apartment as of late, because I don't know what the new place will look like. I'm extremely excited and ready for a new space to make "home." I do have a few before and after projects that I'm going to get started on in the next few weeks - mostly re-hauling old furniture and making them cohesive with the newer things I've purchased over the past couple of years. I'm researching re-upholstery now, hoping I can convince A to fix our couch.

The past few months have been pretty difficult - a lot of personal issues have gotten in the way of my health and happiness. I'm ready for a change and after losing so much weight last year, I'm ready to get back to that lifestyle of eating healthy and taking care of myself. It's always tough to look at yourself and not feel comfortable with what you see - and I hope that my new attitude toward just being healthy (not just slim) will be the sticking point this time. Hopefully I'll be posting my great progress here in months to come...

The Bathroom

The bathroom was the easiest room for me to compile, but I feel like I have such a specific look that it may be hard to find the exact items I want. Below is my design page that I've been working on, including my two paintings that were my starting point.

Starting with what I do have, I decided to build the bathroom around the two paintings (seen in the top right). They are very romantic and soft with a neutral/pastel color palette. I once promised A that I wouldn't decorate anything too girly - I'll just make sure not to buy any toilet seat covers :) The etagere in the bottom left is almost identical to the one I bought from Target a couple of years ago, except mine is white. The decorative towels I have already match the light and dark blues of the painting, but I'd like to get a couple nice lacy accent pieces for a hanging towel rack (most new apartments have those, right?).

Everything else on my design page represents the style I'm going for. Glass apothecary jars and bathroom accessories, antique-looking perfume bottle and jewelry box ($5 from Urban Outfitters) and a fantastic mirrored vanity tray will really pull everything together for me. The fabric swatch in the middle is the pattern I'd like to use to make my shower curtain and coordinating window curtains. I really like the idea of having pale yellow accents, maybe even painting the walls a light color.

I've actually started to clean and purge a lot of my stuff over the last weekend. I didn't realize how much stuff I crammed into the closets around here, but the prospect of moving it all had me really stressed out. So, I cleaned out the kitchen cabinets, linen closet, and media storage boxes that I had in the living room and ended up with a few bags to drop off for charity.

I think I'll move on to the kitchen next. A lot of things are still pretty open because a lot of the ideas I have are dependent on the layout of the new place. But since my dream kitchen is still quite a few years off, I might as well just put that aside and finish my design page.

'Til next time,

-M

Hiatus

It's been quite some time since I've updated my blog and so much has changed in the past seven months.

I have been adding things here and there to accomodate some of the purchases/gifts I've accumulated since June. One of the biggest improvements has been made in the bedroom. My mom made a beautiful quilt and matching curtains for my Christmas gift this year. The living room also got a facelift via new pillows and throw, digital piano, 56" TV, and a frame for my print from Ikea. 

I have so many ideas on how to pull together the items I have but I'm holding off for now. A and I will be moving this summer, which I am very excited about! We are both going back to school so naturally most of our picks are near major universities and larger cities where we will be able to start our careers. We won't know until April or so where we'll be going, but I can't wait to start apartment-hunting. The plan is to find a cheap place and house-hunt in our spare time.

Since I'm trying to stop myself from making any more improvements to the current place, I've started a PowerPoint file that I'm calling my "Design Inspiration." I got the idea from my Domino Design Handbook. I check my favorite blogs every day and catalog photos by rooms. I've inventoried everything I own have a fairly complete list of any modifications that will need to be made (reupholstering couches, painting bookshelves, buying new fabric for table covers, etc.) as well as a list of any new items that will need to be purchased. My mom is teaching me how to sew and I've started creating my own wall art to get started. Of course I'll be working on a budget, so I'll be working with what I have and try to spend as little as possible.

Instead of posting photos of the apartment as it stands now, my new set of posts will revolve around the "Design Inspiration" file I created. Hopefully we'll see the rooms in the new place come together as planned and budgeted. I'm updating my links of design blogs and shops that I love and will get started with the new bathroom in my next post.

-M

My Favorite Place

I would have to say that my bedroom is my favorite room in my apartment. It's still a work-in-progress, which I'm hoping to get to this weekend. With A, my boyfriend, usually gone on Sunday afternoons, I have the perfect opportunity to move around bookshelves, hang curtains, etc.

I think I finally have the best possible layout, given the dimensions of the room. Originally, my room was a lot of pink and white. In order to make the bedroom a place that fit my and A's style as a couple, I went out and got a new green & brown comforter (a steal, from Garden Ridge). The white shadow-box dresser I bought from a Pottery Barn Outlet and decorated the inside with odds and ends.

My mom made the curtains and the smaller piece to cover the TV stand (which is actually just an old wood filing cabinet. I like the fabric - it's a green and brown toile with polka-dot trim. The longer fabric underneath is just some old gauzy fabric that were leftover scraps from one of my mom's projects. The white boxes are from Ikea (with a little decoration via a mint green Sharpie). And the basket I'm using to store some of my magazines I'm currently reading.

I tried to tie in the green/brown of the comforter to the white and light brown furniture with marble green-and-white contact paper. I used it on the PB dresser, A's nightstand (a wooden table from Ikea), as well as lining the bookshelves. I also reorganized the bookshelves by color - a little compulsive, but it makes a ton of difference in the room. On the bookshelf next to my side of the bed, I left the middle shelf empty to serve as a nightstand due to lack of space for a seperate piece of furniture (A's poem is framed there).

As for wall hangings, all I have up right now are some prints from Ikea and a Valentine's Day letter from A above the bed. There are a few pictures that are set on top of dressers and bookshelves, too. My goal is to comb various love poems and stories to find quotes that A and I both like, write them out in caligraphy and/or do some work on my Wacom to have them printed and framed. Those would eventually be put in little antique frames (I need to plan a trip to Eastern Market soon) and hung above the bed.

I'm want to get A's dresser moved into the room within the next week or so (the reason why there are no pictures of the left corner of the room now). It's not exactly something I would pick out for my room - it's a darker brown (which might work with the comforter) but I'm hoping to use some contact paper and maybe some new antique knobs will do the job to tie it in. I'll update with pictures once that's all finished.

Next week I'll move into the kitchen.

-M

Where I Live

I didn't get to pick out the apartment I'm living in right now. Well, at least not technically. A lot of circumstances landed me in this fairly small, unkempt rental in a semi-questionable neighborhood. So I'm making do with the dirty walls that, despite the hours of scrubbing, can never return to the white I'm sure they once were. The mysterious stains on the carpet that even Oxi-Clean cannot erase have been covered with rugs wherever possible. Add that to the hodge-podge of furniture and knick-knacks that I have collected over the past two years and you can picture my dilemma. Below is the layout of my apartment (not exactly to scale).

Target, Ikea, and thrift stores became my weekend hot-spots. Family members and friends were gracious to give me unused pieces, and I've tried (to the best of my ability) to make my apartment as cohesive as possible. I hit the jackpot one day at Target and stocked up on red, black, and white Asian-inspired items that I was able to build upon in the following months. Ikea filled in the rest - modern, sleek lines are their specialty. However my budget didn't have any wiggle-room for a new couch, which is why you'll see below that I have one hand-me-down couch and a fairly new brown sofa, chair, and ottoman set that we bought for less than $300. I'm grateful that I was even able to find seating - otherwise, we'd be sitting on the floor (in true Asian-style, I suppose).

The rug was given to me by my mom after she decided to redecorate her living room - I can now walk around without socks on. Doesn't exactly fit with the red/black/white combination, so I've tried to create a flow in the room that works. At the entry way, I've added more browns, golds, and deep reds to the color palette to compliment the couches and the new rug. I found this great cherry blossom framed print at Target for $20, the cases and sake set were gifts from my sister, and the statue is also from Target. The fountain on the gold table was another Christmas gift.

In the middle of the living room, I have an open "window" that looks into the kitchen. I put a centerpiece of red orchids and cherry blossoms (bought at Jo-Ann Fabrics) on the ledge, that I think matches the bamboo print that was a gift from my mom.

At the opposite end of the living room is where I've mainly kept most of the red/black/white pieces. The TV stand is from Ikea, as is the side table and black storage boxes. The shelves are actually magnetic CD towers that I found half-off at Target during their back-to-school sale. A few candles, a couple knick-knacks from a local thrift store, a Chinese dragon (a gift for my boyfriend from his friends), an antique hand-painted wooden parasol, and a framed card I made during the early stages of my relationship decorate the "entertainment" end of the living room.

I added the chair with a quilt my mom made, a sake bottle with chopsticks (again, from Target), and some of my favorite books just the other day to tie in the brown with the red/black/white. I also have this huge print from Ikea that hasn't been hung because I can't seem to find the right frame.

I'm not sure if I'm 100% happy with the layout, and thought for some time that I needed to scrap the whole Asian theme and work around the brown couches and rug. But, money is tight so I'm living with it.

And lastly, I just moved my art table into the long hallway, in an effort to remind myself to work on my projects more often. 'Tis all for now...