Living room thoughts

I'm so excited to have scored some nice neutral furniture finally! In VA Beach, it was kinda tough to work around the blue plaid couch, the brown and blue zigzag loveseat, and the ashy carpet.

But HERE we have wood laminate, a beige leather couch we bought from my sis for $40 and a cream chair and ottoman, which were $5 for the pair. We also have a big maroon leather chair of my parents, which I am hoping to replace with something smaller and lighter, as it blocks a bigger chunk of the window than I would like.

The other day, on Pinterest (the site that's been keeping me away from blogging!), my friend Lish pinned the most amazing cheap rug from Urban Outfitters:



Right away it went on my birthday list! I was thinking it'd be awesome to have this rug and then some throw pillows with a fun ikat like this:

Obviously, that's not exactly the right one, but I'm kinda on an Ikat kick, so I'm searching high and low for the perfect fabric!

SADLY my birthday is still a month away, and Urban Outfitters is down to only the Black and White zigzag! :(

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the blue (or the gray, either one!) will reappear! And if not, maybe I'll just make one myself using this Ikea rug painting tutorial!

(Pinterest images: rug and fabric)

New place!!

After a summer of living in my parents' basement (aka bachelor pad--there were 4 guys living there all year last year, and Ellis and I burned candles all summer to fight off the guy smell), Ellis, Brody, and I finally moved into a new apartment!!

It's actually the basement apartment of a house, so it's more like a duplex, and we are PUMPED!! Also, did I mention we have great neighbors? My old roomie Amy is living upstairs with her hubby, so we're excited to share a house with them! Here's a tour of the space on move-in day.


The living room/kitchen. Nice big living room with two huge windows, plus a window in the kitchen. Even though this is a basement apartment, it has WAY more light than our apartment at the Village in Virginia. The kitchen is probably the "weakest" part of the place--it's technically a bar in a basement. It has a sink and a stove, but limited cabinet space and the fridge is in the dining room, haha. BUT we LOVE the kitchen being open with the living room, and the bar and bar stools, not to mention the awesome brick wine cellar.

One of the things I'm MOST excited for--a FIREPLACE. I DREAMED of a fireplace in VA Beach--it was on my apartment wish list for our next place, so CHECK. This is EXACTLY what we need for LONG COLD Moscow winters. I know this is a lot of all caps, but it's just way exciting!!

Here's the dining room--it's not the best shot--I'll get a better one when it's all furnished and the fridge is moved into the pantry or into the kitchen.

LAUNDRY ROOM! For the FIRST TIME in our marriage, I will not be hauling laundry baskets to the Village laundry building whenever I need to wash a load! I know all our fellow Regenters understand!

Our bedroom--again, more light than our bedroom in VA Beach.

Brody's room
THIRD bedroom!! So please, come stay! We even have an extra bed of my parents' too, so no air mattress. a real bed!
Huge bathroom. Honestly I don't know why the bathroom is this big, haha, but better too much room than not enough. And yes, there's so much room that Brody's potty chair will totally be out.


The other MOST AWESOME thing about this place, besides the fireplace--a HUGE yard! and it has a fence--so I can just let Brody roam around in the dirt and not worry about cars! Plus, great for parties!

Also I forgot to add, that the rent is $300 less than our in Virginia Beach! We were so blessed to find this place! And this is one super great thing about Moscow over VA Beach! We may not have Target or TJ Maxx :( , but the rent is great here! :)

So there you go! I'll definitely put up pics of the progress as it comes along!

home sweet home

It's recently starting to dawn on me that in less than 7 weeks, we're leaving Virginia Beach! When we first moved here, I was counting down the days till we could pack it up and head back West, but now that it's coming down to it, there are so many people and places we love here! I'm going to miss having so many fabulous friends within a 30 second walk! My friend Melissa is literally a hop, skip, and a jump away. I really think if I made a super big hop, a wollop of a skip, and a leap I could make it to her front door in 3 moves.

But ANYWAY, it occurred to me that I have family and friends back home that have been asking for 3 years for apartment pics. Some of our families have seen it, but some not since the primitive early stages, and by the time graduation comes along, who knows if we'll even have a couch!

Umm, Nota bene: I snapped the pics back in December, so pardon the Christmassy touches. (I promise they're not up now!)

view from the front door --warm greeting from our TV, haha
(can't wait to have a place where the TV is not the first thing you see!)

kitchen--I love our bar that goes into the dining room!
perfect for handing plates through or serving on the bar when I
don't want to get serving dishes dirty!

Brody's room! once was Ellis' office and we thought it might be a multi-functional space but I don'tthink Ellis has studied in here ONCE post Brody!

(p.s. notice the water jugs under the desk? We bought them for the hurricane that was supposed to hit in the fall and can't wait to drink them in picnic season!)

our room--LOVE my Urban Outfitters quilt--thanks, Mom!!

Ellis says one of the things he loves about me is how I always have EVERY SINGLE DRAWER a little bit open (I think that's a nice way of saying, "can you please close the drawers?")--you would THINK I could at least close all the drawers for a photo!

and for a very anti-climactic finish, the bathroom! best part--check out Brody's diaper sprayer on the left side of the toilet!

Looking at these pics, it's really easy to sit here and just think about all the things that I want to change or want to do differently next time, but this little place will always be our first apartment and so there's a little sentimental sappy piece of me hidden in there that knows that no other apartment or house can ever replace this one, even with its gross carpet and my bad choice of shower curtain.

BUT....that said, I am SOOOO excited for our next move and our next place, and for having a brand new space to get to play with!

ETA shameless plug: Virginia Beach friends....let me know if you want any furniture--it's ALL for sale for super cheap! (almost everything for 15 or less)

Tree Painting finished!

So back in September I mentioned that I wanted to copy this tree painting from Anthropologie.


So I got a canvas and just sketched it and painted it. The sketching took the longest--maybe like an hour, and then the actual painting went really quick. I already had the brushes, gesso, and paint, so the only expense was the canvas, which was $18 with a 60% off coupon from Michaels.

It doesn't have the subtlety that the original Anthro one does, but I was pretty happy with how it turned out! And I love having a bit of purple in the dining room, cause I am pretty into purple right now and trying to slowly incorporate it into my house.

I'm gonna miss our little apartment!! There are many things I complain about it, like the carpet and the fact that we can't paint the walls, but it was our first home and I really love it!

Last Day of Fall

I figured since today was the last day of fall (well, I guess officially December 19 or something is, but nobody wants to think about fall after November) that I'd better do one last fallish post.

Here are our pumpkins with the thickest rinds EVER--it took me like 2 hours to hack that tree into the pumpkin enough so that light just barely shone through. It was super fun though! We had a big pumpkin carving party with tons of dessert and apple cider. We had this party a week before Halloween, and it was so warm out that 4 days later the pumpkins were completely rotten.


One of our friends left his pumpkin with us, and it lasted a bit better because it was carved all the way through so I guess it could breathe better. So we tried to salvage it for the trick-or-treaters, but Ellis was periodically wiping the seeping goop off the front porch table! :)

And then a first for this fall was a wreath! Nothing fancy, just some simple leaves and berries, but it was fun to actually do something! Plus honestly I like things simple and not over-embellished.


Originally I wanted to do a berry wreath, but all the berry sprigs I found were shaped weird, so I decided to try the leaves. I saw some nice berry stems at A.C. Moore the other day, so I'm hoping to do a berry wreath for Christmas--right now we've got Christmas inside the house and fall outside still. Oh, well, one thing at a time. :)

Christmassy Pine Cones

Our collection of Christmas decorations is pretty small and pitiful. For whatever reason, it didn't seem to matter last year--I was gone at work all day most days, and then we were out of the house by the middle of December until the new year. So it just didn't seem worth the money. This year we still don't have money to invest in Christmas trimmings, but since I'm around the house all the time, I'm feeling the need to make things at least just a little festive.

The courtyard area outside our apartment is teeming with pine cones, so I've been amassing a collection. Every time we go out for a walk, I grab pretty ones and throw them in the stroller. I've got a good number now, so I went searching for some cute ideas of what to do with them!

Here are some of my favorites!

{via Real Simple}

Nice simple centerpiece--man, I wish I knew where my trifle bow was! (Mom, is it at y'all's house, haha?)

{via The Spotted Fox}
Includes tutorial!

{via Twig and Thistle}
Includes tutorial!

Two awesome garlands! I'm thinking of either doing the first one, but with berries instead of pom poms; or the second one with a string of berries above it.

{via Good Housekeeping}

Next up: a slew of inspiration from Country Living!

{via Country Living}

{via Country Living}

My talented crafty neighbor made one of these--so pretty! I especially love that this one is white (my favorite color!)

{via Country Living}

One of my goals this year is to actually wrap presents with instead of just handing my family members stuff or stuffing gifts into bags. (Don't get me wrong--I have nothing against bags and tissue--I'm just curious to see what it feels like to actually cut and tape and even use ribbon)

{via Country Living}

LOVE this! I'm a huge fan of white, red, and robin's egg blue as Christmas colors.


And if you're wanting to spend a lot of time with a glue gun...

{via Country Living}

Hope you enjoy these ideas as much as I did! Can't wait to try some of them out! And then when my new camera comes in, get some pics of our apartment dressed for Christmas! Happy advent season!

Furniture Rearranging!

A while ago I mentioned that I rearranged our living room furniture. Here is a before and after of our living and dining room area from 1L year till now.

BEFORE:





The L-shaped couch and loveseat arrangement was driving me CRAZY, cause I hated the dead space behind the loveseat. I also hated the choppy floor lamp dividing up the "wall art" (or more accurately, just the "stuff on the wall") and the exposed outlet. But as anyone who's been in my apartment--or ANY of the Regent Village apartments, you know that you need all the light you can get!



The dining room before. I painted those little mirrors from Ikea, and they were really fun to paint, but every time I looked at them I thought "stoplight!" Also, when you walk in the house, the corner where the lamp is is the far corner of the living area, so it's what you see immediately when you walk in the apartment (well, besides the tv, but that's another story :) ). Anyway, I thought it was a bit of a visual letdown.

So after thinking about moving the furniture for like a year, I was finally inspired and not pregnant at the same time!

AFTER



So I moved the bookcase out of the corner, and put the loveseat caddy corner--no more awkward L-shape! And another perk is that the caddy corner loveseat provides the perfect stash for baby stuff--you should see everything that's behind it, haha! Also, we painted a few things white, which helps lighten up the dungeon. :)


Here's a view of how it really opened things up, and how it flows into the dining room. Now there's plenty of room for Brody to play on the floor!


And now the bookcase provides a much more pleasing focal point for the room and cozies things up! It's amazing what just a little moving things around can accomplish, without spending a dime!

{image via Ohdeedoh}

Ellis just brought me a mum a couple days ago, and thanks to this post on Ohdeedoh, I think I'll have to go get a pumpkin for it now!

I just rearranged our living room and dining room furniture and now there is a bare wall that needs a little bit of whim. Urban Outfitters usually has a good selection of fun wall decals, so I checked out their website and found something way better. Wallflowers! Immediately I knew this is EXACTLY what I want.

Being a ridiculously indecisive person (once I went through the check-out at Ross with a colander, decided not to get it, got out to the parking lot, turned around and went back through and bought it, and then the very next day went back and returned it), I rarely experience this sort of certainty. It was a really nice feeling, haha!

I've been eyeing this $2000 pic from Anthropologie for a while now. After I finish up my in-the-works projects I'm gonna paint this and save myself $1990 or so!

Real Life Post!

So finally here is something in our lives we have actually done, and not just an idea I daydream about doing. It's not much, but it was a really fun Saturday project and made me realize how much I missed Saturdays growing up when we would do something huge like organize the basement or work in the yard. I don't know if it's "nesting" or what, but my latest obsession is wanting to totally revamp everything. Previously I had been content to let our mish-mashed Goodwill furniture remain in its current state until the end of law school when we will move and start from scratch, but suddenly everything feels like it needs sprucing up....so we decided to fix things in some small measure by painting a few drab pieces white.



So we hit Home Depot with a gift card from our wedding that we STILL hadn't used, and got some painting stuff, and then went to work on our tv table....for some reason the camera randomly likes to put in lines like a printer running out of ink....


....and our bedside tables!


Now both our bedroom and the family room look sooo much lighter and brighter...I should've taken before pics, but oh, well. But now that the tv table is painted, it just makes the bookshelf stick out even more...can't wait to get to that next! :)